Erin Turvey, Haileigh Steffen, and Morgan Olsen

Slumber Party
2025-26 Research/Development Grant

Writer Erin Turvey and her team plan to create a 10-20 minute proof-of-concept short film to practice the tone, themes, and visual language of what may become a feature-length film that combines animation, live-action experimentation, and magical realism narrative. The film will explore the lasting social and economic impact agricultural industrialization had on a Midwestern town during the 1980s through the eyes of a young woman working for her father’s struggling print shop, Quick Print. The proof-of-concept short film will serve several informative purposes, most importantly, as a testing ground for the collaborators’ experimental narrative and technical choices. This will allow the team to identify potential problems with the script and to become familiar with the demands of a low-budget production.