The Making of Devoured

Directed by Thomas Chretien

Written by Thomas Chretien and James Kingstone

Production company: TCP and Pandapix Enterprise Inc

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An Interview with Thomas Chretien

How did you come up with the concept of Devoured? Vampires have always been my favorite classic monster, but over the years many film adaptation have been too "clean" for my taste. I wanted to re-imagine the vampire as something closer to a corpse that manipulates the perception of its victim to appear as someone they love.

How long did the process take to write the story?

Because of Covid we had to delay shooting for almost a year, which gave us plenty of time to tweak the script over and over. The process of planning this film was very visual, so I spent most of my time on the storyboard to set the mood I wanted. James and I kept tweaking the script until the very end, and we would probably have kept going if we could.

Are there any funny stories on set?

The final day of shooting was the birthday of Marc, our First Camera Assistant, so it was quite cool to end the shoot with a surprise cake and celebration.

How is working with the actors on Devoured?

One great thing was that the actors we all very comfortable with each other. Gabriel and Nhi are married in real life, so it was very natural for them to act together, although it was their first time sharing scenes in a film. Gabriel had to go to a dark place when playing Greyson, and he pulled through beautifully. He was also very generous and gave us multiple takes, even on some tough and draining scenes. Nhi had to play two very different characters, and surprised me more than once with both of her roles. There are a few instances where the emotion she brought with some lines really gave them more meaning than I had imagined. Theresa completely transformed for her role as the monster, she was unrecognizable. She was a real professional, as it took more than an hour to put on all her make up and some of it had to be reapplied throughout the day. And we also had the chance to work with Gigi for the car sequence, which has a different tone from the rest of the film. Thanks to her performance we get to know more of Nhi's character in a small amount of time, which is a hard thing to do. The camaraderie between the two actresses made it all feel very easy and natural. I'm deeply grateful for all the work the actors did to help us make this film!

What are the challenges to make Devoured?

Making short films is always hard. The medium is limiting. It's difficult to get people to care for characters in such a short amount of time. It's also difficult to be original and stand out in a sea of short films. We spent a lot of time in pre-production to come up with something both entertaining and surprising. Of course, we dream of revisiting this world and exploring it in a longer format. There is much more of this story to tell.