Mass Comm. prof. includes WSSU students, campus for his first horror film

Two of the first steps in the process of producing a movie are finding locations and finding actors.

Doug Osman, an assistant professor in the mass communications department, shot his first horror movie, "Consumption" late this summer. The short film follows the life of a young street kid named Jack played by Chester See of Disney 365 fame, who becomes the "familiar" for a family of vampires.

Osman said his movie has been in the making for about a year. He developed the story, wrote the 30-page screenplay, directed and produced the film.

"Consumption" started production in February and was shot entirely in Winston-Salem. Some scenes were recorded at Osman's house, O'Kelly Library, and Foundation Heights' dorm hallways. The majority of the film was shot at Davis Garage, located beside the Elva J. Jones Computer Science building.

"When you drive by it [Davis Garage] you wouldn't know, but beneath what you see are two levels of basements, and they're pretty much unused," Osman said.

"A lot of it is boarded up, broken windows, storage. It looks like a haunted house. It's very, very scary."

He called on a handful of current and former Winston-Salem State students to be involved with the movie.

"You really try to bring people on board, actors, who are willing to work really long days,"?Osman said.

"We were really fortunate. The local actors were all great. They jumped on the chance to be involved."

Some of the Rams on the project include Antonio de Graffenreaidt, Crystal Winston, and May 2009 graduate Darryl "D.J." Davis. Winston served as the film's producer; de Graffenreaidt and Davis were actors.

"He [Davis] started taking some acting classes," Osman said. "[He] kept bugging me. He wanted to be involved, and he is a good guy.

"Tony is one of the best actors I've ever met at the college level."

Osman saw a performance by de Graffenreaidt, a senior majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in Theater/Film. He said he was very impressed with de Graffenreaidt's acting.

"Osman told me that he was doing a film this summer and that he specifically wrote a part [Tony, Jack's best friend] for me," de Graffenreaidt said. This was the first horror movie de Graffenreaidt acted in, and he said he had never worked around this much blood.

"It was very fun to do. I want to do a couple more horror movies," de Graffenreaidt said.

Osman said he has familiarity in working with Winston.

She has been a producer in an Electronic Practicum class taught by him as well as a producer for "Face to Face" on RAM-TV 21, where she is the station manager.

"Crystal , she's amazing, very organized, very productive. I couldn't have done it [the film] without her," Osman said. Winston said her tasks on the set included sitting through auditions and scheduling photographers.

Osman said if the DVD is purchased online by early October, the fans who assist with editing will have their names listed in the credits for a full-length film.

The movie is 32 minutes in length, and once it is cut to 30 minutes, Osman says he plans to enter it in various film festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, Austin Film Festival and the Telluride Film Festival.

He said he hopes that the movie will be picked up by a distribution company and be turned into a full-length feature film.