Teen director crafts tales of suspense and introspection

Owen Gurtz lines up a shot while making a film. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

Owen Gurtz is a creative talent and burgeoning master of suspense making his own films.

The teen director described his filmmaking, which includes short films and experimental pieces.

“I would describe my filmmaking as high school films that are major fun, but with a lot of dedication to doing things right,” he said. “I like making sure that I get a lot of good shots perfectly staged, the blocking and do a lot of those things right. I'm doing it for fun, but I'm doing it in the right way.”

Owen, who posts his productions on YouTube, said a film should elicit a reaction from the viewer.

“A film should provide a feeling,” he said. “If it can make the audience feel something, it’s done its job.” 

Owen’s work boasts cinematography Stanley Kubrick would appreciate and suspense Alfred Hitchcock would commend.

Dave is Weird has a twist ending that would make famed author O. Henry proud. Owen, 17, of Massachusetts, said the premise was devised first.

“The setting was what me and the writers thought of first because it was just perfect for a horror film and the rest of the story was built around it,” he said.  

The Fourth of July is a suspenseful tale of a family that faces pending danger. At one point, the dad sees a mysterious figure dragging a foot in the rain, evoking other ominous characters throughout fiction.

One commenter, apparently with The Walking Dead on the mind, assumed the foreboding individual wasn’t merely a mortal killer, but one of the undead. Owen doesn’t like to explain too much in a film nor dispel viewers’ interpretations.  

“I never thought of it being a zombie during the making of the film, but if that’s what people want to think, then they can think that,” he said. “I’m of the mindset that my films should speak for themselves. I don’t want to discount someone's idea about my film just because they had a different interpretation than me, so I don’t really explain details like that.”

The Huntsman starts off with the murder of a child that escalates into much more as the investigating officer appears to be possessed by an evil force about to encounter the parents.

“That is what I think happened, but then again people can have different interpretations,” Owen said. 

He’s in the Wall depicts the protagonist hearing a scratching sound in the wall, creating similar tension as Edgar Allen Poe’s character in The Tell-Tale Heart, who thinks he hears the beating heart of the person he murdered under the floorboards where he hid the remains. Owen said his character also may be the only one who can hear the noise in his respective story.

“I think so,” he said.

On the Day of Arrival tells of an older man encountering a supernatural force. Owen said the “arrival” may be an extraterrestrial.

“It could be,” he said.

The protagonist is protrayed by Owen’s grandfather, who develops creepy all-white eyes at the end. Owen explained how the effect was accomplished.

“You tell him to open his eyes wide and look that way and then look that way, look up and down,” he said. “Then cut out the white part of each part of that and then just stitch that all together so that you don't have the pupil in there.”

Owen’s horror films are all about rising tension.

“I like suspense,” he said. “I like creating that feel. A lot of what I try and do is create a good atmosphere. What I'll do is set it raining outside or other things like that. It's just creating this atmosphere that's horrific.”

A solider fires during We Are Alone.

Owen explained his penchant for horror.

“Around the same time as I started writing my movie and Covid, I started reading Stephen King,” he said. “I really liked that. Horror's always been interesting to me because you can do so much with horror. With short films, it's a little bit harder to do this. But when I'm making a feature film, I have more time and I can do this: take a typical drama or a romance or something like that and then pair it with horror or something supernatural so that it doesn't become excessively boring. Also, it can put characters in positions that they wouldn't be in normally where they can explore emotions that are relatable. It just heightens that authenticity.”

In addition to original works, Owen also does adaptations such as The Monkey’s Paw, a tale that teaches people to be careful what they wish for.

“I include what I like from the story and what makes the theme of the story translate,” he said. “You can change a lot, but it has to keep the same theme to be a good adaptation.” 

Owen’s non-horror reflective stories include In Your Memory, which shows two people discussing a dream, and Reflection, a woman running from herself.

“Those were just a fun couple of short films I made in USC (University of Southern California) during a summer program,” he said.

We Are Alone is a war tale depicting an irony lost on the narrator.  

“That was the point of the film,” Owen said. 

The director also has made experimental films such as Dawn.

“My professor gave us an assignment to make an experimental film,” he explained.

Owen and Alcides A. Ortiz-Ferrari III in Dave is Weird.

Owen said his other works are reflective in nature.

“My non-horror films are really meditative films where I get to explore themes,” he said. “My horror films are my fun films I make, and then the reflective films are the ones that I feel like I spend more time writing because I don't really outline those. I just let the characters be, and I feel like I can explore a lot more with those.”

Owen also films nonfiction, which has drawn funding from a major institution.

“I'm finishing up a grant that I got from MIT to make this documentary that's a big deal,” he said. “I've been doing it for four years now, and we're almost done. It's pretty intense. The documentary is basically about this plant called eelgrass and how it's affecting the climate and how these group of students, which basically is just my friends, have been studying this plant. They got a grant separately, and then I got a grant to make a film about their grant.”

Owen’s friend suggested the documentary.

“We had started filming for the documentary because one of my friends who was leading the project was like, hey, you should make a documentary about this,” he said. “Eelgrass, this plant along the Atlantic Coast is really helpful for decreasing carbon everywhere and it is four times more effective than the Amazon rainforest at doing this. Two years ago, all up the coast, it just disappeared. I was like, well, this is an interesting story. And then the coach at CSCR, which is the Center for Student Coastal Research organization that we are helping, was like maybe we should ask MIT to have a grant for your movie. She wrote up the grant, sent it in, and we got the grant.”

Eelgrass also is known as Zostera.

“Zostera is the latin term for grass and it is what I named my first eelgrass film, which was used as a preview for MIT to approve the grant,” Owen said. 

He explained what he likes about filming nonfiction.

“Documentary work captured that authenticity that I strive for in fiction work,” Owen said. “It's really interesting trying to pull out a storyline from life. Documentary has something that narrative just cannot do. I really like doing that, but I don't know how many documentaries I'll make after this.”

Owen filming his documentary Eden's Revenant aboard a research vessel.

The director has been making films since he was a tyke.

“I basically started doing this when I was 7 just making stuff on my iPad that we had,” he said. “I just filmed movies with my family, and then that grew. During COVID, I had a lot of free time, and so I started writing a 30-minute movie. I did a lot of research on YouTube just how to do stuff like this. And then I made that. It was a very good learning experience. I did a couple more of those, and then I started making feature films once I got into high school.”

Owen’s style evolved over time.

“My style has evolved to be a little bit slower, to have it take its time and be a little bit more realistic,” he said. “With most of my films, some of them are just for fun and they're not trying to do this, but with most of my longer films or other things that I make, I really try and reach that real authenticity with things. I'm trying to get that feeling of real human experiences. I find that slower, more quiet camera work, which is you just put it on the tripod and you just pan. Very naturalistic lighting puts you in the scene far more than zooming the camera 20 times really, really fast, and using colored lighting.”

As has even happened with major hits such as Star Wars (the film didn’t have A New Hope part of the title back then) and Jaws, Owen finds not having a large budget is not necessarily detrimental to the final product.

“It's definitely useful to have a small budget sometimes,” he said. “It's because you're not weighed down as much when you got to meet these markers and you got to do this by a deadline You can do whatever you want, basically. That pretty much allows you to explore any topic you want. If you want to hold the shot for 20 minutes, you can because nobody cares. It's very freeing.”

Owen stands in the room where his documntary premiered.

Owen never runs out of ideas.

“I just have a lot of ideas kicking around my head,” he said. “The most recent film that I wrote, written or about to go into production on is an adaptation of Siddhartha by Herman Hess. I read the book last year and I really, really liked it and I was like, okay, maybe I can make this.”

Owen’s acting troupe includes peers who are collaborators and family members, the latter of whom need cajoled on occasion.

“Some of the time, they enjoy it,” he said. “Most of the time, it's a challenge to get them to do it. Then they do it, and then they're starting to enjoy it. But they've been doing it for so long since I was a little kid, they're getting a little tired of it.”

Along with the grandfather, Owen has drafted his parents and two brothers over the years.

“Originally, it wasn't that hard to get my family to do it,” he said. “But as the years went on, they were like I've been doing this for three years. We don't need to keep doing this. It got a little bit harder.”

Owen’s family heeds their director’s instructions, though, when the camera is rolling.

“I think they listen enough,” he said. “My philosophy is read the script that I've written and then paraphrase the lines in your own way. A big problem with a bunch of student films is their acting and their line delivery is clearly scripted. When you allow people to just do what they think the character should say, then it becomes a little bit more naturalistic. It's not perfect, but it's better. Usually, I don't have to say much because they understand how to speak. But when I do, they'll listen and then they'll try and do something, and then they'll do it again. Sometimes, it takes a couple takes, but we get it.”

Sometimes, Owen’s family members actually want more takes.

“I usually go with the first take because I think that it was good enough,” he said. “But when they watch the film, they're like why didn't you give me another take? And I was like, that's good.”

Owen's parents, David and Amy Gurtz, play a spooked couple in The Fourth of July.

Other actors eventually became available for Owen.

“In ninth grade, I made this adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 because we were reading it in English class and I really liked it,” he said. “I made that with my family, and then I went to my English teacher. My English teacher was like this is great; we should show it to the class. We did and that got everybody's attention and basically showed everybody that I was a good filmmaker.”

Owen’s next production was not smooth sailing.

“Because everybody was so impressed with that one, they were like do the next book we read, which was Lord of the Flies,” he said. “That was a trouble-ridden production, very difficult to do. It was a 70-page script. We really ran out of time because the school year was ending and because you need so many people and a lot of people are doing other things. It ended up being 27 minutes. We had to cut so much out.”

The type of production impacts which cast Owen recruits.

“For longer movies, I usually do friends,” he said. “Short films I come up with a day, shoot it during the day, edit next day, just turn it out because they're made for fun and practice. Feature films, it takes a longer time. The most recent feature film I made took me a year to film. I like to do that with friends and other people like that. It's really nice when you're doing stuff with friends because you can talk to them in a way that makes you understand, and you're also having a fun time doing it. If you're not having fun doing it, why do it at all?”

Owen visualizes which cast member will assume each role as he creates a new story.

“I usually plan out everything that everybody's going to be in because we have such a limited cast over here,” he said. “It's like this will be that character. This will be that character. This will be that character.”

Owen also acts in a number of the films.

“I like to do whatever's more challenging of a role because that makes it more fun for me,” he said. “It's whatever character has the most dynamic range or something like that is what I want to play.”

Owen said it’s no accident that his films evoke older works by such luminaries as John Carpenter, a master of the macabre.

“I like old, retroey sounds and looks in my film,” he said. “You'll see a lot of my films are grainy and other things that I just add to it. I like it feeling like an older film when you're watching it.”

Just as Carpenter did for decades with such classics as Escape From New York and The Thing, Owen makes his own music.

“I started taking piano when I was 4, so I knew how to play the piano,” he said. “Back when I started doing this 10 years ago, there wasn't really a lot of stock music that was good. Nowadays, you can go on and you can find really good stock music, but when I started, there was not a lot of good stock music. It all sounded kind of cheesy, so I just went on to GarageBand and started pressing some notes and that sounded good. If you just play two notes, then turn on an arpeggio (type of broken chord), it just makes it sound good. It's now just easier for me to write music than find music. Anytime I have to find music, it takes a lot longer than just if I were to quickly write it.”

Owen takes his musical inspiration from the decade of haunting soundtracks.

“I'd say that ‘80s synth inspired me,” he said. “And then a lot of folk music like finger picking on guitar and other things like that.”

Owen makes music for others’ works as well.

“I have done that,” he said. “It's interesting working with other people's films and writing music, because you write something and they're like, oh, could you change this to make it … and I'm like, this is interesting. How do I change it? It's interesting to do, but it's still fun.”

Owen’s music isn’t restricted to his films.

“I'm working on my third album,” he said. “First one was a little story that I made up. The second one is a little bit of personal stories that I have from childhood that I made into an album. This next one, I'm going to make it a little less intense than the last one and just do random songs that'll fit thematically.”

Owen described his style.

“I would say that most of my album work is pretty acoustic,” he said. “Some of it is synth, but there's only a couple songs that are synth.”

Owen cited a pivotal decade in cinema that saw the onset of modern horror with such titles as Alien, The Omen and Halloween as well as introspective character studies, including Harold and Maude and Coming Home, as a major influence.

“I'd say that a lot of my inspiration comes from ‘70s films,” he said. “The ‘70s had opened up a lot of freedom and how to move the camera, but it was still very restricted compared to today. It was very bare bones cinematography using natural light. It was really interesting like that, so most of my inspiration comes from ‘70s films.”

Owen’s favorite horror film comes down to one from that decade and another that starts the next one.

“I'd say probably either The Exorcist or The Shining,” he said.

Owen has seen the classic Universal horror movies such as Dracula and Frankenstein.

“Those are really, really fun,” he said. “I watched those when I was 12 or 13. I remember I made a black and white, I wouldn't say parody, but made one of the things in that style, werewolf stuff. I really liked the style of 1930s, ‘40s horror.”

Owen’s favorite non-horror film is more recent.

“This newer film came out in 2021 called C’mon C’mon,” he said. “It stars Joaquin Phoenix. It's this very peaceful film about this uncle who has to take care of his nephew because his mom's going away for a week. The connection that the uncle and the kid have for that week, it's just very wholesome and nice. I like that movie.”

“Go get your phone, get some friends, and then go just make a movie if you want to do it. The best way to learn how to do it is do it.”

Owen’s favorite thespian is a contemporary chameleon.

“Probably Tilda Swinton, just because she's insane and can do so many weird things,” he said. “If I were to work with her, I'd be like, this is perfect for horror.”

If Owen did not have any logistical limitations, he would film one of Homer’s legendary works.

“If I didn't have any restrictions, I want to adapt the Iliad,” he said. “And shoot it on the Ultra Panavision really wide screen that they had like one of those biblical epics.”

Owen plans to make filmmaking his career.

“I'm probably gonna go to film school and then hopefully figure out a way to go direct movies,” he said.

As with professional directors such as Hal Needham and John Huston, Owen isn’t averse to acting in other director’s works.

“I've acted in friends’ movies before,” he said. “I find acting really fun. It's not exactly what I would want to do as a career, but it's really fun to do for a movie or two.”

Owen said social media has some benefits for aspiring filmmakers.

“It's helpful, but it's complicated with social media,” he said. “I really don't like it, but I think that it has given me so much education in film. There's good parts and then there's a lot of bad things. Social media can be addictive and it’s full of meaningless content that I just hate.” 

Owen films Charles Whinnery.

Owen also learns by watching his old films.

“The most recent thing that I've been working on getting better is blocking and staging the scene,” he said. “Seeing my old films and the terrible blocking that happens in them, they're not as layered images. It's definitely helpful to watch movies that you make.”

Owen stays motivated to see his ideas come to fruition.

“I have a very strong drive to get things done, and I have a lot of things that I like to do,” he said. “I usually have a couple scripts I’m writing, and then I'm filming a feature and making short films on the side, and then writing albums of music. I'm writing a novel right now. I like keeping myself busy with art. It's just nicer to get to do creative things.”

The genre of Owen’s novel covers many an old tale.

“I wouldn't call it fantasy,” he said. “It would be almost like fable.”

Owen said prose is his secondary choice for conveying a story.

“Film is my default,” he said. “I've been making that the longest. But what I found is if I don't make it a film, I don't think it can possibly be done right if it was a film. If I'm writing this and it's not a film, then I want it to be first person so that I can really get the character internal thoughts, because that's something you can’t really do in film a lot.”

Owen isn’t opposed to having his writing be adapted to film by another person’s vision.

“If somebody else is creatively driven by my art, go ahead and adapt it,” he said. “I don't really care. You have fun.”

“If you wait for the funding, then you’re not going to be good when you get that funding. You got to perfect it before you get there, so just go out and make films.”

Owen wants to pursue all of his creative impulses.

“The ideal thing would be that I would be a musician, a filmmaker and a novelist,” he said. “If I become successful in one of those fields, I feel it's easier to transfer. Becoming a musician on your own is really hard, but if you're known for films and then you're like, hey, music publisher, publish my music, they'll be like, yeah, sure.”

Owen dispensed advice to students wanting to make their own films.

“Go get your phone, get some friends, and then go just make a movie if you want to do it,” he said. “The best way to learn how to do it is do it. Don't sit around waiting, because there's so many people who are like I need to get the right funding. If you wait for the funding, then you're not going to be good when you get that funding. You got to perfect it before you get there, so just go out and make films. Just get whoever wants to do it.”

Owen’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@owengurtzfilms