The Last Minute Till Midnight (2020)
It’s the height of the Red Scare, and the Doomsday Clock is inching towards midnight. In a city riddled with crime, the last honest journalist’s obsession to expose a corrupt politician will put her at odds with forces she never imagined.
In the summer of 2016, my frequent collaborator Adam Orton and I took our families on a trip to Adventureland. Adam was wrapping up post-production on Amelia 2.0 and was starting to think about his next project. He wanted something that would push his new-found visual effects skills and something that could be shot in just a few days.
I’d wanted to make a film noir for years, ever since I fell in love with the genre back in college. So on the 2-hour and 45-minute drive home from our family vacation, I gave Adam my Ted Talk on film noir. Film Noir 101.
“The Last Minute Till Midnight is a cool homage to classic film noir, while also landing firmly into speculative territory with its bizarre narrative.”
Of course, there are the surface-level film noir tropes. Mirrors mean duplicity. Shadows from bars or blinds mean the character feels trapped. Cigarettes = sex, and who lights the cigarette is important.
The Mystery: Usually something kinda convoluted – probably more complicated than it needs to be – but it’s something that starts trivial but ends up being the tip of an iceberg.
The Detective: It doesn’t have to be a literal detective. Just someone determined to solve the aforementioned mystery.
Behind that mystery is The Broken Institution – corrupt cops, politicians, the mafia. The Commies.
There needs to be an element of Sexual Taboo, or at least what would’ve been taboo in the ‘40s and ‘50s. And due to the Hays Code, most of this stuff is just implied.
Lastly, there needs to be this sense of Impending Doom. Like the sword of Damocles, the protagonist in a film noir is on a path of cruel, inevitable fate. Yes, solving the mystery is the right thing to do. But at what cost?
By the end of the ride, we had the story for The Last Minute Till Midnight, and an ambitious plan to shoot entirely on a makeshift green screen studio.
As usual, we started with an Indiegogo. Everyone in the cast and crew would be working for free, but Adam and I wanted to at least be able to offer them food and transportation.
We also need to get props and wardrobes that can pass as the 1940s. It was a period piece, and if our main character needed a flashlight, she couldn’t use the one on her phone.
So donating to the film, we offered whatever we could that would cost us any money. Things like having your name in the credits, digital screeners, and producer credits.
We were hoping to raise $500. We raised $915.
After Adam was finished painting his basement walls green, we called in as many favors as possible, utilizing help from our friends at Light Modifiers and Bus-Stop Productions.
Camrin Petramale, who D.P.’ed Amelia 2.0 for us, took a break from gigs that actually paid and drove up from Chicago to shoot our film.
“About the half-way point, it hits a mark where you’re just like ‘Well, did not see that coming!’“
Mark “The Movieman” Krawczyk, The Final Cut
We cast actors we knew could tell such a bizarre story in such a bizarre environment. Jessica Denney had starred in one of our previous shorts, Call Me Crazy. Angela Billman had starred in Amelia 2.0. Scott Humeston was a veteran of the Cedar Rapids theatre scene and originally appeared in The Summerland Project, the stage play on which Amelia 2.0 was based on.
Jessica Denney stars as “Meg Mahoney,” the last honest journalist in a city riddled with corruption.
Angela Billman co-stars as “Iron” Babs Kane, a tough-as-nails newspaper editor.
Scott Humeston plays Representative Andrew Tyler, a power-hungry politician.
The three-day shoot turned into four. Once principal photography wrapped, we began the tedious, time-consuming post-production process.
This is when it really sunk in what we had done to ourselves.
The visual effects team (that was mostly Adam) working only in their spare time, unpaid, it would take four years for the film to finally be completed.
Adam, because he can do just about anything, composed an original score for The Last Minute Till Midnight. But something was missing. It wasn’t quite sexy enough. We needed something rich. Something organic. Something that couldn’t be replicated by a computer.
More favors were called in, and we were able to find tenor sax player Andrey Floryanovic through the University of Northern Iowa Music Department. And it just so happened that Hawkeye Community College, where I was teaching at the time, has one of the best recording studios in the area.
by Pete Straley, Film Forums
And the world changed over those four years. A lot. Suddenly, a story about a politician with alleged allegiances to foreign entities seemed more relevant. A story about a corrupt politician who used fear and xenophobia to play off the worst impulses of an uneducated fanbase seemed more relevant. And we realized, if we tweaked the ending a little, what was at first just a bizarre noir would now have something to say.
In January 2022, a behind-the-scenes feature on the making of The Last Minute Till Midnight was aired on Iowa PBS as part of ‘The Film Lounge,’ an annual showcase of short films created by Iowa filmmakers.
The poster for The Last Minute Till Midnight was inspired by the posters for the great noirs of the ’40s and ’50s.
“All the awards that it’s received are very well deserved.”
Kevin Isaacson, Cinematic Heartland Podcast
Festival Screenings & Awards
- Snake Alley Festival of Film 2022 – Nominee (Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy), Nominee (Best Iowa Made Film)
- Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival 2022 – Winner (Silver Eddy | Professional Short Film)
- Interrobang Film Festival 2022
- FantaSci Short Film Festival 2021
- jellyFEST 2021 – Finalist (5th Season)
- Trapped Film Festival 2021 – Winner (Best Sci-Fi Short Length Film | Best Visual FX)
- Iowa Independent Film Festival 2020 – Winner (Critic’s Choice)
- Iowa Motion Picture Awards 2020
- Live Action Entertainment | Short Form – Winner (Award of Excellence)
- Direction | Short Form – Winner (Award of Excellence)
- Visual Effects | Post-production; Under $10,000 – Winner (Award of Achievement)
- Actress – Nominee (Jessica Denney)
Adam Orton and Beau Batterson at the 2022 Snake Alley Festival of Film in Burlington, IA.
For more updates on the film, check out The Last Minute Till Midnight on Facebook.