With the ongoing popularity of the found footage formula, we’ve seen a number of films shot on smartphones, but Sickhouse is something you won’t have seen before – a feature-length film consisting entirely of videos shot on Snapchat.
The film was scripted and shot over five days by Hannah Macpherson, who completed the film on May 3rd, 2016 and has already put together a trailer, which can be viewed on Vimeo here.
Sickhouse will be put out by Indigenous Media, a ‘next-gen studio’ that aims to release original content across a variety of platforms, embracing the changing face of social media. Co-founder Jake Avnet told Mashable: “We love innovating around story… Snapchat has enormous viewership and engagement, and until now no one had really attempted a true long form story on it so we were eager to take on the challenge. Younger audiences are not going to the theaters; they’re not watching TV. They spend their time online watching YouTube, Snapchat, etc. Since this is where these audiences live, why should we try to force them to go elsewhere to watch a movie or show?”
Billed as a ‘made for mobile movie’, Sickhouse will be edited into a ‘Director’s cut’, available on Vimeo from June 1st. That’s 33 days from the beginning of production to the film’s release. This is thoroughly modern DIY filmmaking, tailor-made for the scatty attention spans of social media addicts. The future is here, folks.
Words: Kevan Farrow (@KevanX)
