In the alley behind the 1104 S. Wabash building, Amelia Hansing, junior acting major, sat before a camera covered in black slime, awaiting Director Andrew Jex to call “action.”
Jex, a student part of the two-year Cinema and Television Directing graduate program, just finished his second year and is in the process of getting his thesis horror film titled “Freakuency,” ready to premiere in December, at the theater on the eighth floor of the 1104 building.
The film follows Harmony, a mute composer that is addicted to a memory-altering frequency, and her older sister Celeste working to save her, while the two overcome the impact of their late, abusive mother.
Once students are admitted to the program, they have seven years to finish their 15-minute-or-less thesis film, alongside taking classes the first two years. Jex started working on the film in June, during his second and last year of classes, and had his last shoot day on Aug. 29. Once the film is completed, the students have a screening of their thesis and then apply for graduation.
In the first year, students are required to submit an idea pitch for their thesis film to start production the following year. In the process of forming the concept for his horror film, Jex said he broke one of the “cardinal rules” of his creative process.
“I came up with the title first, which I hate doing,” he said. “Usually, I write the story and then come up with the title for it. This title kind of popped up in my brain, and it took three or four story iterations to finally figure out what I wanted – which is why I never start with the title first.”
Jex said his thesis film stems from his lifelong love for horror films, growing up admiring directors and filmmakers such as David Cronenberg, Guillermo Del Toro and Edgar Wright.
“I’ve always loved horror, from an early age,” he said. “One of my first core memories is [when] I was at a public library with my dad, and I saw the DVD for “Creepshow,” and the cover of it is this creepy, skeletal, ticket-booth person. I was like ‘what is this, I have to know more!’”
Though his father deemed him too young to watch the movie at the time, he revisited it a few years later, and would recount it being “love at first sight.”
Jex wrote, edited, sound designed and directed the film alongside his crew of over 35 students and alumni.
Moriah Gilman, playing Celeste, graduated with a musical theater degree in 2023. She said upon getting the role, she and Hansing met and created a background for their characters. Helping build personal character growth, Gilman said this approach to acting is a tool to “allow actors to be really authentic,” something she found helpful when approaching the relationship with her character’s sister.
“It was individual work by ourselves, building personal character growth, and finding a way to weave that growth together to create something really cool,” she said. “Something that we both felt we could use to further the film forward.”
Preparation was also an essential tool for Hansing, as her mute character communicated with American Sign Language. Alongside conducting research on the Deaf community, she recalled what she learned in a previous ASL class. She also had the help of ASL coach Josh Castille to ensure she was translating the lines accurately.
“I wanted to do Harmony justice, as a person and also as someone who found means of communication through other ways,” Hansing said. “We didn’t want it to be a physical thing, where it was a physical barrier that Harmony was dealing with. It was more of a mental one.”
Gilman, described the two characters to have contrasting personas, Celeste being the “fight” to Harmony’s “flight.”
“Our film really does follow [Celeste], fighting for her sister without words, and the way she knows how to express it through action,” she said. “I would say her role is to move the plot towards resolution through her choice to just push forward, when it comes to conflict.”
Jex said the “culmination” of all of his different passions is what helped him finalize his fourth and final draft of the film, both autobiographically and artistically.
“The family connections of coming together; everybody’s different, but everybody’s on this ship together,” he said. “This has obviously horror, but it also has certain elements that I connect with, in terms of the subgenres of horror. It’s putting together all of those different ingredients into this one pot that really kind of created this film, and I’m really happy with the direction it’s taking. It’s taken a long time to get here, but I’m happy with where it’s at.”
“Freakuency” is set to debut on Dec. 6 at 1104 S. Wabash.
Copy edited by Manuel Nocera
