There’s a specific kind of magic that happens when you set out to recreate one of the bleakest, most atmospheric scenes in cinematic history with zero budget and a handful of friends.
Back in 2018, the Good Morning Apocalypse crew and I decided to tackle the legendary “What’s in the box?” climax from David Fincher’s Se7en. I won’t spoil the twist of our version here—you can watch it for yourself—because the real story is about the sheer experience of pulling this thing off.
We shot it out in a field on a friend’s farm just outside Penetang. When you’re trying to emulate Fincher, atmosphere is everything. You can’t just fake that heavy, oppressive dread. We had to perfectly time the sun to capture that harsh, long-shadowed golden hour look, racing against the clock to get what we needed before the light died.
And man, the performances anchored the whole thing. Todd stepped into Brad Pitt’s shoes and delivered a performance that genuinely blew us away. He tapped into this raw, frantic despair that elevated the entire shoot. You’re standing in a field in Ontario, but for a few minutes, he makes you believe you’re at the end of a horrific psychological thriller.
We also wanted that sweeping, cinematic aerial perspective to sell the isolation of the scene. Luckily, Bryan (who plays “Herb”) had recently won an old DJI Phantom drone. We threw it up in the air, crossed our fingers, and managed to capture exactly what we needed to make it feel huge. Pure indie hustle.
But the wildest part about this sketch is the butterfly effect it had on everything that came after.
We used this video to get our foot in the door with Bell Fibe. The dream, at the time, was to get our own sketch comedy show greenlit. That’s the industry for you, though—the sketch show never actually happened. But it built a relationship. Because of the connection we made through this single video, we eventually went on to make our documentary series Haunted Huronia.
To this day, it remains one of my absolute favorite sketches. It’s a perfect snapshot of a group of friends standing in a field, timing the sun, flying a wonky drone, and inadvertently changing the trajectory of our creative careers.
