The small Midwest town of Royal Oak secretly under the control of a Mexican drug cartel is terrorized when a serial killer starts causing havoc, turning the streets into a bloodbath.

The Fall (2024) is an entirely independent film carried out by tight knit group of friends known as "Beautiful Loser Productions". The two-hour feature presentation was completed with a $0 budget, volunteer actors, and filmed whenever everyone was off the clock of their regular 9-5. Samuel Tikkanen led his cast and crew into a true world of guerrilla filmmaking, breaking rules, defying odds, and shattering the status quo for indie projects fueled by passion and the love of cinema.

126-Minute Independent Feature Film

126 Minutes
Feature-length runtime

21 Cast Members
Volunteer actors brought together across the production

30+ Locations
Filmed throughout Metro Detroit

12 Months
From principal photography through post-production

$0 Budget
Produced independently without a production budget

Sold-Out Premiere
130-seat theatrical debut

30,000+ Views
Organic audience reached after release

• Developed and executed a guerrilla marketing campaign that generated local awareness through creative, low-cost promotional tactics.

• Designed and deployed a fictional political campaign using yard signs and branded materials to spark curiosity and drive organic engagement.

• Integrated physical and digital marketing through QR codes that connected audiences directly to trailers and promotional content.

• Contributed to a sold-out theatrical premiere through grassroots marketing and community-focused promotion.

A grassroots promotional campaign designed to build awareness for The Fall through creative, low-budget marketing tactics throughout Royal Oak.

• 130-seat premiere sold out

• 30,000+ organic YouTube views

• 27.2K TikTok followers

• 882K+ TikTok likes

• The campaign generated enough local curiosity to be organically shared and discussed within the Royal Oak community on Reddit.

1st Place Winner — Writing Through Image and Sound, University of Michigan

One Step Up, Two Steps Back is a 72-minute independent film written, directed, produced, shot, and edited by Samuel Tikkanen. Developed from Tikkanen's first-place-winning screenplay, the project was an early exercise in taking a story from the written page through a complete feature-length production.

Created years before The Fall, the film represents an important stage in Tikkanen's development as a filmmaker and storyteller—demonstrating early experience in long-form screenwriting, directing, cinematography, production, and post-production.

3rd Place Winner — Writing Through Image and Sound, University of Michigan

Lost is a three-minute short film written, directed, produced, shot, and edited by Samuel Tikkanen. The project earned third place in the University of Michigan’s Writing Through Image and Sound competition, recognizing Tikkanen’s ability to develop and execute a complete narrative within a tightly condensed runtime.

Though the original film is no longer available, Lost remains an early milestone in Tikkanen’s work and reflects his foundation in visual storytelling, screenwriting, directing, cinematography, and editing.

Lost

A curated collection of cinematography from Samuel Tikkanen’s narrative, commercial, and independent productions. The reel showcases a range of visual styles, locations, lighting conditions, camera techniques, and compositions developed across multiple projects.

Featuring work in 4K, the reel highlights Tikkanen’s approach to framing, camera movement, lighting, color, and visual storytelling—using each shot to serve the tone, emotion, and purpose of the story.

A spec commercial created for Dr. Squatch, designed to capture the brand’s bold, comedic personality through original concept development and visual storytelling. Samuel Tikkanen handled the project from concept through final delivery, including writing, directing, cinematography, production, and editing.

The project demonstrates an ability to translate an established brand identity into engaging promotional content while balancing humor, pacing, product integration, and a distinct visual style.

A recreation of a scene from 8 Mile, created as a filmmaking exercise focused on translating an established cinematic sequence through original production. Samuel Tikkanen handled directing, cinematography, production, and editing, recreating the scene through shot composition, blocking, camera movement, lighting, performance, and pacing.

The project demonstrates attention to visual detail and the ability to study an existing creative work, identify the filmmaking choices behind it, and reproduce its tone and style through hands-on production.