/HAAW/ explores the discomfort when two very different groups of people share a confined space together. Two snowboarders, Brett and Jacob, find themselves locked in a ski gondola seated across from an otherworldly family who can only communicate through a single odd sound: /HAAW/.

IMAGINE THIS, BUT GOOD.

As the gondola ascends higher up the mountainside, the tension between them rises as Brett mocks the family. Brett’s blatant bigotry is on full display, and he doesn’t care, the existence of these people is too absurd to ignore. This interaction ultimately leads Brett to discover the harsh true meaning of /HAAW/.

WHEN ARE YOU MAKING THIS?

When are we shooting this? RIGHT AWAY. Literally DURING the campaign. In this very unique situation, backers at the $50 tier and above will be able to see BTS in real time DURING THE CAMPAIGN! We're shooting March 31st!

So why do we need your support if we're already shooting? Because we're maxing out our credit cards trying to keep the inertia going on this very strange dream. IT IS HAPPENING, AND VERY SOON. Most of your funds will go towards top-tier makeup effects, then towards the rental of an LED stage, and simple production peripherals like hard drives and lunch for the crew. Almost all of the crew is working for free, so your donations are going DIRECTLY on the screen!

Writer/Director Joey here. I’ve been making movies for years on the subject of silence and the uselessness of language, and I’ve always found that body language and tone go so much further than individual words. So in this case, I’ve chosen to reduce those words to one simple sound: “HAAW”. My kind of stories show that actions speak louder than words.

In my daily life, language is a struggle. It is hard to convey what I mean (just try writing a crowdfunding campaign). So I wanted to make a film that shows the fallibility of language.

Also being in an enclosed space with strangers is fascinating. Whether they be elevators, subways or a lonely ski gondola, most conversations stop when you enter these spaces, which is so bizarre to me. So of course this was the perfect setting to deconstruct these often self-imposed social norms.

We’ve watched the world backslide into xenophobia in the past few years. My hope is that a movie that takes the most alien family imaginable and ultimately humanizes them will convey that those who don’t speak your language are just as human as you. What happens in the end of our short serves as a warning to those who practice hate speech.

/HAAW/ walks a fine Lynchian line between absurdity and horror. Tensions rise in parallel; as the situation between those inside the gondola grows increasingly strained, the ground below gets further and further away. Jon Salmon and Joey Scoma have made a series of films that relish in a tense silence, whether it be the loneliness of a power outage in HAROLD, the vast empty hostility of the terrain in A PATCH OF DESERT, or the inhuman anonymity of the internet in FUDGIE FREDDIE. They have a knack for finding meaning by taking words out of the equation.

Shot in 4:3 academy ratio on a state-of-the-art LED wall stage, using real practical makeup from some of the best makeup artists in the business, /HAAW/ will have production values to rival the biggest productions out there, making the most of your contribution with claustrophobic grandeur.