"House Party" (2021)

"House Party" is a 2021 short film directed by Clarke M. Smith, and written and produced by Xina Uhl. It starred Lauren Saez, Jarryd Gooch, and Stef Teran. It was Smith’s sixth San Diego based film.

Fantasy novelist Xina Uhl ([1]) and Clarke M. Smith had been talking about doing a short film together for many years. Uhl had contributed and had input on many of Smith’s short films.  When she wrote a short script called House Party, she sent it to Smith in the hopes he would direct it. Uhl considered directing it herself, but her lack of experience inspired her to find a director and a DP to bring her vision to the screen.

## Realizing the Script

   In 2020, Uhl approached Smith for her film, but Smith was in production and post-production on his feature Mystery Highway and unable to commit to another project.  Mystery Highway ran into personnel problems, delays, and a drawn out post production schedule, leaving him time to focus on House Party.  Once Uhl had his commitment, they two set out to find a DP, and a cast.

Initially, Uhl’s acquaintance Carolyn Stack had experience with shooting and editing, and was hired.  The 3 had many Zoom meetings, but Stack had to drop out due to Covid concerns.  Uhl conducted a search in various Facebook film production pages, and narrowed it down to 2 interested DPs. They finally settled upon Christopher Peay.

Uhl’s friend Lauren Saez was a performer and a ‘ham’, and was chosen early on (before anyone else was involved) to play the lead ‘Gretchen’.  For the Prowler, Smith thought of an actor from his film “The Loyal Remnant”, Jarryd Gooch.  Gooch signed on immediately.  Lastly, Uhl searched for and found actress Stef Teran for rookie cop ‘Andrea’.

## Shooting Details

Shooting took place on May 29, 2021 at Xina Uhl’s home in Thousand Oaks, CA. A one-day shoot proved to be grueling, and went on for 14 hours. With limited equipment such as a dolly, the filmmakers made due with a short camera track to get some professional looking camera movement out of certain scenes.  Last minute changes were made by the DP because of external lighting issues that day.

    Smith was inspired by classic Brian de Palma thrillers when he designed the shots where the prowler breaks in, as well as the mirror flashback scene at the end.  Actress Lauren Saez was a huge Clint Eastwood fan, and was happy to channel his famous lines from the Dirty Harry movies.

Smith and Uhl played bit, speaking part roles.  Smith was a police chief, and Uhl was a reporter.  That scene ended up being a fairly complicated oner in the front yard, with all the actors hitting their marks with no filmed cutaways. Smith also attempted a Clint Eastwood vibe. When edited, police sirens, police dispatch radio recordings, and off-screen digital police car flashing lights greatly enhanced the illusion that many cops and reporters had swarmed the house, when in reality, it was just what is on-screen.

Xina Uhl was surprised at the amount of work her ‘little’ script ended up being. It was a total non-stop, full day of shooting, and not something Smith would normally attempt in one day. She and her husband David sold the house shortly after and moved to Globe, AZ.  As a result, to date, the film has not been released or sent to film festivals.

### Music

Only requiring minimal original music, Smith was able to utilize an existing piece of ambient music by Reber Clark for the scenes in which the prowler sneaks in and hides. The remainder of the film consisted of existing royalty-free ‘radio’ music pieces.  Xina Uhl had found a church organ piece, a dance music piece, and a western-themed piece.  A year after the film was done, Smith grew to hate the church organ and found it entirely grating. He found an appropriate piece by Mozart and replaced it. As well, he added a drum track to the western piece, to help signify the action set piece and chase scene into the front yard.  Lastly, he added some bass and tone enhancements to the dance music piece as it appears again in the end credits. Part of the added background bass is the opening isolated synthesizer track from “Tom Sawyer” by Rush.

## Film Analysis

The film starts out with a thriller vibe, but quickly changes course and becomes a light comedy.  That was unexpected to some who have seen it.  Smith, a general sci-fi and thriller filmmaker, had made several darker-toned shorts over the last decade, and that likely bled into the way the film’s tone starts.  But it was a refreshing change for him to tackle lighter fare.

## Aftermath

Uhl plans to release the short film to festivals in 2023.