The Making of Amber
Q&A with Aria Harrell
Amber won the Best Film Production Award at ConnectHER Film Festival 2021. Aria Harrell—the film’s writer, director, producer, and co-star—also won the first ever Leica camera prize! The film, named for the U.S. Amber Alert child abduction notifications, dramatizes one way that girls go missing every day. The film artfully weaves together the story of two girls: one who is being abducted, and another nearby who receives the alert and unknowingly keeps crossing the victim’s path. We asked Aria about some of the tricks that made Amber such a gripping film.
For the scene of the victim trapped in the car trunk, how did you get that eerie lighting?
I wanted the entire movie to feel as authentic as possible, so I tried to simulate what it would actually look like inside a trunk. We closed the trunk hood just enough for the camera to fit inside so that it would be as dark as possible. What we could not capture on camera because of the light we compensated for in the editing stage by playing around with different image fonts.
These two shots are so dramatic: first we see the victim desperately banging on the car window to attract help, then we see a closeup of the other girl’s shocked face when she realizes that she is seeing the kidnapping victim she heard about in the Amber Alert. How did you take these shots, and what were you trying to achieve?
We shot the whole film with one camera, so we got the shot of the victim from inside the other car with the window down. To get the other girl’s closeup reaction shot, we stood directly in front of her and gave her an eyeline. I wanted to show how the girls were experiencing this story from different points of view. The other girl had an uneasy gut feeling about the Amber Alert throughout the story—and she and the victim were actually crossing paths. I wanted to convey that you should trust your gut when you feel weird about something, whether that be if you feel unsafe in a certain situation or if you see or hear something that may indicate that someone needs help.
By the way, was the victim using the hand gesture popularized on TikTok that discreetly alerts people that you’re in danger of abuse? Right around the time your film came out, a girl in North Carolina was rescued by using that hand signal.
Oh, really? I need to find out about that. In my film, the victim was just banging on the window, but it may have looked like she was giving that signal.
The soundtrack really adds to your film’s suspense. I heard a piano, a heartbeat, and the haunting sound of the kidnapper softly humming to himself.
For the piano theme, I just sat down at the piano and started playing around on the keys. I picked out some notes, and when we went into the studio, we ended up using that theme music on the soundtrack. A friend of mine came up with the idea for the heartbeat. And the kidnapper humming to himself—the actor just did that spontaneously while we were filming. I liked it, so we kept it in.
Thanks for sharing some of your production secrets with us. What do you plan to do with your new Leica camera?
I was so surprised and happy when I won the camera! It has definitely inspired me to do more directing and filmmaking. I may want to use it to shoot a pitch or a pilot to develop Amber into a feature film or a short series.
