Christopher Carter is a UA alumnus who recently completed his second feature film “Overwatch,” which debuted at The Loft Cinema in a screening on Jan. 21.
Carter graduated in December 2012 with a journalism major and a creative writing minor; he now works at the state department in the unemployment branch. Carter won best cinematographer at the Almost Famous Film Festival last year.
Jessica Morgan codirected the film alongside Carter. Morgan is a Pima Community College graduate who currently attends the School of Film, Dance and Theatre at Arizona State University. Both Carter and Morgan performed roles in their film.
“Overwatch” tells the story of a group of survivors from a virus that has infected a majority of the population. Main character Carter (Taylor Plecity) is a young woman who must cope with the loss of her husband while surviving in a war-torn world.
“It’s a story about loss and how people cope with that,” Carter said. “It’s about how an individual who has something they really care for in their life and they lose it, and how they move forward with that.”
Carter, Morgan and Plecity met at an acting class they took together at PCC.
“About a year ago, I decided to take the acting class because I feel it’s important as a director to know how to talk to your actors and to know how it feels on the other side,”Carter said.
“Overwatch” is unique in that it was filmed entirely in Tucson and used only local talent. Many distinct Tucson locations such as Gates Pass, Reid Park and the Slaughterhouse are featured in the film.
“I chose to shoot in Tucson because it’s such an underserved film community,” Carter said. “Like Gates Pass, when the sun starts dropping everything there is gold. Every day at sunset it’s beautiful there, it’s captivating.”
“Overwatch” was shot entirely on a Canon Mark II and Canon 60D and edited using Adobe Premiere. Carter worked during his college years and saved money to purchase the equipment to film his movies.
“It’s so much easier. It was like, ‘Hey, you guys want to go shoot a scene? Sure, you hold the mic, you hold the camera, you guys act and let’s roll,’” Carter said.
“Overwatch” took roughly 18 months to film. Production stopped during the month of October while the haunted house in the film was occupied for Halloween season.
“Since I was paying for it myself, we would have to wait until payday and since it cost about $100 a day to film, which included makeup, gas and coffee. We had to spread it out over time,” Carter said.
Noah Sanders, a freshman studying Spanish and global studies, saw the film at The Loft during its advanced screening.
“I liked the movie. It was nice seeing local talent and different places around Tucson,” he said. “We were sitting in the same crowd as everyone who worked on the movie and it made the movie feel more personal.”
Carter was excited by the fact people who were not involved in the film attended the screening.
“We had people come to the premiere that had nothing to do with it, they just wanted to see a film that was filmed in Tucson and I thought that was awesome,” Carter said. “My mom was sitting next to these two women and she asked them who they knew here and they said ‘No one. We just wanted to come watch the movie.’”
Carter is currently working on his third feature film in which he hopes to incorporate the UA campus.
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