The world has been threatened by an alien invasion and now the government has been left no choice but to call upon a select few pizza delivery workers to save the planet.
This is the premise of Caden Butera’s current short film project based out of Coeur d’Alene Idaho, “The Delivery Squad.” Along with respected peers and friends, Hannah Veridi and Chance McWilliams, juniors at Coeur d’Alene high school, and A.J Schaefer, senior at Coeur d’Alene high school, this project has been in the making since August of 2016.
The film is a science fiction comedy and will be 40 minutes long by the end of production. It includes full costumes, makeup, and props.
“I’m basically jamming everything I’ve always wanted to do into this one project with no money at all,” said Butera. Along with film editing, he is also a photographer and amateur graphic designer.
Butera’s first serious project was ust released a week ago. His film, “The Dark at the End of the Tunnel,” stars Bethany Stone,18, general studies major at NIC.
“The Delivery Squad” is not Buteras first large-scale short film. He has been making short films since the age of 8 on production software such as Windows Movie Maker. His favorite film he has produced is “How to be a Superhero,” featuring both himself and his best friend Tyler Opp on screen when they were both 10-years-old.
“Media and movies as an entertainment is my life,” Butera said. “While most kids were moving around and playing sports, I was watching Spider-Man.”
More recently Butera has released a horror comedy in early June of 2016 to the Hayden Discount cinema, and a month ago to the public on his YouTube channel Caden Butera. The film was a little over 20 minutes long, his longest film he as completed at this point. He said the inspiration for this film was “The Evil Dead.” His team worked eleven filming days, seven hours each, after school during his his senior year of high school.
“I love making ridiculously over the top things and you can’t really do that with no money unless you go the violent route,” said Butera about why he was interested in filming a horror comedy.
Butera’s idols and inspirations are J.J Abrams, Sam Raimi, Christopher Nolan and Adam McKay. He says he loves movie making because it’s a format of self-expression that forces people to listen once [they] start watching.
“It’s so much more effective than verbal communication,” he said.
Butera is hoping to use this year off from school to work on many personal projects and enter them into various film festivals by the end of the year. He hopes to move to California soon to be closer to the industry where he sees his future where he will pursue being a film director.
