Even with the spooky sights and the orange glow of jack o’ lanterns slowly dimming the streets, a local Lethbridge radio personality is celebrating Halloween a little differently. Ryan Mennie, CJOC’s afternoon drive radio host has recently completed his short film Welcome to Creepsville THE REMIX for CASA’s Halloween Monster Mash short film festival.
Welcome to Creepsville THE REMIX is a new take on a short film that Mennie shot back in 1994. This new version uses some of the original footage and intermingles it with modern day material. The differences between the new and old footage is not only apparent in the video quality, but in the overall tone of the film as well. The ’94 material was originally purposed to be used as a satirical parody of cheesy ‘80s horror films, where the modern day footage has a more “found footage” feel to it.
Editing the clips together into one short film was no easy task, but Mennie explained that his love for radio and audio were the missing pieces.
“It’s actually a little bit of the music from the original, but everything else is all new. The audio is all new, even the audio that was originally recorded in ’94 has been changed and mutated and morphed,” says Mennie.
Despite working on his short film, Mennie still found time to express his creativity at work. Mennie has been working for CJOC for just over a year now and during that time he has come to work dressed as Spock, dressed up as a pilot from Top Gun for the Lethbridge Air Show, found the time to dress up like Will Ferrel from Elf, outfitted himself like Indiana Jones, and lastly put himself in the Stirling parade while clothed as a pirate. Mennie’s boss Erin Lucas who is also program director at CJOC, explained how Mennie’s eccentric personality at work has really brought CJOC closer together as a radio station.
“Everyone on the radio can relate their own personality on-air and hopefully it comes across to the listener. When Ryan came to work at CJOC, he was like a missing piece of a puzzle that was finally there,” says Lucas.
Mennie has always enjoyed being creative, in fact before his time in radio, Mennie’s dream job was to be an actor. Mennie wanted to act as a way to entertain thousands of people by being creative and letting his personality shine through. Understanding the hardships of acting, Mennie enrolled at Lethbridge College in the Communication Arts program and turned his creative virtues to radio.
“Whether it’s film, whether it’s audio, whether it’s the written word, it’s an opportunity to create and CASA’s film fest was an open invitation to see what I could put together,” says Mennie.
Welcome to Creepsville was submitted as a part of CASA’s Halloween Monster Mash short film festival. Gallery curator Darcy Logan explained how the goal of the film festival was to offer a new voice to aspiring Lethbridge filmmakers.
“Give a forum for creative producers to be able to show off something that they’ve made, as well as have the broader community come and appreciate the creative vision of these artists,” says Logan.
The short films will air on Oct.31 starting at 7 p.m. as a part of CASA’s bigger Halloween party called Halloween Monster Mash.
