It’s not often that a filmmaker gets to go back and finish a film for a second time. But that’s exactly what happened for critic turned director Chris Stuckmann on his debut feature, Shelby Oaks.
Produced by Austin-based Paper Street Pictures (Scare Package, Sorry About the Demon, Duncan aka The Pizzagate Massacre), the tale of a family plagued by evil originally debuted at the Fantasia film festival in July 2024 before being acquired by Neon.
However, they didn’t just stick it on the shelf. Instead, they gave Stuckmann the budget to reshoot several scenes and re-edit the movie. That new version screened in Austin at this year’s Fantastic Fest before getting a full theatrical release and now is available on VOD.
Stuckmann still recalls the moment that Shelby Oaks got its second life. “I was in the bath tub,” he said. “My phone was ringing, and it was [producer and Paper Street Pictures founder and CEO] Aaron Koontz, and he goes, ‘Ya know, someone from Neon likes this movie.’ ‘Ha-ha, very funny.’ ‘No, no, for real.’ And then there was this waiting period where I didn’t know for sure, and that was a torturous three weeks because everyone had to watch it over there and give their thumbs up. Luckily, they gave the thumbs up, and a production that was made for literally every cent we could find had a little extra help all of sudden, and things that were in my original script, we got to actually go back and do. I’d had a moment when I’d long abandoned that those things would ever come to fruition, and it’s a very sad thing to go, ‘This thing that I saw and I thought I was going to be able to do in this way, I have to say goodbye to it.’ I can’t even describe for people like Neon to come in and go, ‘We want to give you the chance to put that back.’ It’s really a privilege.”
However, the first-time filmmaker was already used to making his movie in an unconventional order. Shelby Oaks centers on Mia (Camille Sullivan), who is searching for her missing sister, Riley (Sarah Durn), who disappeared while making her online ghost hunting series, Paranormal Paranoids. Stuckmann actually filmed the footage for those episodes plus AMA sessions and behind-the-scenes footage, and then “leaked” them on YouTube as part of a viral marketing campaign for the film. Durn said, “It was such a ride, shooting in the woods, just me and Chris and the other actors.”
The marketing worked, as Shelby Oaks then went to set the Kickstarter fundraising record for an independent film, only to become part of the Oscar-winning Neon’s slate. “It’s just the little movie that could,” said Durn.
Austin Chronicle: So you have these multiple elements, shot over disconnected time. What was the shooting structure?
Chris Stuckmann: The first thing we shot was all of their YouTube channel. We did four episodes, then questions with fans, and [Durn] gave us some old home movie footage of her in high school, in a school play. Stuff that we could use that was in-world in some way.
Sarah Durn: Stuff I never imagined would be seen.
Chris Stuckmann: That high school play was good!
So we filmed them first and put them on YouTube without attaching our name to them, and let it kind of sit there for months and just be a weird thing. We were thinking, if we were lucky enough to make this movie, this stuff would already be out there on the internet and people can find it and be like, ‘Wait, are they real?’
My inspiration for that was the Cloverfield campaign from ’08 …
Austin Chronicle: I’m old enough to remember the original Blair Witch campaign.
Chris Stuckmann: I was in elementary school, but the Curse of the Blair Witch doc on the SyFy Channel, I watched that.
So we shot those first, and there’s a portion of the movie in which Mia finds a tape and plays it. We shot that tape next, so when we got to principal photography she can actually watch it on set and not react to a blue screen. And then, principal photography.
Austin Chronicle: The Curse of the Blair Witch is fascinating because all that footage started off in the film and they cut it out to emphasize the mockumentary content. Shelby Oaks is the reverse, because the found footage is so pivotal to the rest of the film, and integrated into it. Moreover, you don’t just present the found footage, you have the finding be part of the story.
Chris Stuckmann: It was really important to have something unique. Because I love found footage and I love mockumentaries – Lake Mungo and Noroi are two of my favorite films – but I felt there’s room to let audiences who are accustomed to the way these kind of stories go to have something to chew on. Break the rules a little bit and have all these different kinds of filmmaking, aspect ratio changes and things like that, and find a way to make it feel like it’s one film,
Because technically it’s nonlinear. This documentary that we’re watching at the beginning of the movie is edited and then when something happens we cut to when it wasn’t edited yet, but we’re still flowing chronologically with the events, and at the end of the film we’re catching up to the documentarian.
Austin Chronicle: Shelby Oaks is a film about stories. It’s stories within stories within stories, and when you’re sent a script like this blind, what’s your response?
Camille Sullivan: Well, I was sent not just the script but the Paranormal Paranoids, so I was able to get a pretty good picture of what the movie is. And then we had a meeting and chatted about it, and I just thought it was such a cool journey to go on.
Sarah Durn: When I was signing on, I didn’t know what the project was.
Chris Stuckmann: We kept it really insular.
Sarah Durn: I think the breakdown said something about Kickstarter materials, and I’m like, ‘You know what? Sure.’ But even from the first callback – it was Chris, Aaron, and [producer and Paper Street Director of Development] Cameron Burns – and we were all on this Zoom call because it was COVID time, 2020, when I was brought on. Chris had very clearly Googled me, and done some research on my other work, and asked me about some of the writing I had done, and that is just not something that usually happens with actors. It speaks so much to what Chris is willing to invest in his cast and his crew as people and see you not just for what you can bring to a project but see you as a complete person.
Austin Chronicle: I talked with Aaron Koontz, and he said that you cast Camille in no small part because of her performance in Hunter Hunter.
Chris Stuckmann: It was recommended to me by a lot of folks and instantly I was like, ‘Who is that?’ Because I’m a fan of Devon Sawa, and that’s why I watched it initially. I’m a fan of Final Destination, and he did this Canadian TV movie in the Nineties called Night of the Twisters that I liked when I was a kid. He did all those great child performances in Casper and Wild America.
Austin Chronicle: Idle Hands.
Chris Stuckmann: Idle fucking Hands! I love that movie. I love Offspring’s cover of “I Wanna Be Sedated.” But I was like, ‘Who is this person?’ This actress blew me away, and we didn’t even audition her. We just sent her the script and luckily she liked it.
Austin Chronicle: So what was it like when this film you’d finished is now back in production again?
Camille Sullivan: Luckily, I keep all my old scripts. So I pulled it out, and it was pretty beat up. I think I’d lost the last couple of pages. So I looked back at all my old notes, because I take a copious amounts of notes. I also use music in my preparation, so I go back to the music and I go back to the notes, and go, ‘Where am I at, and what should be different, if anything?’
Sarah Durn: With the reshoots, when Neon came on, it was so surreal. I have this thing that I constantly second guess that the good thing isn’t going to happen, and I’m like, ‘Anora Neon? That seems weird. Even now, I’m in the process of absorbing every new experience that comes with this film.
For the reshoots, we were hopping around so much in the scripts. I remember going to Camille and going, ‘Do you know what’s going on?’ But we just put a lot of faith in Chris, because we were hopping from an early moment to a late moment. The very last thing I shot in the film is a recreation of my reaction to seeing my breath in the prison, which was one of the first things we shot in 2020. It was me and all the Paranormal Paranoids, and we hadn’t seen each other for four years at that point, and we were all back together recreating the scene exactly. That is just such a lovely bookend to the filmmaking journey I took on this, for one of the first things I shot to be one of the last things I shot. It’s bizarre and lovely and poetic.
Austin Chronicle: Camille. You said you use music in your prep. What was the playlist for Mia?
Camille Sullivan: I can’t tell you what it was because it’s weird. It’s not traditional. I don’t use music, like, sad for sad, I just sort of listen to a bunch of stuff and when something feels right I keep with that and just let it play in the background. I won’t tell you what I used for this specifically, but I like a lot of Nick Cave, a lot of Tom Waits, in that direction.
Austin Chronicle: Favorite Tom Waits’ album?
Camille Sullivan: Alice. Although the playlist for this film was a real leftfielder.
Chris Stuckmann: Backstreet Boys.
Camille Sullivan: Backstreet’s back. Alright!
But I find it useful on set because I don’t like to use emotional memory. So if I have a song that reminds me of something I’ve prepared, then I can just go to nothing and start from there.
Chris Stuckmann: I do the same thing when I write. I listen to movie scores. I have a playlist, and it helps me with writer’s block, because I’ll listen to a soundtrack that is of the tone of the scene I’m trying to get through, and it helps me stay in this mindspace.
Austin Chronicle: Any particular scores on this one?
Chris Stuckmann: Oh, yeah – The Sixth Sense, Doctor Sleep, The Mothman Prophecies, The Empty Man.
Shelby Oaks is available on VOD now.