Lights, Camera, Action! Thibodaux takes center stage

Claude Allen Medine
May 9, 2012
Best of Bayou coming to Downtown Houma
May 16, 2012
Claude Allen Medine
May 9, 2012
Best of Bayou coming to Downtown Houma
May 16, 2012

More than 100 area residents got a chance to be part of Louisiana’s thriving film industry Thursday by playing extras in a film by local writer, director and producer Dustin Dugas Schuetter.


“The movie, ‘Rejects,’ is set in 2045,” Schuetter, a native of Thibodaux, said. “One man’s decision to cease taking his daily life pill sends shock waves through his impoverished village, which is being held prisoner by the government. When the man stops taking his pill, this introduces a new drug…emotion.”

The 20-minute film was shot in five days throughout the Thibodaux area, mostly on a neaby farm with several wooden outbuildings used to depict the village.


“The movie is based on a human behavior studies from the 1960s and 1970s,” Schuetter said. “Everything is fantastic. I can’t wait to get into editing. Everything has been excellent. It’s great to get to use the local community and resources to do this film. All the extras are local and all our crew are from the area or within the state. We will show this film at film festivals across the world.”


Schuetter, a former Nicholls State University student, said the film should be complete by the end of 2012.

Schuetter has been involved in the film industry for more than seven years, has written six screenplays and been in seven other films. “Rejects” is Schuetter’s second foray into writing, directing and producing.


“This is the second time we’ve paired up to make a film,” said cinematographer John Lands. “I’ve been in the movie business for 10 years, and I moved here from California six years ago. I moved my small production company here because of the tax breaks Louisiana offers to those in the film industry.”


The duo’s last film, “Samuel Bleak,” was also filmed in the area. Last year, the 96-minute feature won a Best Suspense Feature film at the New York International Film Festival and was nominated for a Voice Award, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and Center for Mental Health Services.

The movie centers abound a small-town Louisiana sheriff who finds a mute man, Samuel Bleak, living in the woods with only an old typewriter. After jailing the man, the sheriff finds out that he is the son of the town drunk, and the man lands in a mental institution under the care of the sheriff’s wife. As Bleak struggles to re-enter society, he must deal with questions from his doctor, the affections of a female patient and the man who seeks to court her. The death of the man’s mother is key to figuring out how he ended up in the woods as a child and what he has been typing while living away from society.


“Fox International picks up these films,” Lands said. “Back in the day, you sent your script to a studio. Now you make a short film, almost like a pilot for a television show, and you send that to a studio. You want to show that you can follow through and deliver a product. Lots of people, even big name directors in Hollywood, are pitching their movies this way.”

The day’s first scene of “Rejects,” shot with an elevated camera, was an overview of the residents in the village going about their daily lives, milling about and picking flowers while being watched by guards and military personnel. The production crew had even arranged to have two military vehicles on had for the shooting. The second scene focused on the residents of the “Rejects” village happily escaping the walls that confined them. Actors ran through the gates of the village as the camera rolled and waited in an empty field for the scene to be reset by the production crew.

“I’m in the drama club at school, and when they told us about the film, I applied to be an extra,” said extra Kristen Barrett, a junior at Vandebilt Catholic High School. “I adore theater and love film.”

Barrett, who does hair and makeup for Vandebilt’s plays, was celebrating her first time being in a film.

“We’re all the extras are ‘rejects,’” she said, laughing. “Just seeing what filming a movie is really like and the time and effort that goes into making a movie is great. It’s amazing how much work goes into these things. If they film another, I’d love to act again. It’s a blast. I’m having loads of fun.”

Barrett was not the only high school student extra in the film. Actors ranged from 6-25.

“I’m in the school’s movie club and our teacher asked us if we wanted to be an extra in a movie, said Miranda Plunkett, a sophomore at E.D. White High School and also a student of John Robert Powers Academey for Acting and Modeling in New Orleans. “I would like to go on to a film career. It’s very interesting. It feels more natural to be filming in Louisiana versus filming in Los Angeles. It’s different than being in hollywood.”

Nothing like being accepted in home-town filming for the 100 lucky rejects.

Local actors and actresses taking part in the filming of “Rejects,” a short film written, directed and produced by Thibodaux native Dustin Dugas Schuetter, shoot a scene in which they escape their impoverished village in the year 2045. The movie is based on a human behavior studies from the 1960s and 1970s.

CLAUDETTE OLIVIER | TRI-PARISH TIMES