Elevator Drama Unfolds in Close Quarters, Close By

When trying to make a movie on a small budget, the best policy can be to double up.

In the independent Double Negative, which just finished shooting last Friday in Evanston, the screenwriter and the two co-directors make up the entire cast, playing opposite one another as two strangers trapped in a broken elevator.

The shoot cost about $13,000, an incredibly tight budget, even for an independent local film. When asked what the tone of the film, director and actress Dana Scott said, “It’s a dramady but it gets kind of dark and dire toward the end.”

The two characters are a pregnant woman, played by Scott, and a businessman, played by screenwriter Mischa Ayoub, are trapped in an office elevator that is slowly lurching downward. The entire film was shot in a soundstage owned by the director of photography Bill Burlingham of Burlingham Productions, 1904 W. Greenwood St. in Evanston.

Scott is one of the co-directors and a Barrington native. A former Chicago theater actress, she lives and works in Skokie as commercial producer and editor. She produces corporate videos with Covert Creative Group, founded by her former director and friend John Covert.

Before taking an acting hiatus to raise a family, Scott appeared in several local independent films, including Covert’s Shut-Eye, a gangster drama from 2003, and Three Flat, an earlier collaboration with her Double Negative co-star Ayoub.

Ayoub is a graduate of Northwestern University’s radio, television and film program. Originally from Toronto, he moved back to the North Shore recently after spending eight years in Canada, “mostly working on a few film scripts that never saw the light of day.”

Scott and Ayoub met 18 years ago when she waited tables with Ayoub’s future wife, Katie O’Mara Ayoub, a professional editor and food writer. Both served as executive producer and co-director for this project.

Three years ago, Scott established 24 Truth Productions out of her Skokie home. Her company is producing Double Negative.

As owners of a commercial video firm, Burlingham and his son Elliot played host for five days to about 25 Chicago-based technicians, production assistants and cameramen. Bill Burlingham was director of photography while Scott was on the either end of the camera.

“From my perspective it’s a huge challenge,” Burlingham said. “After all, it’s 115 pages in an elevator.”

Burlingham shot Double Negative using Canon EOS 5D Mark II, an affordable and innovative solution for small-budget filmmakers. The TV series House had its season finale shot in a similar manner in 2010.

“It’s not a video camera," Burlingham said. "It’s a still camera that shoots high-definition video, but this full sensory video can maintain depth of field better than anything else.”

Burlingham described the still camera with video ability as “revolutionary.”

David Kraus of Big Works Inc. constructed the wooden elevator, which was held up by hydraulic lifts and had to be shaken by hand to create the effect of the elevator falling. Financial concerns also led the crew to light the entire film using modified standard fluorescent lights and construction “clamp lamps.”

Scott, who is beginning the long process of post-production, expects to see the film out by fall 2011, when she hopes to show it at area film festivals such as the monthly at the Landmark Century Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St. in Chicago.

Although Double Negative is trapped inside it’s elevator setting, Scott expressed interest in using the North Shore more for location shots.

“You have such a variety of looks in the area," she said. "There are places that look very urban, places that look very suburban and even places that have kind of a country or nature feel.”

Evanston has been used as a filming location for such movies as The Weatherman, Mean Girls and the upcoming Contagion.