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A rainy night, a broken-down car, a dead phone, and a house with the light on — Naomi and Anna are in the wrong place at the wrong time. But wrong for who?

“Exactly the Wrong Person”, the latest short film from neon reel entertainment, is available for viewing.

The eight minute piece, Exactly the Wrong Person, depicts two young women whose paths cross briefly due to a broken-down car, a dead cell phone and heavy rainstorm. Naomi, played by Hillary Styer from the upcoming film Lovely Molly, finds herself on the welcome doorstep of Anna, played by Ashley Hutson from neon reel's Toby Benson Wants His Money. After exchanging pleasantries and a hot meal, the two women find themselves faced with the realization that they may have just met Exactly the Wrong Person.

During the festival, Matzen viewed a handful of slasher films over the course of the weekend that stirred his interest in shooting a short film that would build suspense and provide a thrilling opportunity to showcase some of the new equipment that was recently added to the neon reel inventory. Without a specific film idea in mind, Matzen turned to, neon reel members, Steve Shives, Rob Talbert and Hutson and had each develop a treatment for consideration. As a group, they voted to adapt Shives’ treatment, with a suspenseful and unexpected twist of fate, into a script.

One of Matzen’s main goals was to give this piece an old, 16 mm, slasher film feel that is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s Halloween and Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre by giving it a grainy appearance and shaky camera work.

"I was inspired by a lot of the quick cuts and uncomfortable close ups that were in both the Halloween and Texas Chainsaw series,” said Matzen. “I had a concept of the scenes in my head, but drew on these films as inspiration on how they would go.”

Probably the most noticeable upgrade to the neon reel inventory, in Exactly the Wrong Person, is the addition of the depth-of-field adaptor and 50mm lens that is necessary to develop the cinematic effect of the film. By allowing the camera to concentrate more of the focus on what is happening in the forefront, the depth of field adaptor produces a quality shot that separates it from a standard hi-definition camera.

In the special effects department, the crew built a device, known as a Rain Rig, out of wood and hose that was used to create the rain effect in Exactly the Wrong Person.

Currently, neon reel is in the pre-production phase for their next film, The Darkness and Tom Markos, which will be our longest film to date and was written, in collaboration, by neon reel’s Rob Talbert and Steve Shives. Casting begins in December with a tentative plan to shoot in January 2012.

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