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Pittsburgh has become a hot location to shoot both small-budget films and studio blockbusters alike. However, getting an independently financed film with a substantial budget is always a challenge, and using the budget to highlight the Pittsburgh region is even tougher.
However, when Pittsburgh filmmaker Steve Rudzinski was tapped to take on a new horror-comedy called Shingles, and with a more generous budget of $100,000, the choice was obvious.
“It’s not a major Hollywood film by any means but it’s a great opportunity to put money into the local community via hiring locally for most of the cast and crew,” Rudzinski said in an interview over email with the Pittsburgh City Paper. “We’re also supporting local hotels and businesses either via using them for locations or simply buying our catering from them.”
A local filmmaker behind all kinds of projects, including the horror-comedy films CarousHELL and CarousHELL the 2nd, Rudzinski was approached by the group of writers behind the podcast Authors & Dragons to adapt a combination of five of their books that they had turned into a single script, an anthology film called Shingles.
“The partnership originated simply from them finding CarousHell, reviewing it for their podcast, then having me on as a guest,” says Rudzinski. “They really loved the film, my style, my humor, and how much I did with my budget. Apparently, they’ve been trying to make a Shingles movie for a while and all decided I would be the best choice for their film”.
The film, which is currently in pre-production and slated for a release date later this year, is a mash-up of many different genres of horror, spanning multiple different characters and monsters. “We go from zombies to an evil ventriloquist dummy, to aliens, and to a killer garden gnome,” says Rudzinski. “This thing has more characters than any other movie I’ve ever made!”
Filming the project in and around Pittsburgh provided a number of benefits in Rudzinski’s eyes.
“I was able to convince them to film in this area, both so I can work with a ton of local talent, but also so I can take advantage of knowing the area so well,” says Rudzinski, who confirmed that production will be happening in the Pittsburgh area from Canonsburg to Coraopolis, as well as a few other spots located within an hour of the city.
Shingles has also given the hyper-local filmmaker, as well as his company Silver Spotlight Films, a chance to showcase his work to a bigger audience with a bigger budget.
“We are definitely still an indie production in terms of not working for a major studio, but the Authors & Dragons team has for some reason trusted me entirely with a budget of $100,000 to spend as I see fit,” Rudzinski says. “This is so far the biggest film of my career and I’m thrilled to be working with so many talented people and shooting this in the Pittsburgh area. I really can’t wait to hit the ground running on this thing.”
This article appears in Feb 16-22, 2022.
