$1,000 budget: First-time director has high hopes for local film

LAKE STEVENS — Small-time actor Rose Kreider loves gore. In an indie movie gig last month, she took a bullet. (The blood was computer-generated.)

Now, as she directs her first-ever movie in and around Snohomish County, she’s keeping things G-rated.

Kreider, 25, scratched her script’s only swear word in a bid to get it on Amazon Prime.

“Especially it being an indie film, I don’t want them to have any qualms saying yes or no,” she told The Daily Herald.

About 15 people are helping her produce “The Woman.” All of the actors volunteered time in exchange for an IMDB credit. She’s renting the Edmonds Theater for the premiere March 13.

Her mystery-drama features scenes shot at Norm’s Market in Lake Stevens and Flat Iron Gallery in Sultan. The showbiz newbie hopes it will kickstart her film career.

It’s an ambitious goal. The flick has a $1,000 budget. And she has just a month booked for editing.

“I’m also planning to pitch it to Netflix,” Kreider said. “It’s very much a first movie. But you will not be able to tell.”

Main character Noah is a University of Washington student aptly portrayed by Aleksey Weyman, a former UW student. Noah’s life is flipped upside down when he discovers he was kidnapped as a child.

Weyman relates to his character. College was a “time of discovery” for him, too.

“Some people go through more extreme discoveries than others,” he said.

Directing is a major shift from Kreider’s career path. One of her first jobs was as a player for a semi-professional Canadian lacrosse team.

“I don’t even know what our real name was,” Kreider said. (It was the “Lady Shamrocks.”)

Kreider then took up modeling, working for liquor brands and serving shots at Seattle bar crawls during Seahawks season. She dabbled in fashion modeling, walking at New York Fashion Week for a Florida-based online boutique.

This year, Kreider met Weyman on the set of indie drama “Year of the Fox,” directed by Megan Griffiths. They were both extras. In the background of one shot, Kreider said she grabbed Weyman’s hand, making him a “pretend boyfriend.”

“We clicked pretty much right away, just because of how attentive we are to the scene,” Weyman said. “That’s what I noticed about Rose. She thinks about the full visual experience of the scene.”

The actor has roots in Mukilteo and a background in musical theater.

“I’d say ‘The Woman’ is sort of a dive into what it means to become undone by an unknowingness of oneself,” he said.

Weyman was especially excited to film inside Norm’s in Lake Stevens. The bottleshop is well known not only for its extensive beer selection, but for owner Shane McDaniel, the “woodchopping dad” who starred on Steve Harvey’s TV show, appeared in People magazine and was written about in this newspaper after he fought off a burglar.

“It was a spectacle in there. Everywhere you look there’s just a fantastical element. There’s lights, there’s a train. I was definitely on my Instagram making posts on my story,” Weyman said. “There’s a lot of iconic locations we filmed in that people will recognize. That’s always a nice plus, to represent a local community.”

Claudia Yaw: 425-339-3449; claudia.yaw@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @yawclaudia.