Topher Hansson grew up making movies in his backyard in Massachusetts. VHS camera in hand, he told his friends where to stand and how to act in the movies he wrote and directed.
Adam Newman, on the other hand, found his love of producing movies after high school and used his “beautiful level of ignorance” to enter the world of feature film, where he eventually met Hansson.
Now, the two are returning to the backyard setting to create “Bad Influence,” a low-budget romantic thriller about a city-based influencer forced to travel to rural New Hampshire.
They plan to shoot scenes in downtown Peterborough and Keene, and in Hansson’s backyard in Rindge. From Nov. 13 to 23, the team will haul their equipment to Coopershill, the Peterborough Diner and elsewhere around town.
“We try to make films in New Hampshire as much as we can,” Newman said. “We love the way it looks.”
New Hampshire at the heart
Hansson and Newman work together at Dreamscape Productions, an independent film company based in Waterville Valley. “Bad Influence” will join a long list of movies they’ve made.
Their most recent feature film, titled “Round the Decay,” was also set in the Granite State and was written, directed and produced by Newman, with Hansson editing the movie.
After two years of work on their next feature film, funding fell through. With plans to film in Peterborough already in place, they decided to produce “Bad Influence.”
Despite the small budget, Newman pushed to make a movie with what they had, and Hansson agreed.
When it comes to filmmaking, “it’s all about problem-solving,” Hansson said.
Hansson’s aunt came up with the script idea, which follows an influencer character placed in unknown territory, inspired by her own culture shock when she moved to Rindge from a city in Massachusetts.
In the movie, the influencer loses a key sponsorship and takes up an unwanted partnership with a rural New Hampshire outfitter. She comes to the Northeast ignorant about the great outdoors and eventually meets a man.
“Things are not what they seem,” Hansson explained, as people start to go missing and die.
The cast will include 11 people, with two leads and about a dozen background actors. Each day, the crew will have eight to 12 people working.
The two filmmakers worked together on the script. Newman is producing the movie, and Hansson will direct it.
‘Community is out there’
Making movies isn’t exactly easy in New Hampshire, especially since it’s one of a dozen states with no tax incentives for filmmakers, but Hansson and Newman prefer to stay home to hone their craft.
“In LA, no one would care; no one would want to help,” Newman said. “In New Hampshire, people are very excited about it, and so willing to help.”
Each time they start a project, Newman asks himself, “How do we get the community around this?”
After asking for assistance on a couple of local Facebook pages, Newman said, they were flooded with interest and support from individuals and businesses.
“Everyone’s been so nice. It’s been really refreshing,” Newman said. “People want to make cool things in this area.”
The duo also said they love giving back to the community by featuring locals and placing products in movies. They enjoy meeting people throughout the process with different interests, from film fans to former college film majors now working in other fields.
“Creativity binds us all together,” Newman said.