Why We Spent Our Wedding Fund Making Our Horror Movie, Sight Unseen

Oriana Schwindt and Stephen Parkhurst are a married filmmaking duo based in New York City. Their first feature, the haunted house picture Sight Unseen, is a literal labor of love that they co-wrote and then shot in 12 days in rural Maine on a budget of $85,000, with Steve directing and Oriana producing. It plays later this month in the Maine International Film Festival. In the piece below, they talk about their decision to put their wedding fund into the film.—M.M.

It was just before 8:30 a.m. on Day Four of shooting our indie horror film Sight Unseen. We were in the Augusta, Maine Walmart for the fifth time in as many days, clearing them out of oat milk (an unexpectedly large line item in our budget), when a text from our DP came in informing us that  the gaffer is leaving due to a health issue.

Panic! In the Dairy Aisle!

Our crew could already have been charitably described as “skeletal”: Us, our DP, the production designer (doing double-duty as our ghost), a boom op, a camera assistant, a grip, a hair/makeup artist, three actors, and the aforementioned gaffer. A shocking amount of our time was spent setting up crafty, filling out SAG-AFTRA Exhibit Gs, acting as the 1st and 2nd ADs, plunging toilets, hauling trash — the usual micro-budget stuff. 

And suddenly we were losing not just a person, but also their entire lighting kit. For a horror film shooting mostly at night deep in the Maine woods. The closest G&E rental house was two hours away, and getting a replacement gaffer up from New York or Boston would cost us days (and budget) we didn’t have.

We had to make a decision right then and there: Fight, or flight? Oriana wanted to drive straight to the rental house to squeeze whatever gear we could into the old Prius we’d borrowed for the shoot. Steve wanted to book it back to set to convince the gaffer to leave us enough equipment to finish the movie.

Lots of relationships face their first big test in an Ikea, arguing Songesand vs. Stjärnö. If you survive Ikea, the next big test may likely be the wedding. This was our Ikea and our wedding.

The exact phrase, “Let’s spend our wedding fund making a horror movie” was not in our vows. When we got married at the height of the pandemic, on a beach with three people six feet away from us, we told friends and family we’d have a real wedding when we could. We had just over $65,000 saved that we could use to throw a hell of a party and maybe even cover the down payment on an apartment.

But in all our lockdown talks of what we’d do once Covid was over, we kept returning to one idea: Making a feature-length film. Our relationship had started with that litmus test every creative person does with a potential partner. After our first date, Oriana sent Steve a pilot script to read, and he sent her his horror short Near Sight to watch. To our respective relief, both were great, and we got married 18 months later. We made shorts together and started writing together. 

We’d both been on the cusp of breaking into the industry for years: Steve’s shorts had been to plenty of festivals, and Oriana was working through her first development deal at Warner Bros. TV. The wheels of Hollywood move so slowly, though, that we knew we could spend the rest of our lives searching for investors to fund our first feature. So, we agreed to forgo the big wedding entirely, and instead spend the money (plus around $18,000 from a Kickstarter) to make one of the scripts we’d written together. 

The natural bumps of writing and pre-production we handled by defaulting to the question: What’s best for the movie? 

Verbalizing that question ensured neither of us were projecting a relationship issue onto a filmmaking problem, and reminded us that we were a team trying to make the best film possible. This strategy filled us with unearned confidence and optimism as we made our way up from New York to rural Maine to shoot.

Solving a Sight Unseen Dilemma

Four days in and there we were, neck deep in oat milk, faces flushed, hearts racing, panicked and angry after days of delays and demands. Despite spending the money on Sight Unseen instead of a wedding, children, or a home, we had found ourselves dealing with all three, squeezed into a two-week timespan: Daily event planning, caring for a dozen people while sleeping only a few hours a night, and renovating a house.

It took a beat for us to deal with the intense emotional flare-up, but eventually, we were able to take emotion out of the equation and ask ourselves once more: What’s best for the movie? How could we ensure we could shoot today and stay on schedule? 

Also Read: How Running a Film Festival Helped Me Get Into Sundance

As with so many other problems, the answer was to work as a team: Oriana would have our grip on standby to head to Portland while calling the rental house. She rejiggered the schedule in the car as we raced back to set so Steve could negotiate with the gaffer before they left.

In the end, the gaffer left us enough equipment to finish the shoot. The crew rallied, cheerfully carrying and striking lights, and we made our days. For the rest of the shoot, we would mouth “What’s best for the movie?” at each other, whenever one of us was starting to spin out. 

Hopefully, Sight Unseen is just the start of our filmmaking career. If not, well, it was the best couple’s counseling $85,000 can buy.

Sight Unseen plays July 19 and 20th at the Maine International Film Festival.

Main image: (L-R) Dustin (Daniel Burns) is surprised by his sisters Beth (Kellie Spill) and Emma (Lauren Pisano) in a scene from Sight Unseen. Courtesy of Fixer Upper Films