Looking for 'Laughter'

A promotional poster for Adam Dunning's "Laughter."

Open casting call for Adam Dunning’s “Laughter,” Mon., Feb. 6, 1-10 p.m., Hampton Inn (22 Montage Mountain Road, Moosic). (Snow date Mon., Feb. 13). Roles are nonpaying. For more info, e-mail dunnlacka@yahoo.com or find the film on Facebook.

by Nikki M. Mascali
Weekender Editor

To many people, nothing’s scarier than a clown. And that is certainly going to hold true for the characters within Adam Dunning’s latest film, “Laughter” — the story of a bullied teen with a clown obsession who decides to pull a last-minute prank that goes horribly wrong on his classmates before graduation.

“They take an oath of silence to not speak of it again,” Dunning, the director, explained. “But then some of those involved are wracked with guilt and don’t go off to college, and one by one, they get picked off.”

“Laughter” developed as Dunning’s first full-length feature, “The inFected,” was making the rounds at a few small horror-genre film festivals in 2010 in Pennsylvania and Texas.

“I started writing the script — I wanted to try to find something completely new,” he said.

As with “The inFected,” Dunning, 23, hopes to release “Laughter” by October with a premier at Marquee Cinemas in Scranton, but first, he needs to find his cast, which is why he’s holding an open casting call Monday, Feb. 6 at the Hampton Inn in Moosic from 1-10 p.m.

“This is my first time holding a casting audition, so I really don’t know what to expect,” he said.

Dunning is looking for about 15 people to make up the core cast, plus extras and other members of the crew.

“I acted and directed and edited and did the makeup for ‘The inFected,’ so it was really hard to do all that stuff,” he shared. “People can come out to the audition to give me resumes to do the makeup or be the producer or production assistant or assistant director, all that stuff.”

“Laughter” will be filmed throughout Lackawanna County, including Taney’s Costume Shop in Scranton, Cosmo’s Billiards in Dickson City, a restaurant in Jermyn and various homes.

The director found securing the locations easy because “They’ll just let us film, and then have people say, ‘Hey, I know that restaurant!’”

“When ‘Blue Valentine’ was filmed here, a lot of people went to see it to see if they were in it or their house or different locations they know around here instead of going to see it for the movie,” Dunning added.

Raising money to make the film isn’t as easy a task as finding locations, so Dunning held a pasta dinner and a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts fundraiser.

“We’re going to try and do another pasta dinner, ad books,” he said. “Some people can give you a donation, (and) we could apply for grants, but grants are really hard to get if you’re a real small-time person just starting out.”

As Dunning grows his movie-making career, he doesn’t expect to move too far from the genre he’s loved since childhood.

“My whole DVD collection is probably 80 percent horror; it’s so much easier to turn around and film and write a horror story than it is to turn around and write a love story,” he said. “I could probably write it, but somewhere along the line there’s going to be a huge, disgusting, tragic accident.”