The local production company Kemistry Motion Pictures (KMP) is in post-production for their upcoming thriller, “Running Home.” The story follows five students and their teacher at fictional Willow Park High who are living their lives until everything changes when they have to fight to survive after two gunmen infiltrate the school.
Kemistry Motion Pictures was started in 2019 by Kolby and Elijah Logue because of their love for filmmaking. “We did a completely free project back in 2019, we didn’t pay anyone and now here we are four years later we are able to pay our crew and our actors. So, it’s really cool watching the growth [of KMP],” said Kolby.
“Running Home” has been an ongoing project for over a year that has been rewritten several times and evolved from the original short film “Schrödinger’s Cat” to a feature film.
When they reached post-production, they realized the film was too focused on the shooters and not enough on the students endangered by gun violence. As the story and characters changed, the film evolved.
According to CNN, there have been 77 school shootings in the United States as of November 17, 2023. There have been 33 deaths and 77 injured due to gun violence reported by the Gun Violence Archive, Education Week, and Everytown for Gun Safety. The incidents and scenes can be extremely difficult to see, however, Elijah Logue, the Director of “Running Home”, did research and interviewed victims' families to remain realistic and respectful of the traumatic events that occur in the film.
“We are trying to force people to really take a hard look at this issue that is solely American it seems like and just try to change some hearts a bit,” said Kolby.
Tony Wood, the lead actor, student coordinator, and fighting choreographer for the film, played Chase Hayes who is a troubled kid who struggles with handling his emotions and when he is thrown into a life-or-death situation, he is forced to make a change to survive. As the stunt coordinator and fighting choreographer Wood oversaw training the cast for fight scenes and ensuring everyone’s safety during their scenes.
“Something we wanted to be careful of is not glorifying any of the violence because that is not the intention of the film. However, the film obviously does have violence because of the subject matter. We wanted to honor some of the violence while also being able to share the stories that the characters go through,” said Wood.
Several areas throughout Farmville were used as sets for the film, and locals will recognize the Avenues, Garden Street, and spaces at Longwood University. KMP was also able to incorporate local businesses such as Press Club and The Fishin’ Pig who donated meals to the cast and crew. “You’ll see a lot of Press Club t-shirts in the movie,” said Elijah.
Dr. Sarah Varela was the film’s first assistant director and is also an Associate Professor of German English & Modern Languages at Longwood. She joined the project when the script for “Running Home” was finalized. Varela oversaw events and schedules, so she was able to reserve spaces in Grainger Hall for KMP to film parts of their school scenes. She was faced with having to see her place of work as a setting for a school shooting tragedy.
“Part of what shocked me was… even though I knew it was all pretend it looked very real and seeing these things happen in spaces where I actually teach was very sombering,” said Varela. According to Varela, this film humanizes the characters by showing their faces, names and getting to know their characters, and watching as they go through a school shooting as opposed to the incidents and victims being confined to a place or numbers.
“The film will be successful in the sense that people can’t be desensitized to this when they’re being confronted with it in the way the film presents it. So, I think it’s a really important film in that regard,” said Varela.
The first teaser trailer was released on November 2, 2023, on the Communication Studies student-produced live show, CommCast. The release date is not confirmed yet by KMP, but there will be premieres in Farmville and Richmond. After the festival run of the movie is completed, it will be streamed on Amazon’s Prime Video.
