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by gene dolders
August 18th 2020, for my 40th birthday, I turned up to Moss Lane on the back roads of Formby in the North West of England to start filming my first short film Death Is The Keeper of Secrets. Which initially was shot under the title of My China Lake. Robert Harmon, who directed the classic 1986 movie The Hitcher had previously made a short film himself called China Lake in 1983. Harmon had worked on other features before his short as a cinematographer, stills photographer and camera operator. Wanting to make a feature himself, he decided that it would be a good idea to make a short film in order to showcase his talents but also to prove to people in the industry that he could be trusted with large sums of money. This led Harmon to make China Lake and on the back of that he was apparently awarded the opportunity to direct The Hitcher.
That was the idea I had. I would make a short film, show people I was capable of doing so and that I could be trusted with money to make something. And that is why I initially called Death Is The Keeper of Secrets – My China Lake. I later changed the title as no one understood that and having to explain this meant I was dealing with mostly people, who didn’t know of Harmon’s story, or possibly simply didn’t care.
In case you’re wondering where I got the new title? Sergio Martino made a movie called Torso, released in 1973. In it there is a scene where the killer slowly walks up some stairs, whispering to himself ‘Death is the keeper of secrets.’ over and over again. I always
thought that was a cool line, so I stole it for the title of my movie.
The shoot was set for three days. That is what I had budgeted for. I couldn’t afford to film any more than this so it had to be shot within the three days I had allotted. These were August 18th – 20th . I chose mid August to shoot the film as the weather would be ideal for the tone of the movie. Hot, blue skies and barely no clouds. The entire month leading up to August 18th had been great. The exact weather that I needed.
Day one of shooting, it rained all morning, which meant I needed to change my shot lists. It was always planned that I would start with an interior scene, inside of a car, but I had planned wider shots. The rain wasn’t too heavy by the time we had set up the camera, but was still coming down so I decided to go in tighter on James (the actor who played the character of Joey). If you watch the short, you can actually see some small droplets of rain
in the background. It’s difficult to see though and was dealt with by shooting with a shallow depth of field, so that most of what was outside of the car would be out of focus to the point it wouldn’t be noticeable.
