Attention is a prickly beast. It’s something people crave but once they attain it, the cost can be deadly. That’s the central thesis to Nathan Ginter’s darkly comedic body horror short The Third Ear, which sees a life model psychologically spiral after he finds that an additional ear has sprouted on the back of his head. The tension throughout Ginter’s short is palpable and that’s down to the unnerving atmosphere he’s able to create through image and sound. The frames are darkly lit with uneasy colours and the sonic palette boasts creepy whispers and an ethereal score, it’s an electric short and the fact that Ginter made this as his graduate film at Pratt Institute has put him on our radar as one to watch for the future. After having the pleasure of premiering his previous short Last Seen, DN is delighted to Premiere The Third Ear online in conjunction with a conversation with Ginter where he takes us inside the last minute challenges he faced during production and the cautious crafting that went into the film’s eclectic score.
You made The Third Ear whilst studying at Pratt Institute, how did it initially come together there?
The Third Ear was my college thesis film at Pratt Institute, so I wanted to do something that would utilize and make the most of the spaces and resources around me. In our first year, we had figure drawing classes, and I was interested in the various reasons one might be drawn to modelling. The idea of putting a character who you might not expect in that position, mixed with my love of body horror, clicked as a way to tangibly explore the push and pull between the desire of wanting to be seen and the fear of what comes with that.
How do you prepare for a film like this, which feels so carefully constructed in its tension and delivery?
In pre-production, I cut together a rough animatic of the film with storyboards to map out the pace of the short, trajectory of the sound, and to be efficient about what exactly needed to be in each frame. Before our main shoot, we also shot scenes from The Offspring, the B horror movie within the movie. We filmed those sequences the summer before while home in Michigan, where my Cinematographer Shane Bagwell and I are both originally from, using a Sony A7sii, some flashlights, corn syrup, and a cheap Halloween mask. We then transferred that footage onto a VHS tape to give it the look we wanted and be able to play it on set.
A lot of the locations were conceived around spaces that we could get access to or could serve multiple purposes.
Student productions can often throw up a whole host of problems. Did you encounter anything particularly challenging while making this short?
Due to a scheduling conflict, we lost our lead about a week before filming, and so Devin Burnam, who plays the protagonist, really saved us because he stepped in last minute and was down to shave his head and be flexible with our scrappy shoot. The main apartment location also fell through two days before the shoot because of a gas leak, so we reworked my bedroom the night before by painting the room and adding a fake peephole, lock, and door handle to give the illusion of an outside door and squeeze everything into one space. Filming took place over two different weekends about a month apart due to location availability. We tried to keep everything as stripped down as possible, so the crew fluctuated a ton depending on what we needed for each scene.
Most Popular
It sounds like you had to be pretty adaptable when it came to production.
A lot of the locations were conceived around spaces that we could get access to or could serve multiple purposes. The elevator, for instance, was actually just wallpapered poster board and spray paint, which allowed us to reutilise extras and shoot it near another setting without moving locations. To fill the empty gallery and create something that worked with the film thematically, Aidan Flynn, my production designer, and I created the monolithic statues out of chicken wire and paper mache. Those statues lived in our apartment for a while after the shoot, and one ended up being the centre of a companion piece one of those days, that I shot on Super 8 for a film class.
The Third Ear has a dark, unnerving tone, did you use any specific kit to capture that?
We shot the film on an Arri Alexa Mini, almost entirely on a Cooke 25-250mm T3.9 Varotal II Zoom for speed and versatility, as well as knowing we wanted those long zooms in the film.
I have to ask about the ear. Who created it? And how did you find the managing of it during and after the shoot?
The ear was a prosthetic created by Beatrice Sniper, which we shot inserts of that could cut into scenes on the days that we couldn’t afford to have a prosthetic on set. Then, in post, Shea Oracheski did a great job with some minor cleanup and adding an ear hole for the few moments we saw into the ear.
Sound plays a prominent role in terms of creating that unsettling tone that permeates throughout the film, with those whispering voices that creep in, as well as the score. How was it bringing those parts of the film into the fold?
Rubí J. Pérez, the film’s sound designer, worked with me to hone in on the tone of the voices, making sure they could be unnerving and escalate without sounding overtly sinister and finding the rhythm between noise and silence throughout the short. I also wanted an eclectic spread of music that could punctuate the different sides of Sammy’s life and have their own development throughout the film. To achieve that, The Third Ear has a score and a B movie soundtrack from Evan O’Brien for Sammy’s home life, original compositions from Rob Wagner for the modelling scenes, and jazz tracks from Christian X. M. McGhee for the gallery scenes.
I wanted an eclectic spread of music that could punctuate the different sides of Sammy’s life and have their own development throughout the film.
You mentioned making the most of the resources you had around you at Pratt Institute, was that mainly the equipment on offer or the tutoring/filmmaking advice too?
I tried to tailor the film to the locations and gear that I could get access to and make something that I wouldn’t be able to after graduating. The classroom, gallery, gallery bathroom, and street scenes were all on campus, and I knew I could incorporate the VHS elements through the school’s facilities and equipment. They gave me a lot of freedom to create the film that I wanted to, and my thesis advisor, Matías Piñeiro, was incredibly supportive and encouraging throughout the whole project.
How close was the final film to your initial animatic? Is that a way of working you foresee using again?
The final film came extremely close to the animatic. It mainly diverged where locations changed, and we had to figure out alternative ways of blocking or shooting to make them work with the script. I’m currently finishing a new short film designed to be much looser, so I didn’t create an animatic for that, but in the future, if it fits the project, I would love to create an animatic again. It gave a lot of insight to be able to watch and show a blueprint of the film before starting production.
Now that you’ve graduated, how’s the next stage of your filmmaking shaping up?
I recently moved to LA, so I’ve been settling in and working on writing and editing gigs as I wrap up post-production on a new short film and continue to write my own feature scripts.
