Over two years of hard work will finally pay off for Dana School when his film, Shadow Riders, is screened publically for the first time on Feb. 1 at the J.A DeSeve cinema.
Having completed both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in film production at Concordia, it seems only fitting that School, 28, will have his film premiered in the very class where he attended lectures a few years ago.
Shot over two weeks during the summer of 2000 on a budget of $40,000, the filming, which took place while School was still a grad student, was paid for primarily through bank loans which he is still paying off.
Shadow Riders, the tale of a young man taken prisoner by a group of desparados who murdered his father, is far from a traditional western. Despite a relatively straightforward premise, the film takes a sharp turn towards fantasy during the climax, incorporating elements of Eastern mysticism. Explaining this tonal shift towards the supernatural,
School says he was not particularly attached to any genre, which allowed him
the freedom to experiment. “With Shadow Riders, I was inspired by a wide
range of influences, and I wanted to do a movie which reflected this eclectic mix,” he says.
These influences include his love of comic books, in particular Mike Mignola’s ‘Hellboy’ series, Hong Kong cinema, Japanese Anim