Supernatural project: Owensboro-based director working on his third short film

May 26—While the Theatre Workshop of Owensboro's Empress Theatre isn't currently hosting a show, the space has been a home for lights, camera and action since Saturday for the upcoming short film "Ghost-O-Matic."

Written and directed by Owensboro resident Shane Devon, the film dives into the world of high school students Jessie and Madison — played by Taylor Pollitt and Ava Wiggins — who are paired up for a science project.

The film's title derives from the physical device that Jessie and Madison are using for their project that Madison found in her attic, which was created by Madison's late great-uncle Franklin, who was a ghost hunter in the early 1960s and made the mechanism to detect the presence of ghosts.

This is the third short film of Devon's, who founded his own film production company, Tinker Tone Pictures, in 2019.

He previously wrote and directed "Piper Pence and the Pandemic" and "The UFO Girl" and has worked on projects with local filmmakers P.J. Starks and Eric Huskisson of Blood Moon Pictures. Starks is credited as an executive producer on "Ghost-O-Matic."

Devon, 44, uses his fondness of media in the 1980s to bring this project to life.

"When you go back and look at those movies and television shows and things like that, they have a lot of heart; you watch them and it makes you feel something ... that feeling of nostalgia and just positivity," Devon said. "I want people to walk away from my movies sort of with their heads up a little bit ... and feel optimistic and better about tomorrow."

While the film plays as a ghost story, it also emphasizes the developing relationship between Jessie and Madison, both of which are in different social groups — with Jessie more of the modern goth type and Madison a booksmart student.

Throughout the movie, Jessie and Madison open up to one another about their personal lives, such as Jessie's strained relationship with her mother coupled with losing her father, while Madison talks about the pressure to live up to everyone's expectations.

Pollitt, a 21-year-old senior at Kentucky Wesleyan College, previously worked with Devon on "The UFO Girl" and was able to identify with Jessie's character, such as losing her own father.

"There was a little bit of a struggle trying to figure out where I needed to draw the line between my personal life and Jessie's feelings," Pollitt said. "I feel like there's a lot that I brought to the character with my own personal experiences."

For Wiggins, a 17-year-old rising senior at Owensboro High School, this is her film debut after having experience performing in stage productions.

She, too, feels that her character Madison has helped her own views.

"It's been kind of eye-opening ... the way Shane wrote the script, because it helps me in real life kind of look at those people like Jessie and be like, 'I kind of get you now,' " Wiggins said.

Devon said that the relationship between Jessie and Madison comes from personal experience during his own high school days about finding commonality in the "most unexpected places."

"This relationship that Madison has with Jessie is almost like pulled from my real background ... and it just taught me that ... there's a lot to a person that you don't see," Devon said. "If we just take a second to find some common ground, only good things can come of that."

Devon hopes that going the supernatural route will entice the audience.

"There's a lot of different things that I was wanting to say through film, and I found that if I just sort of out-and-out said it, I might not have the attention of the audience that I would like," Devon said. "So I'm thinking, 'What is a good way to sort of get these different certain social points across that I'm wanting to make?'

"And just like the supernatural or science fiction — just kind of blend that in there to make things interesting and sneak attack (the audience) with what I have in my brain."

Devon plans to wrap production Thursday and is eyeing a release date around Halloween. He's also looking forward to building up to a feature debut by next summer.