Gabe in the news

STL TODAY STORY

Gabe was recently featured in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article about the "Film by Teens" program featured during the Filmmaker's Showcase on June 13th.

Shane's Inner Circle Spotlight

Gabe recently wrote an article for Shane's Inner Circle about his experience directing Fugue. In the article Gabe covers the many pressures of leadership and the art of compromise when things don't go your way onset. 

HEC-TV

In promotion of Gabe’s latest short film, Fugue was featured on HEC-TV. The piece features three interviews with lead actor Scott Michael Dunn, director of photography Austin McCardie, and director Gabe Sheets along with behind the scenes footage from onset.

FOX 2 INterview

Gabe Sheets was interviewed on June 16, 2017 on Fox 2 News in Saint Louis, MO. He discussed the making of his short film Fugue and his filmmaking career up until that point.

Saint City Dreamers Podcast

Gabe was featured on Dustin Bryson’s local ‘Saint City Dreamers’ podcast in 2016. Gabe was just 14 years old and still in pre-production on his short film, Fugue.

Newstime Article 

The Fugue press release was featured in the local newspaper. The press release describes Gabe’s small beginnings, his inspiration, and ambition with his latest short. You can read the full press release on their website.

business Journal Article

Gabe was interviewed during the last day of shooting Fugue in downtown Saint Louis by a reporter from the Business Journal. The article gives information concerning the shooting locations, plot, and overall making of his short film. It also gives a glimpse into how his career started as a filmmaker.

Read the full article below

Young director films in downtown St. Louis for latest project.
ST Louis Business Journal Article
Jun 9, 2017, 10:49am CDT

Gabe Sheets didn’t know it at the time, but at six years old, he was making movies.

Using the tiny camera of an iPod Nano, Sheets and his friends used to film themselves acting out stories in his hometown of Lake St. Louis, just because they thought it was fun.

“I didn’t think they were worthy of being called movies,” Sheets said. “They were just videos that we made.” But as he grew up, Sheets realized that those iPod videos were what he considers his first movies.

Now 15, Sheets is wrapping up filming this week for his biggest project yet: “Fugue,” a 20-minute short film written and directed by Sheets that tells the story of a man who develops amnesia after a car crash, but doesn’t know how he crashed or why he was driving in the first place.

“He’s putting together contradictory evidence as to why he was being chased,” Sheets said. The man finds a briefcase full of cocaine along with a police badge, but can’t remember if he was a cop working a drug bust, or a corrupt officer stealing drugs.

While parts of the film are shot in downtown St. Louis, including on Wednesday near Eighth and Olive streets, Sheets said that there is no setting in the film’s story. He said he wanted it to look like “a stereotypical city” and also looked at filming in Belleville, and Collinsville, Illinois, before deciding that St. Louis was the best fit.

Other scenes in “Fugue” were filmed in Granite City, Illinois, Progress West Hospital in O’Fallon, Missouri, and a gas station in Silex, Missouri. The crew has also filmed scenes in a surveillance van in Sheets’ garage.

According to a press release, the film stars 11 main cast members and about 60 extras. The film crew has 25 members, and is made up of Sheets’ friends as well as connections he has made in the St. Louis area. His parents have also been a crucial part of his budding career.

“I have the greatest parents ever, and they’ve been 100 percent behind me in everything,” Sheets said. He added that his mother, a business developer, has helped him network and understand the financial aspects of making a movie. And when Sheets decided that being homeschooled would allow him to focus more on filmmaking, his parents supported his decision.
Sheets said that his parents are financing the film for now, but he is reimbursing them with the money he makes from working as a website developer. He is hoping that the edits for “Fugue” will be finished by January 2018, and isn’t sure where the film might go next, though submitting it to a film festival is a possibility. He said the film will be available to stream on his website.

Sheets’ portfolio, as well as behind the scenes footage of the making of “Fugue,” can be found at idirectfilms.com.

Cecilia Salomone
Reporter
St. Louis Business Journal

Austin McCardie (DP), Gabe Sheets (Writer/Director) and Wyatt Weed (AD) on the set of his movie “Fugue.” His crew was shooting downtown this week on Eighth Street near Olive street.

End of article