Stephen George, a 34-year-old Ph.D. student in Chemistry at the University of Nevada, Reno and aspiring filmmaker, has recently made a locally produced film expected to be released in late January or early February, about “mental illness, obsession, and mania.”
George was inspired to make a film involving mental illness after his own experiences with hypochondria and after listening to a podcast on false pregnancy, a condition where someone believes they are pregnant when they are not. Soon he began writing the movie with his friend Zoë Spanbroek, and they frequently exchanged scripts.
George worked with a tight “shoestring” $3,000 budget (the trailer is from a YouTube channel called Complicated Shoes Productions) and used local talent from the Reno Artists Guild.
This includes Ragen Locricchio (in photo below) who stars as Diana, the woman who falls into mania and delusion after watching an old tube TV, and Greg Palmer whose duties ranged from recording sound to serving as assistant director on occasion.
George attributes his ability to make a film with such a small budget to the generosity of locals who frequently allowed him to film at locations for free, including UNR which provides free film equipment rentals and allowed him to shoot scenes in the medical school and church on campus.
“I probably took on more than I can handle,” said George in a joking manner about his soon-to-be-released film with an estimated run time of 40 minutes. Rotten Apple will be George’s third film and will be shown locally before being pitched to streaming platforms for further distribution. George purposely left the setting ambiguous to create mystery within the film, but suspects Reno locals will recognize some locations.
“What I really like about the Reno [film] scene is that people want to do stuff,” the director told Our Town Reno. “They want to create stuff.”
“It’s cathartic,” George said of making a film about mental illness. “You get your thoughts out, you get your ideas out. You're sharing it with people, and maybe someone sees it and they go ‘I can relate to this.’”
George does warn that the sensitive topics featured in the film might make some people uncomfortable.