Lucy, in the aftermath of a verbal argument with her abusive mother, goes about her day in high school until a mysterious, hypnotizing voice lures her into a dark cave. She is then led to a dark and peculiar figure that foretells her potential gruesome future. Lucy must decide whether to tolerate her mother’s toxic and abusive tendencies or to engage in bloodshed for a better life. 

“My style of filmmaking involves trying to tell stories that involve social issues that our society doesn't pay enough attention to, whether it be mental illness, instability in the household, etc. Through the use of these visual and performative spectacles, I want the audience to take away how severe those social issues can be personally to individuals that actually experience them. I want the story of Rake to take a look at how certain situations would be handled from inside of the protagonist's mind. Rake centers around an innocent girl being raised in a low-class household by a single mother who happens to be an alcoholic who verbally abuses her. With no hope in Lucy's life, she reaches out to a demon and dedicates all of her faith towards it to try to take her mother out of the picture. This film is important because it highlights how our society overlooks domestic abuse towards teenagers and children. It also highlights how we as a society need to do better to protect those who are in those unfortunate circumstances.”

- Christopher Mays, Writer/Director of "Rake"

The idea of Rake centers on the issues of domestic violence in a low-income household and finding the true identity of one's self through the faith of a higher power. Besides it being a horror film, we want to effectively tell a meaningful story through the cinematography, the performances,  production design, costume design, and more. Below is a mood board of what the film would look like in its final product: 

Christopher Mays

Writer / Director of Rake

Christopher Mays is an aspiring director, writer, producer and actor based out of Boca Raton, Florida. He is a Senior Film and Television major at the Savannah College of Art and Design with an artistic eye for slow burn dramas, psychological thrillers and horrors, and dark comedies. Mays' previous film, LOVESICK (directed, written, and produced), won “Best Student Short Film” at Central Florida ShortNight. As a producer, he has also gained acclaim from other film festivals around the world with films such as The Grand Adventure (dir. Coby Kiefert) and Denial (dir. Morgan Davies). Through his production imprint, Midnight Summer, he plans to work with many filmmakers that have a passion for powerful storytelling and meaningful expression through the art of film. He looks forward to exploring the world of Rake through this ambitious project!

Erin Carrie

Producer of Rake

Erin Carrie is from Pompano Beach, Florida and she aspires to be a producer, director, and actress. She is a Senior Film and Television major at the Savannah College of Art and Design with a focus of comedies, horror, and thriller. Carrie's debut horror silent short film, Date Night, is currently being distributed to film festivals around the globe. Additionally, Carrie was on the production team for LOVESICK and was involved in producing many other Midnight Summer productions. 

COVID-19 has been the biggest challenge that the filmmaking community has had to work around for the past year. As many individuals are getting vaccinated with COVID-19 cases going downhill, the restrictions that are set in place by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and Georgia's industry standards have been slowly returning to normal. However, due to the rise of COVID-19 cases from the Omicron variant, SCAD requires that our crew stays under the 14-person limit. We have selected what we feel are the most important crew members that should be on set to make this look like the most professional film it can be. 

Another challenge that Rake brings is that we plan to shoot inside of a studio that will happen to be production design and visual effects heavy due to the scene taking place inside a cave. 

With art department in mind, the majority of the film's budget is contributed to production design and costume design as we want to make the world of this film believable and to tell the story beyond the performances.

And that's where your help comes in!

Our planned budget will go towards art department, locations, production needs, and more! When you donate, you will be helping us secure a perfect location for us to film at, distribute our film to film festivals across the country (and globe!), feeding cast and crew members, and you will be helping us in lots of numerous ways! Below is a chart of what your donations will be going towards for the production of this film:

Your generous donations won't go unnoticed! When contributing to our project, you will receive perks! These perks can range from a thank you mention in the end credits to receiving a digital copy of the film prior to release to a signed physical poster from the director, and more! Check out our perks for more information on what you will get with what you plan to donate! 

Our goal for Rake is to reach out to an audience that can relate to the subject matter of domestic abuse through the appropriate film platform channels for commercial/theatrical release.  To reach towards that goal, we plan to submit Rake into film festivals around the United States and globally, which will help our film get noticed. Below are some of the many acclaimed film festivals we plan to submit to once the film is finished:

Sundance Film Festival 

Tribeca Film Festival

SlamDance Film Festival 

Fantasia Film Festival

Aspen ShortsFest

Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Indy Shorts International Film Festival

Atlanta Film Festival

Miami Film Festival

SCAD Savannah Film Festival 

and more! 

Additionally, we want to continue the story of Rake for a potential feature length film. We want to expand on the world of Rake as this short film only covers a small amount of the story we want to tell behind the characters and the subject matter we want to get across to the audience. Distributing the short film to film festivals and other outlets will allow us to hopefully get the attention of investors, production companies, etc. to potentially make the feature-length happen. 

If you can't donate, don't worry about it! We totally understand! However, there is another solution to help our cause! Feel free to share our campaign to your relatives, friends, and even on your social media platforms! Thank you so much and we can't wait to share with you the world of Rake!

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