The Story of Arabelle Little
Arabelle Little and the Search for the Wandmaker's Apprentice
"A Magical Adventure 10 Years in the Making"
A spirited young witch and her anti-magical brother must learn to work together and find the last known Wandmaker while evading the oppressive Magical Maintenance Department. They venture to equip magical people with wands and eliminate discrimination before magical life is suppressed out of existence.
Genre: Fantasy Adventure
Total Runtime: 1 Hour 19 Minutes
Premiering: Spring 2022 on YouTube - Scarhead Productions
Updates will come through the following channels - stay tuned!
The 10+ Year Production of Arabelle Little
"Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect." — Luna Lovegood
The year is 2009 and we're certainly not under a flight of stairs. Amorae Daylett and Matthew Grammer are two great friends, filmmakers, and Potter-heads living in Dallas, TX. They met while both attending the Arts and Technology Bachelor's program at The University of Texas at Dallas. Amorae had been producing a successful web series based around the life of a Potter-obsessed high school girl. If you haven't seen it, check out Scarhead, you'll love it! Matthew was a budding filmmaker starting his career as an independent video producer. Amorae eventually brought Matthew on the team to help produce a few episodes of her show.
It was the height of the Harry Potter fandom - the final two films were premiering and the entire world was discussing "The Boy Who Lived" including Amorae and Matthew. Producing a Potter-inspired web series was a lot of fun, but the pair wanted to create something on a larger scale. Just then, a magic idea entered the headspace of these two overzealous friends - they should write and produce their own independent film inspired by the Harry Potter universe.
"Honestly, am I the only person who's ever bothered to read 'Hogwarts: A History?'" — Hermione Granger
It would be considered "fan fiction" in that their story is based on an existing work of fiction (Harry Potter), however they would not use any copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original work of fiction as a basis for their writing. Instead, Amorae and Matthew would create a story of their own, so loosely connected to the Wizarding World that it truly stands on its own.
Writing the Script / September and October 2010
Writing the script was a fun process. They wanted to extend the fantastic world established in the Potter universe, however they wanted it to be fully their own story and not rely on reusing the characters popularized by the Potter series. To discover and create their own story, the team held a long-running series of movie nights, watching classic and modern flicks with pen and paper in hand. Many films can be broken down into fundamental blocks, so they looked for what made each film lovable. References included Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows of course - loving the overall dark tone and gritty realism of the later films in the series, The Book of Eli for its ability to build a world with landscapes that fill you with dread, and The Hunger Games for its exploration of an overbearing government. You'll notice that all of these films portray the challenges faced by characters on a long journey who lack a strong heading.
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" — Albus Dumbledore
Filmmakers are always encouraged to "make films they would want to watch themselves" and it soon became clear that Amorae and Matthew yearned to tell a story of a heroine who stands up to her oppressors. Amorae and Matthew were passionate about using their power as filmmakers to spread positive ideas and life lessons.
Pre-Production / October and November 2010
Amorae and Matthew assembled a small team that would assist with the film's production. Amorae's family showed up in droves with her younger sister Lauren playing the lead role of Arabelle Little, her older brother playing the supporting role of Arthur Little, and her husband Jonny helping with production. Matthew's family also joined in as actors and production assistants.
To fill the roles of ancillary characters, casting sessions were held at UT Dallas where they attended college. Advertisements in the local paper brought a few talented local actors onboard. Props and set decorations were either sourced by the team or created from scratch, with Amorae leading the creation process. Key props and designs from the Potter franchise were referenced as they created things such as original wands, extendable ears, and paper props to exist in their world. They wanted to express the same feeling of magic while producing a product that stands on its own legs with its own visual aesthetic. Wardrobe and costumes were again sourced by the team or created from scratch by Matthew's mom Theresa. A seamstress for decades, she was able to create wonderful looking costumes that help sell the world they were creating. Specialty rigs to support the camera and/or actors during stunts was also hand-built by Matthew (thank you IndyMogul YouTube channel).
Video production equipment was provided via contacts made by Amorae and Matthew. Amorae worked at a school district who let us borrow the high-end cameras they used for their football games - the primary camera being the JVC GY-HM700U and a secondary camera being the JVC GY-HM100U cameras. Audio equipment was a couple wireless lavaliere mics and a shotgun boom mic - also provided through Amorae's work. Matthew borrowed a three piece lighting kit from a producer friend of his, Terri Howard-Hughes. Matthew also built a variety of homemade camera jibs, sliders, and custom rigs to move the camera in a variety of ways.
"And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure." — Albus Dumbledore
Production / December 2010 through May 2012
The team officially began principle photography on December 27, 2010. Over the next 16 months the team got together most every weekend to film. It was like an ever present to-do list that never seemed to get any smaller. It usually went something like this: select a scene, storyboard the action and create a shot list, source a location, create props and wardrobe, decorate the set, rehearse, film, repeat, repeat, repeat. Filming this movie literally became their lives.
Amorae lead the team as the Director and Executive Producer, Matthew was the Director of Photography and Producer, and the rest of the team was put to use as needed, wearing one of the hundreds of hats that needed to be worn while making a feature film. Day after day, week after week, month after month the crew worked to produce their fantasy adventure masterpiece. They started to work so much that they actually improved as filmmakers during the process. Wanting desperately to present the film in the way they imagined led them to actually reshoot multiple scenes to improve upon the lighting or acting, or whatever didn't match what was in our heads.
The team marched deep into the woods to film in abandoned areas, they filled condoms with fake blood and backed it with a firework to simulate a gunshot wound, they even hopped into helicopters to capture aerial footage to use as the background in a broom chase sequence (remember this is 6+ years before consumer drones were a thing) then film the actresses on hand-built broomstick stunt rigs. The team pulled off a production that rivals large budget movies on an independent filmmaker's budget. They laughed, they cried, and in the Texas summer of 2011 literally got heatstroke while out filming. Amorae and Matthew's passion for filmmaking (and Harry Potter) led them to approach each scene with care, ensuring the audience feels something while watching the film. Should the audience be happy, scared, nervous? An extraordinary amount of effort was given to produce a film that truly resonates with the audience.
Principle photography finally wrapped in May of 2012. A brief yet deep exhale could be heard as the production team put down their wands and cameras. Now all that was left was to edit the movie, and honestly, how long could that be? It turns out that editing would take the better half of a decade.
Post-Production / May 2012 through Present
Amorae immediately began sorting through the piles of footage and selecting the best takes to construct each scene. Now, they did "shoot for the edit" and knew how they wanted the scenes to look before even shooting them, however Amorae still must have logged 200-300 hours editing the film. Matthew didn't own a computer capable of editing the movie at the time, so Amorae was signed up to be the sole editor. Unfortunately as the months went on, progress slowed until it stalled completely in September 2012. Amorae and Matthew also suffered a divide in their friendship, possibly caused by the insane undertaking they had just been on, and ceased communicating for some time. The project proved to simply be too large for such a small team to produce at the time. As things often go, life got the best of everyone and years went by without the project finding completion.
"Honestly, if you were any slower, you’d be going backward." — Draco Malfoy
Backing up to July 13, 2011 - the team had released a trailer for the film, cut together from footage captured early in production, onto the Scarhead Productions YouTube channel. The trailer was very well received by the Potter community - over 10,000 views on the trailer (which was A LOT for the early days of YouTube) and dozens of comments from fans eager to watch the film. Ten years later and that single trailer is all that anyone has seen of Arabelle Little.
"But you know, happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." — Albus Dumbledore
Fast forward to May of 2020 and Matthew is visiting his Mom for Mother's Day, coincidentally where they had filmed part of the movie. Nostalgia got the best of him and he contacted Amorae to reminisce about how much fun it was to create the film with her. Thankfully the pair had repaired their friendship and been back in communication for a few years. Amorae responded that if he wanted to finish the film he was welcome to come and get all the footage and do so. Now, you'll need to know that Matthew had continued his career as an independent video producer and was more equipped than ever to tackle a giant project like this...again... He had a powerful editing computer and access to all the assets, effects, and plugins needed to bring the magical world to life on the big screen. Bright and early the next morning Matthew was at Amorae's house to collect the footage and get to work. Matthew was extremely excited to finishing the film once and for all!
"No, Harry, you listen. We're coming with you. That was decided months ago... years, really." — Hermione Granger
Every morning thereafter, Matthew woke up early and got to work editing the film. First he took all the individual scenes that Amorae had edited and assembled them into one complete film. From there he added beautifully cinematic music, riveting sound effects, created mesmerizing visual effects, and systematically completed countless tasks required to polish a feature film - so far an estimated 700-800 hours of editing.
"It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be." — Albus Dumbledore
Amazingly, the film plays as they had imagined during production with three distinct acts, interesting character arcs, compelling action, and best of all, a tremendously good life lesson that should help anyone be a better person.
Premiering the Film / Spring 2022
Now over a decade after they started, the team is nearly ready to release the film! This has truly been a passion project for all those involved in its production. Matthew has been working on a comprehensive marketing strategy that he will launch in Fall of 2021 with anticipated online release of the film in Spring 2022.
"Mischief Managed!" — Harry Potter
Updates will come through the following channels - stay tuned!
