Interviews and video: Oklahoma filmmakers achieve sci-fi dream with acclaimed feature film debut 'The Vast of Night'

A version of this story appears in Friday's Weekend Life section of The Oklahoman.

Out-of-this-world adventure: Oklahoma filmmakers' critically acclaimed movie 'The Vast of Night' lands on Amazon

Imagine, if you will, a small town seemingly lost in time, just waiting for some curious souls to harness its cooperative spirit.

That's what the largely Oklahoma crew of "The Vast of Night" found beyond the Red River in Whitney, Texas, where they made their critically acclaimed independent feature.

"It was kind of already frozen in time, in a way, all ready for us," said Executive Producer Marcus Ross, a Minco native now based in Birmingham, Alabama. "The only way we were able to pull off what we did was just people cooperating and volunteering their houses and their time."

The debut feature film from Edmond director Andrew Patterson "The Vast of Night" premieres Friday on Amazon Prime Video after a stellar run on the festival circuit.

Penned by Oklahoma-based writers Craig W. Sanger and James Montague, the sci-fi mystery is set in 1957 in tiny Cayuga, New Mexico, where smart and curious telephone switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) and hip yet brainy radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) pinpoint a bizarre audio frequency interfering with both their jobs. The teenagers embark on a life-changing quest to uncover the cause of the strange sounds.

"It's super cool, especially because Andrew and I had been working together doing commercial stuff for so long with our goal to make a movie. We'd tried a couple of times over the years, and then we finally got one done," Ross said.

Longtime goal

Over the past decade, Patterson has taken on an array of commercial video work around Oklahoma, with Ross often helping out on his projects.

"Our whole goal was to eventually make movies, and we'd actually sat down and really tried to figure out how to make this movie just in Oklahoma one day using our own resources and asking people to be in it and shooting around Minco. But that was before it became like an actual production. That was just the plan and how I got involved," Ross said in a phone interview.

Since the film is set on the night of the first high school basketball game of the season, the first priority for Patterson, Ross and Executive Producer Caleb Henry was finding a small town with a vintage gymnasium. After scouting locations all over Oklahoma, Henry eventually found the perfect spot in Texas.

"The gym was perfect. I don't know when it was built, but it hadn't been touched. ... They had built a new high school and gym and everything in town, and it wasn't really being used," said Ross, who also worked as gimbal and camera operator on the film.

"I'd never been to Whitney - which Whitney is right by Hillsboro, Texas - and there were many days when Caleb and I ... would drive around and scout old houses that we thought would look good. Then, we'd just knock on people's doors and ask if we could come by at another time and tour the house and if they'd be interested in us shooting the film inside their house. Everybody was very cooperative. ... People were happy and excited for us to be there."

The school superintendent agreed to let the filmmakers repaint the basketball court to remove the three-point line - which wasn't introduced at the high school level until the 1980s - and the police department was happy to help out with the production.

"Then, we had an amazing art department that went through and painted signs and stuff to hang in front of the old store buildings and on the walls and hung lights up. Then, we just asked people that had old cars to bring them for the nights we needed them," Ross said.
"I think my sister went to every Goodwill store in the state of Texas trying to find wardrobe for everybody."

Period details

Costume designer and superviser Jamie Reed, Ross' sister, said she might not have made it to every thrift store in Texas, but she certainly made the rounds to all the Goodwills in Dallas, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.

"I had a very small budget. ... My mom and I, she went with me and did all the Goodwill shopping. We would just fill up the car with men's sports coats and dress pants. For women, we did a lot of the pencil skirts and cardigan sweaters, things like that," said Reed, who is based in Minco.

Although she researched '50s fashions for the film, Reed said she didn't watch classic films or television shows for inspiration.

"I went to yearbooks. I'm from a small town, and I knew this was set in a small town. So, my idea was to try to find 'what would people in a small town in New Mexico be wearing at this time?' They weren't going to be the latest trends and things like that. It seems like that's usually what most movies make (of) it, more kind of the poodle skirts and then cute little dresses for women. ... But it was important for me to kind of have it be very accurate for small-town life. So, that was my inspiration," she said.

For one scene, the production recruited about 400 extras, including a family that spent $500 renting gorgeous costumes that would be perfect for a TV sock hop. Reed made them change.

"I didn't want a single poodle skirt or Fonzie jacket in the film, and there isn't," she said.

She also praised the small-town cooperative spirit she found in Whitney.

"Most of the people lived in hotels around Hillsboro or Whitney, but there were a handful of us - Andrew and Marcus and I and a couple of others - that lived in a house with a family in Whitney for that time," she said.
"I felt like the experience was kind of like a very weird summer camp where I went and dressed a bunch of people in 1950s clothes. ... But it was a very creatively rewardig experience."

Critical acclaim

Despite its small budget, "The Vast of Night" has earned out-of-this-world acclaim, starting with winning the Audience Award for best narrative feature at last year's Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Amazon Studios announced at the Toronto Film Festival in September that it had acquired worldwide rights to the film. Montague and Sanger also earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best first screenplay for penning the period thriller.

"It's just been really cool seeing people really dig it. It's been fun doing all the different festivals and just seeing the response from the crowd," Ross said.

With most movie theaters closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Amazon made the inventive decision to preview "The Vast of Night" at drive-in theaters around the country earlier this month ahead of the film's streaming debut. Ross said he drove two hours to take advantage of the unique opportunity to see his movie at a packed drive-in.

"It's a throwback film, and you kind of got a little taste of that era," he said. "It's cool seeing that such a small, small group of people were able to pull off what we did. ... It's been a big, fun and fulfilling experience."

-BAM

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