BY KAREN BOSSICK
Who knew cardboard could be so fun!?
Bill Watterson got an idea to turn 30,000 square feet of cardboard into a maze that just keeps going. And it turned out to be the basis for one of the most creative, wildly inventive films in the just-ended 2017 Sun Valley Film Festival.
The DIY film has all the earmarks of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”—without the expense of building those elaborate sets.
“In fact, the entire film was shot for significantly less than a million dollars,” said Watterson, which earned it a One in a Million Award given to feature-length stories made for less than a million dollars.
Watterson is an actor by trade. But, he said, actors can make a lot of money in a couple days of acting, then sit around for four to five months awaiting their next gig.
It was during one of those downtimes that Watterson took a couple film classes and decided to try out his newly learned skills on a venture reminiscent of a child turning a refrigerator box into a castle.
The story revolves around a man who builds a fortress-like maze in his living room using cardboard, tape and glue. His girlfriend Annie returns to find the cardboard fortress but no sign of Dave.
In fact, he’s been lost inside for three days, trapped by the ever-growing complexity of his creation. Annie calls on his friends to form a rescue party, ignoring his warnings about the booby traps he’s built. And they soon find themselves wandering through an origami room and a piano room, even as they attempt to dodge a phalanx of cardboard spears, a cardboard guillotine and a Minotaur that Dave’s created.
“The idea is being lost in one room where you don’t know what’s around the corner or under the floor,” said Watterson. “Someone knew a member of the Cardboard Institute of Technology and it just kept getting bigger and bigger.”
In fact, the cast and crew were so enthralled by the “weird idea,” Watterson said, that everyone wanted to work on the project even though the pay rates were “horrible.”
The film was filmed in a building the size of two trailers. Consequently, the crew had to tear down and construct a new room, even as one room was being filmed.
“We were constantly constructing what we were about to shoot,” said Watterson. “Very few parts of it were standing for more than 24 hours, which was both awesome and heartbreaking. Fortunately, we had an art director with a theater background who knew how to repurpose walls.”
The film will tour a number of film festivals, including one in Chattanooga, Tenn., where they’re planning to build a cardboard maze to usher theatergoers into the theater where it will be shown. Watterson then hopes to distribute the film in theaters in the United States and Canada.
You can catch it on Saturday, March 25, if you happen to be in Boise for Treefort Music Fest. Wood River Valley native Jordan Hawkes, who is in charge of that event’s Filmfort 2017 has scheduled “Dave Made a Maze” for 3 p.m. Saturday.
Also showing: A number of other films that have been shown at the Sun Valley Film Festival, including Reed Lindsay’s “Charlie vs. Goliath” and Jaffe Zinn’s “Magic Valley.” Also appearing: “The Ataxian,” a documentary looking at a rare neuromuscular disease that was financed by a couple of Wood River Valley residents.