WARRIOR : PREDATOR (a fan film by Chris .R. Notarile)
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A 16th century Native American warrior is forced to fight for her life against sister Predators. Will this fierce warrior survive? Or will she become another trophy for the deadly hunters?
A WORD FROM CHRIS
***Before anyone complains, know that this short film was made on a budget of less than $500.00. The costumes are made of fabric, not latex. If I had the money to afford more legit looking costumes, I would've. But I didn't, so I had to play the hand I was dealt. If you can't get past the costume quality, then just click off. Nobody's forcing you to watch this. But if you don't mind seeing a seam line here and there, and just wanna have fun, then by all means, kick back and enjoy!***
For a few years now, I've had this idea about an Indigenous warrior taking on a Predator, but more specifically, have the entire short have ZERO dialog. I originally attempted to make the short a few years back, but it was a non-starter. So I just shelved the idea and put it on the back burner.
Flash forward to 2019- my most productive year to date, and I decided to give it another go. I caught the animated series PRIMAL, and it was amazing. They managed to pull off a five episode series with absolutely no dialog. The exact thing I wanted to do! I pretty much had no excuse after that. So I sat down and (again) tried to figure out how to make my Predator short.
At first, I was going to have a male Predator vs a male warrior, but we've already seen that....... like a lot! So I immediately threw that idea out, and since most of my films are female-centric, I decided to stick with that angle. My first draft for the script had a female warrior taking on a male Predator, accompanied with the task of finding a good Predator costume. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to make one myself. I wouldn't know where to start. So I did only sensible thing I could think of, I hit up social media and began the arduous task of looking for professional cosplayers with legit costumes.
I stumbled upon a few good Predators, but truth be told, none of them were the right fit (personality-wise). And then it hit me, what do all the Predator movies have in common? All the main characters are male. The heroes and the Predators. And since I was already doing a female lead story, why the hell not go the distance and have a female Predator? No, TWO female Predators!
Enter Courtney Leigh, of CLeigh Creations! I found her on Instagram. After a few emails, I managed to convince her to play Fury. Unfortunately, I was unable to find another cosplayer who was available to play Pride, so I bit the bullet and started a GoFundMe to make the costume myself. After A LOT of research, and some ingenuity, I managed to figure out how to pull the whole thing off without it breaking bank, and cast resident badass, Mariah Maison in the part.
Newcomer Lexsy McKowen is an actual member of the Choctaw nation, and after casting her as Warrior, I put extra effort into making sure that her culture was properly represented. I hand stitched her dress myself, which let me tell you, was a pain. I haven't hand stitched an entire outfit in ages, so the whole process really made me long for my sewing machine.
The entire short was shot in Bronson Canyon in Hollywood in under 5 hours. We filmed on a Saturday, so we had to shoot in between hoards of tourists and hikers walking in and out of my shots, as well as random helicopters and planes constantly flying overhead. Thankfully, I managed to pull everything off, and I am actually really proud of how the whole thing turned out.
#predator #prey #disney
