Wealth, power, privilege—the Pascal family has it all. They seem the

ideal nuclear family. Father Reg (Reg Land) works for a major defense

contractor doing terrific business in Iraq and Afghanistan. Daughter

Marianne (Marianne Porter) is a college track star recuperating from

an injury. Meanwhile, mother Becky (Carolyn McCormick) maintains

their well-appointed home with a smile. All is perfectly ordinary and

perfectly average.

That is until the day when Reg’s business partner is found dead, the

victim of what appears to be an armed robbery gone terribly wrong.

Soon after, Marianne comes home for a weekend visit, leaves for an

evening run, and mysteriously disappears. Rocked by these blows, Reg

and Becky withdraw from society to recover—their perfect lives shat-

tered.

A year passes. Reg and Becky have accepted the worst; they have lost

all hope of ever seeing their daughter again. Then, one cold October

night, Marianne stumbles awkwardly home through her family’s yard,

covered in dirt and bruises. She has no recollection of where she’s been

or what transpired during her absence. However, questions are quickly

forgotten as Reg and Becky attempt to reintegrate their shell-shocked

daughter into normal life.

It isn’t long before it’s clear something’s not right with Marianne—

she’s withdrawn, experiences violent visions, and senses malicious

presences. Reg seems to be coming unglued as well. He starts drinking

heavily as Becky struggles to put her family back on course. Mari-

anne soon discovers her absence is inextricably linked to her father’s

business dealings and that her very presence threatens to expose the

secrets and fragile lies by which her family has lived. The world the

Pascals have built starts to unravel as Marianne begins to realize that

somewhere between life and death lies the truth.

A gripping combination of family drama and supernatural thriller, TRUE

NATURE pays homage to the edgy fare of Polanski, Kubrick, and other

American filmmakers of the 1970s. This chilling tale of the American

Dream gone awry examines the destructive power of guilt and the de-

sire for redemption in a modern-day family that has been blessed with

every advantage, but pays a heavy price for its comfort.

Every filmmaker searches for the one idea with which he or she can

fall in love and, with the help of fate and dumb luck, bring to fruition.

I’d spent well over a year penning treatments for a handful of original,

feature-length scripts that ultimately went nowhere. It had been a

couple of years since I had finished my last short film and I was itching

to do something bigger, something worthwhile. My producer, Ann

Rotolante, and I strongly felt we were capable of making an excellent

independent feature. We had everything ready . . . except a viable idea.

One night in April 2004, Ann and I discussed our options over dinner.

In weariness and irritation, I blurted out, “You know what I really want

to do? I want to write some shit-box horror film about a dead girl who

comes back for revenge. It’ll be fun to watch and have something to

say as well. We’ll make it on the weekends for no money in Super-16 or

something and just get it out there, see what happens.”

Ann spread a little butter on a piece of bread and simply said, “So write

it.” That was the beginning of TRUE NATURE. Without consciously

intending to do so, I let the genie out of the bottle and fell in love like

lightning. I knew I could make an entertaining film, but I felt it also

had to work on another level; it had to be relevant to the times in

which we live. Countless filmmakers have launched careers by making

low-budget horror films, but the best ones are still relevant, offering

commentary on society and cultural mores. David Cronenberg’s Rabid

and Shivers, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Martin,

and Bob Clark’s Deathdream come to mind immediately. We aspired

to make our film as powerful and pertinent to the 2010’s as those

films were to the 1970’s. You don’t get much more “E.C. Comics” than

a murdered girl getting out of the ground to exact revenge on those

who killed her, but how to make it relevant? Actually, it was easy to

imbue this lowbrow, comic-book concept with subtext: all I had to do

was look around. Strange, horrific things happen in TRUE NATURE, but

they are firmly rooted in the greed, materialism, and callous lust for

money and power rampant in a country wracked simultaneously with

mounting debt, unemployment, and war. I wanted to comment on how

the drive for success and material gain blind us to the things in life that

really matter, and how we awkwardly carry the burden of guilt for our

actions as we yearn for absolution.

It is a cautionary tale for our times. The American Dream is a great

notion, but what price is one willing to really pay to attain it?

- Patrick Steele

“Connor” & “Ripley”Despite the advent of HD technology, TRUE NATURE was originally slated to be shot on film. It was awarded a Panaflex Gold II 35mm camera package for production through the Panavision New Film-maker grant. Director Patrick Steele had spent most of his profes-sional career in digital and photochemical post-production facilities and knew that, while there were some advantages to shooting in the HD format, there were technical and aesthetic issues to be considered as well. The 35mm film format, while expensive and cumbersome, was very familiar to the camera crew, captured a higher resolution image than HD, and—most importantly—was “future proof.”

Yet Steele and his cinematographer, Marco Fargnoli, were keenly aware that an affordable, flexible acquisition technology that could deliver a “film look” at a resolution close to 35mm and be robust enough to withstand the rigors of a short, frantic filming schedule was right around the corner. Just before production ramped up, the first RED One cameras from RED Digital Cinema began filtering out into the world.

“I happened to be on the RED User online forum and saw that a com-pany in Orange County had begun renting their cameras,” said Steele. “After talking with them regarding availability, I called Marco and asked if he’d like to shoot TRUE NATURE on the RED One. He replied ‘Dude, yeah!’”

Marco and his co-cinematographer, Evan Nesbitt, began a rigorous testing process to ensure the RED One could deliver the look they wanted for the film, and that it could perform in the cool, wet exteriors of an Ohio autumn. Once the decision was made to go with the RED One, the TRUE NATURE camera crew went into “beta testing” mode, wrestling with early firmware which were updated every couple of days, camera bodies with no sound input enabled, and electronics that were not final production runs. Despite this tense situation, the RED One performed quite well, with only a minimum of downtime and little of the corrupted footage that seemed to plague other projects.

The majority of TRUE NATURE was shot on “Connor” and “Ripley,” the fifteenth and sixteenth cameras to roll off of the RED assembly line less than two months prior to the start of filming. It was one of the first feature films, studio or independent, to be shot using the RED One. Neill Blomkamps’s District 9, Steven Soderbergh’s Che, and Lars von Trier’s Anti-Christ are but a few of the films who have since used RED One cameras exclusively for filming.

“This house is phenomenal.”The majority of the 30-day shoot took place at the Hook Estate, a 1931 Tudor Revival mansion on the National Register of Historic Places that also happens to be the family home of co-producer Beth Duke. The 26-room, 13,800-sq. ft. home was commissioned by the president of Standard Register and designed by architect Ellason Smith. After the last of the original family died in the 1970s, the mansion fell into gov-ernment hands and was briefly repurposed to house county offices, but before long fell vacant. “It was totally boarded up,” Duke recalled of her first venture inside the estate. “There was no electricity, no AC, no plumbing — it had all frozen and broken. And there were 256 broken windows. It had been badly vandalized.”

The city of Dayton conveyed the house to the Dukes in 1999 for $1 on the promise that they would complete renovations within eight months to be the centerpiece of a showcase of rehabbed historic structures. They lovingly restored the original woodwork, plaster and fixtures—updating and modernizing only the kitchen—in time to meet that deadline and moved their family in soon after. The Duke family views the Hook Estate as more than just their home; it is also the ideal place for the community-at-large to gather. The mansion has played host to a variety of social events, arts presentations, cultural exchang-es, and political fundraisers.

“It’s just a wonderful house,” Duke said of her home. “Every morning we’re thrilled to be here.”

Originally Steele visualized the Pascal family living in a soulless, sub-urban “McMansion,” with Becky spending Reg’s salary quicker than he could ruthlessly climb the corporate ladder. The opportunity to film at the Hook Estate changed that part of the script.

“Beth offered us her home as a possible location for the Pascal house,” recalled producer Ann Rotolante. “Pat and I drove over right away to see it, and found this beautiful mansion that was right out of one of Grimm’s fairy tales. Pat’s imagination was ignited, and suddenly the Pascal family dynamic shifted to something far more intriguing.” The shift of locale also allowed the Pascal home to become an important character in TRUE NATURE its own right. With its pattern of undulating roof slates and leaded windows with rippling diamond-shaped panes, the Hook Estate already felt like it was a living, breath-ing beast. Over the course of the film, this charming, well-appointed home transforms into a chilly and unwelcoming environment that literally becomes sick once Marianne returns home. The house holds a monstrous secret, and when it can’t contain this secret any longer, the house reacts in a very real, organic way.

The Hook Estate is large enough that Beth, her husband Mike, and their family could live there even while filming was taking place. The Dukes were gracious throughout as their sleep patterns were disrupt-ed from early morning and late night shoots and the home underwent modification—rooms were repainted and redecorated to accommo-date the film’s color palette, a stain was painted above the entryway, and a large crack was cut into the living room’s plaster ceiling.

“You can’t buy a set like this,” said actor Reg Land, who portrays the father, Reg. “This house is phenomenal.” Team OhioAbout halfway through TRUE NATURE, there is a warm, touching scene which takes place at night in a deserted parking lot between Marianne and her friend Stephen in his car. Inside, they are the only two people in the world; it’s quiet, intimate, safe. Outside however, it was a different story. Twenty crew members, buffeted by 40 m.p.h. winds that put the windchill in the teens, and a truckload of equip-ment surrounded the car in the flat, open lot at 3 a.m . . . in November . . . in Ohio.

For Steele and Rotolante, an important component of making TRUE NATURE was to film it in their adopted hometown of Dayton, Ohio. They wanted to use the film to showcase the talent that can be found in the Midwest. Actors based in Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois played nearly every role in the film. Additionally, every crew position was filled by working professionals who either originated from or currently live in Ohio. Many of the crew also attended Wright State University in Day-ton, where Steele and Rotolante graduated from the motion picture

production program. Even the original score and the radio music heard in the background of many scenes came from Ohio-based bands and musicians.

“Indigenous, grassroots filmmaking is very important to us and we feel that’s where the true voices of independent cinema will ultimately originate,” Steele explained. “those of us choosing to work out here in ‘flyover country’ aren’t scrambling to gain favor with studio heads or TV execs, nor are we forced into homogenizing our vision just so we can find work. It’s all about telling the story that needs to be told. We’re able to explore the world, experiment and create—via our own unique sensibility and voices—new film experiences, and do so in a much more economical fashion. Even our more commercial fare has special perspectives or themes not commonly found in the more formalized, structured narrative or documentary industries.”

Ohio is very fortunate to have an incredible amount of media work taking place. With that, comes a wellspring of talent, well versed not only in narrative film, but also music videos, commercials and documentaries. Many are not simply “crew;” rather, they are inno-vative creators of their own media who are eager to do something interesting, to elevate the medium. Perhaps that’s why scores of Ohio residents have received honors for their documentaries and shorts at major film festivals, including Sundance, earned Academy Award nominations, and also won a Primetime Emmy Award.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the community played an important role in making TRUE NATURE. Dayton has been hit particularly hard by the recent economic downturn, losing its last Fortune 500 com-pany as well as its General Motors plant. Yet there’s little of the jaded cynicism found elsewhere present here. People have a pragmatic “can do” sense of self, and everyone loves an underdog.

“When we announced our intentions to make the film ‘in our own backyards’, we were shocked at just how much goodwill and support came our way,” said Steele. “People wanted to be a part of something larger, something intriguing, something exciting. And we felt the need to be good neighbors. A large chunk of the budget was spent locally. Lumber, paint, hotel rooms, meals—every bit of it was provided by people or vendors down the street, having a direct impact on the com-munity we call home.”

“Many people have asked us, “Why Dayton, Ohio?” Steele continued. “Our answer is, ‘Why not?’ We’re ardent believers of independent cinema in the truest sense, meaning you can produce a film anywhere you live, be it Wheeling, West Virginia, Des Moines, Iowa or even Dayton, Ohio. You don’t need to live in L.A. or London or Tokyo to be a world-class filmmaker.”