The body count is high, but still an estimate, because it’s only the first week of shooting. The final count won’t be known till the film wraps, and the dust settles from the carnage of the climactic battle royale. For a micro-budget feature, Witch’s Brew beats just about any Hollywood movie (we don’t count apocalyptic disaster movies ala 2012, but Taken comes close with 34 individual kills).

Midnight Crew Studios’ previous offerings (Presidents Day, Book of Lore) were delivered on budgets closer to 5K, so the Witch’s Brew ten thousand-plus kickstarter.com generated budget represents a move up to almost Avatar levels (the effects aren’t as sophisticated as Avatar’s, but the story is better).

All this killing takes place in quiet Catonsville suburbia, at the hands of writer/producer Jimmy George and writer/director Chris Lamartina.  These guys are smart, persistent, hard working, and fun, and possess the essential quality needed to produce indie films: they actually do it. They are also able to attract dedicated cast and crew people who actually do it, mostly for the love. Assistant Director Jeanie Clark (who wrote and directed her own feature, Smalltimore) is foregoing income to see the Witch’s Brew 27 day August shooting schedule through till wrap. The excellent Jason Koch of Zinnia Films (zinniafilms.com) has a modest special effects budget to work with. With so many kills, he and his partner Gaylee must deliver everything from prosthetic “demon fingers,” to gore and amputations, and of course, ectoplasm (thanks for your ectoplasm recipe, guys).  Witch’s Brew is only one of many titles in which erstwhile schlock star Shawn C. Phillips is racking up acting credits this year. Let him be known as Baltimore’s Shawn of the dead.

Witch’s Brew is being shot with two Canon 7D digital SLR’s. They are fast, cheap, small, and provide insane image quality. But, the 7D was not really designed for motion picture production. Focus pulling is ergonomically challenging. Too-fast or abrupt camera or subject movement causes peculiar artifacting. And, especially in hot weather, the 7D overheats.  To get decent sound you must go double system – the Zoom Handy H4n seems the popular choice.

But technology is not what really matters. Movie making is about chutzpah, persistence, and laughing at fear of failure. In the end, it is really about storytelling. Jimmy George has had his own brush-with-Hollywood disillusionment, but that won’t stop him or Chris from telling their stories. Staying with the comedic blood & guts schlock formula is an honorable and potentially lucrative path. Still, one wonders what would happen if and when they branch out.

— david warfield