TITTIES IN THE BASEMENT

Brady Hall makes a horror short perfectly suited for the YouTube generation with Tits and Blood

By T. LaBee

Brady Hall

“If you need someone to take off their shirt and show their tits in a movie, just give me a call.” This was a statement from Wendy West, an actress in Brady Hall’s horror film short Tits and Blood.

West’s lack of inhibition proved to be a perfect fit with the relaxed and informal tone of the rest of Hall’s pre-production. On acquiring actors, he says: “They were just friends of mine.” Finding a location: “A friend’s mom’s basement. It used to get flooded all the time, so she didn’t mind us shooting down there.” His motivation: “I just wanted to learn how to use After Effects better and work on my gore.”

Even with his lackadaisical approach, in Tits and Blood, Hall has managed to make a short that will leave an imprint on audiences’ consciousnesses. It amuses, shocks, disturbs, and with a running time of five minutes and 20 seconds, it suits the sensibilities of the You Tube generation.

The inspiration for the film came in the form of a filmmaking challenge sponsored by the Northwest Film Forum. After another short Hall produced and edited called The Rambler made it into the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, Hall was invited to make a film for local film critic and filmmaker Andy Spletzer’s Spletz-o-Rama Invitational.

“[Spletzer] just gave me a reason to make a dumb short. So I just took it and ran with it,” he says.

Shot with the Panasonic AG-HVX 200, Hall’s story essentially comprises behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the fictional film Tits and Blood. Though the short seems meant to be light and humorous through most of it, from the very first frame there is a sense of something unsettling. Even as Carlos Lopez, who plays the director in the film, runs through a funny monologue about his preparation for the shoot while fellow actors Wendy and James Herman toy with props behind him, there is a feeling of impending doom. This is in no small part due to the location: a moldy basement in West Seattle with dark lighting and faded pink wallpaper that looks like the set of a snuff film.

Censored scene from Tits and Blood.

“I’ve shot three shorts down there,” Brady says about the basement. “It’s my friend’s mom’s basement. Since it’s always getting flooded they were going to destroy it, so they don’t care what we do down there.”

The eerie lighting of the basement that helped set the ominous toned turned out to be more trouble than expected. “I didn’t realize that the power was bad so the lights would flicker and dim,” Hall says. This resulted in the lighting in the footage not being consistent. “I had to basically take each piece and bring the brightness to blend in post.”

Although it looks like the film was shot in one long take, it was actually a series of shots carefully cut together by Hall himself, who also did the special effects. “The final scene was about 25 takes composited together,” Hall adds to provide a grasp of the level of tedium the project was in post-production.

It would be understandable to assume Hall is a devout horror film fan but he admits, “I don’t really watch horror movies at all. There’s really nothing new to be done. That’s why it seems everything is a remake. I haven’t even seen the new movies like Saw or any of that crap.”

Hall has lived and shot films in Seattle his “whole life” and shows love and appreciation towards the film community here.

“I find it very easy to make films here, even if you’re trying to do it legit,” he says. “In LA everyone knows about the movie business so the cops will mess with you about permits and everyone wants to charge for a location and everyone is SAG.”

Next Hall wants to shoot a feature film sometime between the end of this summer and early fall. “I’m trying to get financing. I have a few companies in LA who are interested in distribution.”