With films like The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity, the “found footage” genre has pretty much stayed the domain of horror and science fiction story telling. So the news that Zachary Quinto’s production company Before The Door is starting shooting today in New York City of what Deadline is calling “an untitled ‘found footage’ romantic comedy” strikes me as this being a project to keep an eye on.
There’s not much more known about the project outside of the screenplay being written by Victor Quinaz, Anna Martemucci and Philip Quinaz and will be a mix of scripted and improved scenes. This will be the first feature film for Victor Quinaz, who has worked with Quinto on a couple of comedy shorts.
It should be interesting to see how the film handles its “found footage” conceit as the fictional backstory of the footage generally involves something terrible and most likely fatal having happened to the characters shooting the footage. Not typical romantic comedy fates.
The untitled film will be the second from Quinto’s production company. The first was the financial crisis drama Margin Call, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year and was picked up by Roadside Attractions for release in the fall.