NIGHTFALL

Release date: 2004
Director
Cinematographer

This is John T. Fisher's thesis film from his senior year at school. It was shot by Ric Savarese over the coarse of a few days spanning fall and winter of 2003 to spring of 2004. The cast and crew featured: Liz Norris, James Theesfeld, Thomas Kleczka, Bryan Cullany, Margaret Novillino, Liz Sandoval, Andrew Romero, Adam Kaniper, Ned Mears, Eric Kaufman, Beth Fisher, Jeremiah Lormand, Jessica Peck, and Gregory Kleczka. As usual with Fisher, this film was a huge undertaking due to the length of the script, the different locations needed, the fact that the majority of the film takes place at night, and the huge need for FX rigs and copious amounts of fake blood. None the less it was completed (more or less) on time. In the entire SVA graduating class of 2004 this was the only real attempt at a horror film. It premiered at a Lowes in midtown Manhattan, May of 2004 during the screening of all the SVA graduate films. The film was tinkered with a couple times since then and underwent a few mild changes such as tightening of the edit, an added shot at the end, and finally a much needed proper sound mix. Two final sound effects were added Oct. 25th 2011 to finish the cut once and for all. The video featured here is the Definitive Cut of Nightfall.

"I learn a lot every time I make a movie and Nightfall was certainly no exception. It was the first time I had attempted something so ambitious both in length and scope. As with all my films up to that point I had to make some compromises but I'm very pleased with and proud of the final product. I learned so much about directing and editing while making Nightfall and the cast improved by leaps and bounds from the previous picture we did. It really is what laid the groundwork for what I am now doing with the Fallout Chronicles. Without Nightfall the Fallout Chronicles wouldn't have got past the script stage. I'm so thankful for everyone who helped make Nightfall happen and once again, on that picture, it proved how important true friends really are." - John T. Fisher 2011

FENDER BENDER

Release date: 2003
Director
Cinematographer

This short by John T. Fisher was done his junior year of school back in 2003 for a directing class. It was his first experience working with professional actors and another plunge into more comical films. It was shot on location in NYC in about an hour before class. It stars the charming Uma Incrocci and fantastic comedian/actor Danny McDermott.

"Fender Bender began as an exercise in my directing class at the time and transformed into a nice little narrative. Danny was brought into my class by the teacher to demonstrate some improve stuff and ended up acting with my idea. When we were assigned to make a film out of what we had done I wrote the script and asked Danny if he would do it. Luckily he agreed and delivered a fantastic and hilarious performance. I had Uma's head-shot after she did a monologue in our class. I though she was really good and funny so luckily when I asked her to do the short she also agreed. They both worked wonderfully together and really made my script seem much better than it was, adding there own quirks and funny bits to it. I am extremely happy with the work they did and hope to work with them again some day." - John T. Fisher 2011

THE WINDOW

Release date: 2002
Director
Cinematographer
Actor

This is a film that has been on an interesting journey. It was made by John T. Fisher during his second year at college way back in 2002. It was shot on film (once again using John's favorite stock Kodak B&W Negative 7222) with an Arriflex 16mm camera during parts of 2 different weekends. It starred John's friends Shaw Gray (of The Divorce fame) and Lara Houston. A lot of work went into the production of this film. It took a long time to set up, light and shoot every shot so it came as quite a blow when the film came back from being processed with visual results that were less than savory. There had been problems with the camera motor's consistency and there was obvious light damage to some of the stock. Not having the money to re-shoot anything (film is very expensive to process especially for a young college boy) the film was more or less shelved and untouched from that point on. Cut to 2011 when John's dear friend and fellow filmmaker Liz Lacy was looking for content submissions to be featured on her web series SUPER TIGHT. John wanted to contribute and pondered revisiting The Window. He thought that maybe there was enough good materiel to in there to actually make something out of it and that's exactly what he did.

"The Window was a somewhat devastating experience because we worked really hard to make something great and really kick it up a notch from what I had done on The Divorce. The first problem was the camera. I hated the Arriflex and I still do but that was the camera students got their second year of school so that's what I used. The selling point is that the camera motor is electrically powered allowing for "crystal sync" if one was to record sound on set and sync it to picture later. The downside is that 1: the motor was powered by a large cumbersome battery belt which did not lend itself to camera maneuverability and 2: even if you were going to attempt sync sound (which i was) the motor was so damn loud you couldn't possibly use any sound recorded while the camera was running anyway. After realizing the on set sound wasn't going to work, any attempts at that were completely abandoned in hopes that the minimal dialogue and sound FX could be dubbed in later. Luckily not too much time was wasted doing that and the rest of the shoot went rather smoothly (with the exception of a knife stabbing special effect). All seemed well and the 8 rolls of film were sent off to be processed. When I got them back and viewed them I was heart broken. A lot of the carefully planned shots were unusable do to inconsistent light exposures and light damage in general despite the fact a light meter was used and precautions had been taken to prevent light spilling into the camera. It was awful. I was left with a lot of good bits of film but a lot that was unusable. I certainly didn't have enough footage to make the film I wanted to and I had already spent a lot of money to get the film processed so I could not afford to re-shoot and reprocess anything new. So there the film sat unfinished and more or less unusable. I've always considered going back to it and fixing it somehow or at least turning it into something but as time passed it was becoming less and less likely. Nearly 9 years later my friend was looking for content for her web series and I thought it might be time to look at the material I shot and see if anything could be done with it. Luckily and what I hadn't realized back then, was that enough of the core story footage was intact to pretty much tell the narrative I originally set out to tell. There's a bit of missing stuff and it's a LOT shorter than was originally intended but the idea and main narrative are still there. I'm actually quite pleased at the way it turned out and that I was even able to make anything of it at all. The Window always held a special place in my heart but luckily now due to some inspiration from a great friend it has been somewhat resurrected, turned into a finished piece (albeit not the entire vision) and is no longer a wound. " John T. Fisher 2011

THE DIVORCE

Release date: 2001
Director
Cinematographer
Actor

This is John T. Fisher's first film which was made his freshman year of college (back in 2001). It was shot on a 16mm Bolex using his favorite stock (yes that means film people) Kodak 7222 and was edited on a Steenbeck flatbed (the film was marked cut and taped by hand). Although far from perfect he still remains very proud of this first effort which was shot in one day using only 4 rolls of film (you can get roughly two and a half minutes out of each roll). It starred 3 of John's closest friends: James Theesfeld, Shawn Gray, and Elizabeth Norris and had only one other person on the crew: Adam Kaniper who also composed the score with John. What you are viewing above is a video transfer of the 16mm workprint so it's not as good image quality as it could be (that's also why you may see the jumps at the top of the frame from where the splices are) but there are plans to get a proper transfer in the near future.
 

"I learned a lot of the filmmaking fundamentals I implement to this day while making The Divorce, including perhaps most importantly, the value of having great friends who believe in what you're doing even when you are covering them in fake blood." - John T. Fisher 2011