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An Interview with Mitch Deitz from Prawn Star

Please tell us about the projects you worked on before making ‘Prawn Star’. How did you start, and how did you learn to make films?

The co-creators of Prawn Star, Mitch Deitz and Ryley Decker cut their teeth making short films from home during the pandemic. In 2020 when they were laid off by the bar where they worked, Deitz and Decker co-created the YouTube show Short Notice, where they made films based on prompts from audience input in a short amount of time with a $0 budget. In this way they created over 10 short films over the course of a year and refined their filmmaking skills in the process. Juan Linares, the co-director of the film, earned a Masters Degree in Directing from Columbia College in Chicago and directed multiple shorts before Prawn Star, including the award-winning comedy Warren?. Judy Febles also studied film at Columbia and has produced multiple short films as well as full-length features, including Departing Seniors and Lone Wolves. The team met working together in the Operations Department at the Chicago International Film Festival.


Tell us about ‘Prawn Star’. How do you describe it?

Prawn Star is an absurd comedy-horror about a shrimp’s wild aspirations to become a famous actor. Shot partially underwater and partially on location in a restaurant and bar, this tale of a puppeteered peeled shrimp and his movie star aspirations illustrates the absurdity of "going for it" and what it can really take to follow your dreams.


Please tell us about your favorite filmmakers.

Prawn Star’s co-creators Deitz and Decker love directors that specialize in the dark, comedic and absurd, such as: Daniels, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Phoebe Waller Bridge. Dark humor is a common love of everyone on the team, and plays a big role in the tone of Prawn Star. Specific influences on Prawn Star range from Finding Nemo to Marcel the Shell and Gudetama, both as narrative and technical influences.


If you were given a good budget, what would be your ideal project?

We had a blast making Prawn Star, and had to leave far too many ideas on the table due to lack of time, personnel and financial resources. Ideally we will someday be able to realize a feature film depicting Shrimpy’s epic journey from the ocean floor to the silver screen. Perhaps we would turn to animation, or at least expand the Art Department to create bigger underwater worlds, more in-depth practical effects and character models that can help tell the full story. As a proxy for any “little guy” hoping to achieve a “big dream,” the potential of Shrimpy to reach wide audiences is endless, and a bigger budget would help bring the wild world of Prawn Star alive on a whole new level.


Describe how you would ensure that production is on schedule. What steps would you take?

There are two incredible members of our team who are largely responsible for keeping us on schedule: our Producer Judy Febles, and our 1st Assistant Director Mikaela McParlan. While Febles kept us on track for every deadline from fundraising to submitting to festivals, McParlan was crucial on set in helping us tackle a seemingly impossible shot list. Between underwater, “shrimp scale” and “human scale” setups and our tight schedule of only three principle photography days, the task seemed impossible. But thanks to the combined genius of Febles and McParlan, we somehow pulled off enough shots to make the movie, and still leave plenty on the cutting room floor! It still amazes us how we were ever able to pull it off…


What was the hardest part of making ‘Prawn Star’.

Besides the above-mentioned over ambitious shot list, there were some other key difficulties in making Prawn Star. Co-creator and actor Ryley Decker may tell you that one of the hardest things was being in a room filled with real peeled shrimp for over 12 hours, and then having to take bites of peeled shrimp repeatedly for one of the shots… Even the presence of a “shrimp spit cup” didn’t alleviate the queasiness of that moment. The Production Designer Francely Vargas may tell you that the hardest part was finding the right kind of sealant that kept Shrimpy from disintegrating during the underwater shots, or maybe it was when Art Director Lalo Ayala had to cut a kitchen cambro in half on the fly using only a small bevel. One of the more stressful moments for the team as a whole was trying to get one of the key last shots of the film in the last possible ten minutes we had with the equipment. We somehow pulled it off (in conjunction with some pickup shots we got later on), but we can all firmly say that we do not recommend saving your most important shots for last on production day…


If possible, tell us about your next work. What plans do you have for your future work?

Our filmmaking team has a host of projects under development. Co-Creators Mitch Deitz and Ryley Decker are developing multiple feature scripts, a pilot, and their next short film.

Co-director Juan Linares just completed his first feature film, Parkside, and is developing his next feature. Producer Judy Febles is developing a short film that she is set to direct.

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