Kevin Conover, a senior cinema and photography major at Ithaca College, embarked on the filming of an especially bloody scene for his senior film thesis titled “What Simon Said.” Numerous fake, blood-covered props were discarded in dumpsters across Ithaca, which resulted in New York State police troopers inspecting the disposed materials.
The subject and plot of senior thesis films are left completely up to the students’ own creative abilities. The film department works with students to navigate relationships with safety and security both on and off campus.
Rob Gearhart, associate dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications, said the college has an online film set safety course available to many incoming majors in Park to take before school starts. He said the school expects professors to continue enforcing the safety tools taught in the online course in their own classes.
Senior Ryan Williams-Abrams, a cinema and photography major at the college, said he had never been given direct instruction on how to go about communicating their film set safety protocols with the college for his own senior thesis titled “Greetings From America.” He said he knew there were risk management forms on the Park website and went to Gearhart for guidance on any safety concerns.
“I think [safety is] something that can be discussed a lot more in classes, so that students can protect themselves in their productions,” Williams-Abrams said.
Conover’s film details the experience of a student who accidentally goes on a psychedelic trip and discovers that he does not know what he wants to do with his life anymore. For one of the scenes, 21 gallons of fake blood was used to plaster the walls of a hand-built set.
The set was built inside of a downtown studio in Ithaca that’s owned by Park Productions, which Conover and his crew reserved from Oct. 16–20.
“It was like 19.2 humans worth of blood we were using,” Conover said. “We were supposed to do it on Saturday, but the studio technically did not know that we were filming with blood, so that was really fun.”
The studio had them fill out a safety agreement which had said no liquids, according to Ben Young, a senior Writing for Film, TV, and Emerging Media major who worked with Conover to write the film.
Williams-Abrams said safety plans are an important cautionary protection for the crew, cast and the location itself.
“Because we are often in public spaces, and we’re putting people potentially in harm’s way if they don’t know what’s going on, we, as independent productions, have to create a safety plan,” Williams-Abrams said.
Conover said that he was producing this film but that he was not a producer. He said he did not really have a safety plan, so he decided not to mention the fake blood.
“So they kept asking me for [the safety plan],” Conover said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know. I’m just not shooting with blood.’ … It’s better to ask for forgiveness, right?”
The real issues began to arise when Conover and his crew realized they had to clean up the fake-blood covered studio in four hours before their reserved time was up.
“We have four walls that are eight feet tall, 12 feet wide, [we’re] smashing them down, breaking [them] up, throwing them into [a] pickup truck,” Conover said. “And this is where the problem started happening, because we have all this junk, and it’s all bloody and trash. So where do we put it all?”
The first load of fake blood-soaked trash went to the dumpster at Emerson Suites, the second went to two dumpsters in Center Ithaca and the third went to Conover’s dumpster at his apartment off campus.
Usually, potential location hazards and their safety plans would be covered and addressed in the approval process. Gearhart said a student will first submit their film location proposal to their instructor, who must approve it. Then it will move onto the dean’s office, where Gearhart will approve or not approve it and decide if the Office of Risk Management or Office of Public Safety need to be involved.
“I don’t think I understood from the request about Kevin that they were going to be doing this level of blood and gore,” Gearhart said. “We might have given them some guidance. We wouldn’t necessarily say no, but we might give them some conditions, like, you can’t just like, pour blood all over the place and then leave it scattered all over.”
Senior Jonah Alefantis is a cinema and photography major, and was in charge of making the fake blood. He said that prior to this film, he had only made one gallon in a single sitting.
“This was going to be extremely difficult, but I was very excited for the challenge,” Alefantis wrote via text. “I needed to mix the materials in a trash can with a drill and a bent clothing hanger.”
The fake blood was made with corn syrup, cocoa powder, red food coloring and blue food coloring. Young said they had made sure the mixture was edible.
Fake blood is not the only thing that film students have to be aware of when it comes to being safe. Williams-Abrams said his own thesis film involved the topic of school shootings. Williams-Abrams made sure to thoroughly cover his bases when using a prop gun on set and had a positive experience working with the Ithaca Police Department.
“And so we had to, obviously, alert the police to make sure that they were aware of what was going on,” Williams-Abrams said. “We met with them to discuss their safety plan. … Just that one little step can save you a lot of headache in the long run. Usually they’re going to be pretty adaptable. … They encourage you to take on these creative risks, but they also want to make sure that you’re doing it safely and professionally.”
Senior Justin Walsh, a cinema and photography major, who built the set for the film, is roommates with Conover and said he was home when a police officer showed up and inspected a giant rug covered in bees and fake blood poking out of their dumpster. The fake blood was mainly corn syrup, which attracted the bees.
Walsh was informed by the officer that the police had become concerned because of reports of each of the four dumpsters across Ithaca with their discarded set pieces. Walsh said the police asked about the bees because some bees are carnivorous.
Walsh said the officer said the next time they needed to be safer about it and to call them beforehand to let them know. The Ithacan requested information from the New York State Police about the reports. but was unable to receive further information before publication. Trooper Ava Tinker said via email that the Tompkins County 911 Center received a call with concerns about a bloody carpet, which later turned out to be a prop, in a dumpster at Birdseye View Drive in the town of Ithaca on Oct. 22. The trooper did some neighborhood interviews and learned that the liquid was not real blood.
“Corn syrup, cocoa and food dye also have a complete different consistency than blood in real life,” said Tinker. “On camera, it might look similar but not in real life.”
Cathy Crane, professor in the Department of Media Arts, Sciences and Studies, is Conover’s instructor and worked with him and his crew throughout the planning process.
“I would say that he successfully prepared and in the case of the more visceral scene staged in our downtown studio, he left the location cleaner than when he arrived,” Crane wrote via email.
Senior Byrne Mazella, a film, photography and visual arts major, said that some things may not go as expected. Mazella was the producer for Williams-Abrams senior thesis and said they had an issue with a fake removable magazine for their prop gun.
“The lovely Lieutenant that was kind of overseeing our gun safety, had to take me aside and go, ‘Hey, those magazines are illegal in the state of New York,’” Mazella said.
Mazella said the lieutenant did not arrest anyone, but held onto the fake magazines until they were returned to the place they were rented from in Virginia.
Location choice, as well as props in movies, are a serious consideration for filmmakers, and serve an important role in world building. The conversations about security that come with each decided location and usage of resources are vital in sustaining creativity in the field.
“Locations are everything for your film. I mean it builds your world and it gives you kind of the sense of grounding,” Williams-Abrams said.
Despite the police questioning and the post-production conversation with Park Productions, Conover, Young and Walsh were excited to relay their story and the thrill that came with making their vision happen. All senior thesis films will be screened Dec. 7 at the State Theater with free entry.
Mazella said that pursuing challenging locations can be worth it for the end result.
“Make weird films and take risks, because they pay off so much more than you think they do,” Mazella said. “Everyone loves a weird movie … and shoot it in a weird place and find a rundown shack in a town three miles away because it’s the most fun that you’ll have as an artist, as a student, probably OPS will have fun figuring out how to make it safe, too.”
