Hempfield native's short film to be featured on WQED's 'Filmmakers Corner'

Lauren Keller was sitting in her childhood bedroom in 2019 after completing her first semester at Point Park University when an idea for a film script began to kindle.

Three pages later, Keller had one of the first drafts of what would become the film “A Little Glass of Rum,” a 20-minute movie that weaves the story of prison security guard Stan Ailor, who comes home to discover the gruesome murder of his wife and son. Three years later, Ailor meets his family’s murderer, Kenneth, before his execution.

The film will be brought to life when it premieres on WQED’s “Filmmakers Corner” at 10 p.m. Saturday.

She didn’t expect to be able to watch one of her films on television until later in her career, Keller said.

“I’m very pumped for it,” she said.

Keller, 23, of Hempfield, who graduated from Point Park in April with a bachelor of fine arts in cinema production, came up with the idea for the film during her sophomore year of college after watching a video about the last meals of death-row inmates.

She kept the script throughout her college career and came back to the idea while working on her senior project.

“It’s just interesting to me how execution day (would be), it’s the last day you’re ever going to eat anything or drink anything or breathe. … I just thought that’d be an interesting topic to play around with through film,” Keller said.

Ailor, the security guard, meets with the killer, Kenneth, as he is having his last meal. As the two are talking, viewers find out they are brothers.

They delve into their childhood, discussing their abusive father, “and it kind of shows how you can take those situations,” Keller said. “The killer obviously took it one way and the prison guard took it a different way but at the end of the film, all in all, they’re still related and even the prison guard kind of turns bad in a way.”

In addition to writing the film, Keller was the producer and director of photography on the project, and directed post-production.

Keller banded together with a group of people she worked with on her junior thesis film and put out casting calls for actors.

“A lot of people took interest in it, and we were in auditions for 10 hours for a couple of days,” she said. “People were very excited. Once we kind of saw their auditions, it kind of sealed the deal with them and they were very excited to be on board. They took a chance with us college kids but obviously it worked out.”

Filming took them to locations across the region, including several in Pittsburgh and Hempfield.

One scene is shot at the old food service building owned by Hempfield Area School District on Route 136. Prison scenes were shot at the West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville.

After submitting a 12-minute version of the film for her senior class, one of Keller’s professors decided to reach out to WQED to see if they would air an extended cut of the film.

“(WQED) reached out to us, and they were like, ‘We want to feature this on Filmmakers Corner, is that OK?’ We were all very excited for that, so we’ve been back and forth with them and just trying to get everything situated and here we are are it’s going to screen … so we’re very excited,” Keller said.

Point Park cinema arts professors Andrew Halasz and Frederick Johnson praised Keller for her film and its premiere.

“This was a script that Lauren wrote in one of her early screenwriting classes,” Halasz said. “She continued to develop it throughout her time in the cinema arts department. It was great to see how she nurtured the story she wanted to tell — resulting in a powerful, moving and effective thesis film.”

Johnson agreed.

“Lauren had a very clear vision for the film from the beginning, and even though there were a lot of challenges throughout the production, she persevered and brought her vision — fully realized — to the screen,” Johnson said.

For Keller, Saturday’s screening is likely only the start of her film career.

“I just really fell in love with it and I’m really excited to put my passions into my career,” Keller said.