Horror/Suspense
Runtime: 7:10
Released: 2/29/20
Starring: Paul Fuica & Jake Rodriguez
Jake?
Two friends look forward to a week of partying and having fun but instead find themselves in the midst of a biological weapon attack.
Bitten is the first project we made completely under Ducklatch Productions. The idea came about after a very long few months of brainstorming. Way back in late 2018, we wanted to make something we could submit to the local Greater Lehigh Valley Filmmaker Festival, after a few ideas fell apart, Bitten was born. Production was started in April of 2019 and wrapped in September,
I can’t sugarcoat and say that the production of Bitten was easy. Complications with the set and scheduling issues (we had 4-5 days spread in between 2 months for close to 4-5 hours at a time) delayed production and dragged it out much longer than it should have. Post production and editing suffered too due to loss of morale. Listen, when I say production was brutal, it was BRUTAL. We also barely had any equipment and no budget. We had a camera and a stabilizer. No mics, no lighting.
But Rome wasn’t built in a day and pressure makes diamonds or whatever those quotes are and in all honesty, I’m so incredibly proud with how this turned out. While production didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped, I still had a lot of fun with it.
Bitten played a massive part in getting me to go back to college. For that reason I have a very personal connection to it. Reworking it and finally turning it into something to be proud of also had a pretty big impact on me, so Bitten really means a lot. It is in many ways one of the biggest hurdles I’ve come across and honestly took me out of the game for a little bit, but now I see it’s release as the start of my professional career.
-Nick
After Nick pitched the idea to me and Alec, we were already in phase one. Bitten is a very simple concept that with hard work we were somehow able to pull off. I think we did at least. When we took on the idea, we agreed it would only take about 3 days to shoot, if only that was correct.
Bitten took at least 2 months to complete filming. 4 days of being on the set from 8 am to 1 pm. Our plan was to have it done during that time but that was not the case. From people being late, to someone vacuuming in between takes, it was a stressful time. however, we made it happen.
From re writing and directing one of the scenes, to operating the camera, bitten was very much a collaborative effort. With nick at the forefront, we were able to turn a simple idea into a piece of art.
-Ben
As our first project together as Ducklatch I couldn’t be happier to work with the two wonderful lads that Ben and Nick are. This movie tested a lot, and as a test run I think we did very well. We learned a lot while working on this. We learned how to work together effectively and I think that was the most important lesson of them all. We all butt heads, but we’re so similar so it’d only make sense I suppose.
As miserable as I was most days to be waking up at a reasonable time that any other human being would be up I couldn’t help but be able to joke around with everyone and just be happy to be around all the great people that worked on this. I couldn’t ask for better friends to be working together with. No one else may be as happy as we are to be able sit down and watch what we’ve made, but we’ll be happy just because we did it.
Use what you have, if you think about what you need to make something that’s time that you can be using to actually make it.
-Alec
Alternate Version: Bitten v1
So, Bitten was supposed to be “one take”. I wanted it to be filmed in such a way that it could be edited together to look like one shot. While it obviously ended up differently, here’s how that was going to look. We ultimately decided against it because its not practical at all for them to be talking to each other that far away, but I still think it would’ve looked cool, so here it is!