Secrets, Secrets. Revealed

The Town, illustrated by Zoe Andreas

Para español haga clic aquí

On a break from writing seminary school application essays.

Goodness, the idea of going back to school. My undergraduate (Webster University) ten year reunion was just last week. Ten years since graduation, ten years since my senior thesis project Secrets, Secrets.

Secrets, Secrets is the story of a town that has no secrets, reality being that a witch keeps all the secrets in little bottles in her cupboard. This routine is broken when a traveling vacuum salesman visits the town on a quest to sell vacuums to every citizen.

The cast comprised of puppet townspeople, a faceless witch, and a human vacuum salesman. A miniature town was built as well as a full size interior witch's house and half size interior candy shop.

The Cast, illustrated by Zoe Andreas

This film was a collaboration with my long time friend Cody Stokes, and was the third project we worked on together but the first of this scale. Though it was my senior thesis project, it was never technically finished.

Because of the fact that we shot on film (thanks to a grant from Kodak) and was composed of miniatures, puppets and blue screens we bit off way more than we could chew and working towards the deadline of graduation we ran out of time. Work continued when I moved to London for grad school but as expenses grew, and our time being required on other projects, I made the hard decision to cease production.

Many people donated their time and talents over the years to bring this film to life including the original crew in St. Louis as well as editor Alex Mead (of Pinewood Studios London), graphic designer Zoe Andreas, and music composer Alexandros Miaris. I owe it to them to finally show the film publicly.

Christopher Abreu (Producer) and Cody Stokes (Director) on set

The film stars Rob Getzschman as the Salesman, Susie Wall as the voice of the witch, and was narrated by Jerry Boyle. James Green was our Director of Photography and the magnificent production design was helmed by Tom Eggers, Chadwell Ruthsatz, and Trevor Fields.

Though the film is not as polished as intended, it is a complete story and was an incredible feat for a group of college students. You can watch the film as it originally screened at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium on May 14th 2006, below.

As I prepare to return to school, and to commemorate the end of my film career, I will be re-releasing all the films and TV shows I worked on in the last 10+ years. Look for updates about once a month, sign up to stay in the loop.

***Note: As the soundtrack was not complete, the score you hear comprises of "borrowed" songs by Danny Elfman from the films of Tim Burton.***

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