FUN
New York City, New York | Film Short
Comedy, Drama
In the haze of a crowded sauna, Evie, a neurotic masseuse, massages old men while envisioning scenes from her father’s funeral. FUN explores the absurdity of our grief rituals, our shared experience of loss, and our anxiety about growing up.
FUN
New York City, New York | Film Short
Comedy, Drama
1 Campaigns | New York, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $20,310 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
121 supporters | followers
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In the haze of a crowded sauna, Evie, a neurotic masseuse, massages old men while envisioning scenes from her father’s funeral. FUN explores the absurdity of our grief rituals, our shared experience of loss, and our anxiety about growing up.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
WELCOME TO "FUN"
GENRE: DARK COMEDY
NARRATIVE
PART 1 - SKIN
The film follows Evie, a young bathhouse employee, who spends her days kneading the backs of elderly men. Lost in a sea of liver spotted skin and repetitive touch, we enter her thoughts.
As a child of older parents, Evie has a melodramatic, and at times self-indulgent, sense of their mortality. FUN is a satirical glimpse of that imagined grief.
PART 2 - FOOD
Friends and family gather to eat and drink in honor of Ted, Evie’s deceased father, but the room feels heavy with religious gossip and judgment on how the body was disposed. Guests share lost tales of Ted and pile their plates with cake and hot dogs to distract themselves from the awkwardness of death.
PART 3 - ASH
Evie stands beside her father's urn while fielding awkward condolences from his inner circle. After successfully greeting a cousin she's never met before and her father's extremely hot ex-fiancé, she escapes the parade of mourners to smoke a cigarette and confide in a friend.
PART 3 - WATER
Evie is reborn. Just kidding. We’re not telling you the end. Stay tuned. There's a phone call and you will seriously question EVERYTHING.
STYLE
Theo Webb, Production Designer:
"The production design for Fun attempts to concretize Evie’s anxieties. An overwhelming sea of patterns, tones and textures will stretch out in front of Evie. Evie’s imagining of her father’s death gives the production design license to concoct and to accumulate excess in a manner befitting of a dream. The sets will feel alive - the carpets will squeak and the food will undulate.”
Gus Aronson, Director of Photography:
"The look of FUN is inspired by Sven Nykvist’s faces and Vilmos Zigmound’s groups, in an attempt to rethink notions of PoV in film, by looking at how both cinematographers dealt with bodies in space. Nykvist’s stacking and obfuscation of bodies inspire us through the way he illustrated how it feels for people to occupy a space together rather than literally represent it. Zigmound inspires us through his simultaneous use of zooms and dollies that drastically changes the attention and emotion of a shot without calling attention to itself while promoting fluid blocking, long takes, and naturalistic performances."
"These ideas, among others, will be combined with a naturalistic lighting style that all together represents Evie’s constantly shifting experience of the funeral dreamscape.
The cinematography will, without an explicitly PoV style that makes Evie the center of the story, illustrate a shift from a solitary experience of grief to a shared one, within a film style that democratically emphasizes all elements of form."
Willa Schwabsky, Costume Designer:
"Highlighting texture through material - felt bayna hats, tweed suits, crisscross stockings, pearls - costumes in FUN reflect Evie’s disillusionment with her visceral surroundings. The memorial scene will be a mix of blacks, browns, and florals - rather than a sea of black - in order to play with the uncanny nostalgia inherent to funerals. Evie herself will be dressed understated, veering masculine but not completely put-together. A dreamy, young woman subtly striving for order."
SHOOT SCHEDULE
We start principal photography Spring 2024 at Spa88 and St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Academy.
FUNDING
$20,000 is the minimum we need to start this project. Your donations would go towards helping us pay for critical components of the film, including locations, gear, production design, costumes, key actors and crew, editing, and meals for the team. Every cent helps!
THANK YOU FOR DONATING <3
We really appreciate your help.
If you cannot donate, please help spread the word. Share our campaign via social media, email, and tell all your friends!
Instagram: @funshortfilm
Tiktok: @funshortfilm
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast & Crew
Costs $3,000
Our cast and crew are seriously cool. We want to make their art come to life!
Equipment Rentals
Costs $3,000
Our amazing DP and talented sound and lighting crew need to make this film look the very best it can be.
Locations
Costs $3,000
We will be shooting in a bunch of great locations across New York City. We need your help to bring it to life!
Production Design
Costs $2,000
Those movie sets don't look that good on their own, you know?
Costumes
Costs $1,500
Our story brings us from a Russian bathhouse to awkward funeral proceeding. Our characters need to look the part!
Hair & Makeup
Costs $750
Make sure our actors look in tip top shape on the big screen.
Transportation
Costs $1,250
We'll be moving gear all around New York City this spring. Help us make it happen!
Food & Craft Services
Costs $1,000
Everyone's gotta eat! Help keep our artists sustained and ready to go.
Insurance
Costs $2,000
Keeping our production safe is our #1 priority.
Post Production
Costs $2,000
After it all gets on film, we need to make the footage come together.
Festival Submissions
Costs $500
Helps us bring our film to audiences all over!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Share this update!
About This Team
Kitty Samuels (Writer/Director) is a filmmaker and documentary producer based in Brooklyn, NY. Working alongside award winning directors, her documentary experience includes projects for Hulu, HBO, Amazon Prime, FRONTLINE, and The Washington Post. Of particular mention, she associate produced the critically acclaimed Hulu docu-series Stolen Youth, a three-part investigation into the lives of the victims of cult leader Larry Ray. She graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in Modern Culture & Media and currently works at Story Syndicate.
Theo Webb (Production Designer) is a production designer and filmmaker from New York. As a designer, he is interested in creating hyper-detailed and dynamic spaces, in which the sets become characters of their own. He draws inspiration from Macgyvered-contraptions found in worlds like Wallace & Gromit, Mr. Bean and the films of Jacques Tati.
Gus Aronson (Director of Photography) is a photographer and filmmaker based out of Chinatown, NY. Embracing ambiguous narrative and vivid color as tools to push against ideas of the document, Gus rejects the notion that photographs are purely evidence of a time past. He explores how photographs can rather function as tarot cards: relics of the past and roadmaps for the future. He has been commissioned by Aperture, the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Cut, and Elle, and Aperture Magazine, and was part of the Aperture Summer Open 2020 “Information” show at Fotografiska, NY. His Films, and those that he’s shot, have premiered with No Budge and the Mill Valley Film Festival. He is also a founding member and the DP for http://filmsecession.com (https://www.filmsecession.com/) an online film museum launching in 2024.
Theo Matza (Producer) is a filmmaker based in Bushwick, NYC. He graduated in 2021 from Wesleyan University's College of Film, where he lensed several short films on both Digital and 16mm. Since then, in addition to his narrative work, he has directed several music videos, pre-screened for the New York Film Festival, and currently works as Assistant to filmmaker Ari Aster. He is humbled to be working with such professional and talented artists, many of whom have been steady collaborators.
Lily Cunningham-Perini (Producer) is a Brooklyn-based experimental filmmaker and recent graduate from Harvard with a B.A. in Art, Film, and Visual Studies. She has produced commercials and digital ads in LA and curated installations at The Art Lab in Cambridge, MA. She is currently exploring possibilities in documentary fiction and 5.1 sound design.
Dylan Moore (Producer) is a writer and producer from Chicago. With a background ranging from advertising to poetry, he is interested in telling stories and making movies. He has spent extended time in both Dublin and Madrid, and volunteers annually at the Telluride Film Festival. He is based in Brooklyn.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
WELCOME TO "FUN"
GENRE: DARK COMEDY
NARRATIVE
PART 1 - SKIN
The film follows Evie, a young bathhouse employee, who spends her days kneading the backs of elderly men. Lost in a sea of liver spotted skin and repetitive touch, we enter her thoughts.
As a child of older parents, Evie has a melodramatic, and at times self-indulgent, sense of their mortality. FUN is a satirical glimpse of that imagined grief.
PART 2 - FOOD
Friends and family gather to eat and drink in honor of Ted, Evie’s deceased father, but the room feels heavy with religious gossip and judgment on how the body was disposed. Guests share lost tales of Ted and pile their plates with cake and hot dogs to distract themselves from the awkwardness of death.
PART 3 - ASH
Evie stands beside her father's urn while fielding awkward condolences from his inner circle. After successfully greeting a cousin she's never met before and her father's extremely hot ex-fiancé, she escapes the parade of mourners to smoke a cigarette and confide in a friend.
PART 3 - WATER
Evie is reborn. Just kidding. We’re not telling you the end. Stay tuned. There's a phone call and you will seriously question EVERYTHING.
STYLE
Theo Webb, Production Designer:
"The production design for Fun attempts to concretize Evie’s anxieties. An overwhelming sea of patterns, tones and textures will stretch out in front of Evie. Evie’s imagining of her father’s death gives the production design license to concoct and to accumulate excess in a manner befitting of a dream. The sets will feel alive - the carpets will squeak and the food will undulate.”
Gus Aronson, Director of Photography:
"The look of FUN is inspired by Sven Nykvist’s faces and Vilmos Zigmound’s groups, in an attempt to rethink notions of PoV in film, by looking at how both cinematographers dealt with bodies in space. Nykvist’s stacking and obfuscation of bodies inspire us through the way he illustrated how it feels for people to occupy a space together rather than literally represent it. Zigmound inspires us through his simultaneous use of zooms and dollies that drastically changes the attention and emotion of a shot without calling attention to itself while promoting fluid blocking, long takes, and naturalistic performances."
"These ideas, among others, will be combined with a naturalistic lighting style that all together represents Evie’s constantly shifting experience of the funeral dreamscape.
The cinematography will, without an explicitly PoV style that makes Evie the center of the story, illustrate a shift from a solitary experience of grief to a shared one, within a film style that democratically emphasizes all elements of form."
Willa Schwabsky, Costume Designer:
"Highlighting texture through material - felt bayna hats, tweed suits, crisscross stockings, pearls - costumes in FUN reflect Evie’s disillusionment with her visceral surroundings. The memorial scene will be a mix of blacks, browns, and florals - rather than a sea of black - in order to play with the uncanny nostalgia inherent to funerals. Evie herself will be dressed understated, veering masculine but not completely put-together. A dreamy, young woman subtly striving for order."
SHOOT SCHEDULE
We start principal photography Spring 2024 at Spa88 and St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Academy.
FUNDING
$20,000 is the minimum we need to start this project. Your donations would go towards helping us pay for critical components of the film, including locations, gear, production design, costumes, key actors and crew, editing, and meals for the team. Every cent helps!
THANK YOU FOR DONATING <3
We really appreciate your help.
If you cannot donate, please help spread the word. Share our campaign via social media, email, and tell all your friends!
Instagram: @funshortfilm
Tiktok: @funshortfilm
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast & Crew
Costs $3,000
Our cast and crew are seriously cool. We want to make their art come to life!
Equipment Rentals
Costs $3,000
Our amazing DP and talented sound and lighting crew need to make this film look the very best it can be.
Locations
Costs $3,000
We will be shooting in a bunch of great locations across New York City. We need your help to bring it to life!
Production Design
Costs $2,000
Those movie sets don't look that good on their own, you know?
Costumes
Costs $1,500
Our story brings us from a Russian bathhouse to awkward funeral proceeding. Our characters need to look the part!
Hair & Makeup
Costs $750
Make sure our actors look in tip top shape on the big screen.
Transportation
Costs $1,250
We'll be moving gear all around New York City this spring. Help us make it happen!
Food & Craft Services
Costs $1,000
Everyone's gotta eat! Help keep our artists sustained and ready to go.
Insurance
Costs $2,000
Keeping our production safe is our #1 priority.
Post Production
Costs $2,000
After it all gets on film, we need to make the footage come together.
Festival Submissions
Costs $500
Helps us bring our film to audiences all over!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Share this update!
About This Team
Kitty Samuels (Writer/Director) is a filmmaker and documentary producer based in Brooklyn, NY. Working alongside award winning directors, her documentary experience includes projects for Hulu, HBO, Amazon Prime, FRONTLINE, and The Washington Post. Of particular mention, she associate produced the critically acclaimed Hulu docu-series Stolen Youth, a three-part investigation into the lives of the victims of cult leader Larry Ray. She graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in Modern Culture & Media and currently works at Story Syndicate.
Theo Webb (Production Designer) is a production designer and filmmaker from New York. As a designer, he is interested in creating hyper-detailed and dynamic spaces, in which the sets become characters of their own. He draws inspiration from Macgyvered-contraptions found in worlds like Wallace & Gromit, Mr. Bean and the films of Jacques Tati.
Gus Aronson (Director of Photography) is a photographer and filmmaker based out of Chinatown, NY. Embracing ambiguous narrative and vivid color as tools to push against ideas of the document, Gus rejects the notion that photographs are purely evidence of a time past. He explores how photographs can rather function as tarot cards: relics of the past and roadmaps for the future. He has been commissioned by Aperture, the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Cut, and Elle, and Aperture Magazine, and was part of the Aperture Summer Open 2020 “Information” show at Fotografiska, NY. His Films, and those that he’s shot, have premiered with No Budge and the Mill Valley Film Festival. He is also a founding member and the DP for http://filmsecession.com (https://www.filmsecession.com/) an online film museum launching in 2024.
Theo Matza (Producer) is a filmmaker based in Bushwick, NYC. He graduated in 2021 from Wesleyan University's College of Film, where he lensed several short films on both Digital and 16mm. Since then, in addition to his narrative work, he has directed several music videos, pre-screened for the New York Film Festival, and currently works as Assistant to filmmaker Ari Aster. He is humbled to be working with such professional and talented artists, many of whom have been steady collaborators.
Lily Cunningham-Perini (Producer) is a Brooklyn-based experimental filmmaker and recent graduate from Harvard with a B.A. in Art, Film, and Visual Studies. She has produced commercials and digital ads in LA and curated installations at The Art Lab in Cambridge, MA. She is currently exploring possibilities in documentary fiction and 5.1 sound design.
Dylan Moore (Producer) is a writer and producer from Chicago. With a background ranging from advertising to poetry, he is interested in telling stories and making movies. He has spent extended time in both Dublin and Madrid, and volunteers annually at the Telluride Film Festival. He is based in Brooklyn.