by David C. Barnett
An award-winning story about Jeffrey Dahmer's teenage years is the subject of a film that recently wrapped a two-week shoot in Northeast Ohio. Local artist John Backderf, better known as Derf, won international accolades for his 2012 graphic novel, "My Friend Dahmer", which details his high school acquaintanceship with the future serial killer.
A local hotel banquet room played host to a recreated 1970s high school prom --- replete with a glitter ball, balloons, cookies and punch.
New York filmmaker Marc Meyers is helming the production which spent the past twenty days shooting scenes from Dahmer's teen years in the Greater Akron area. Meyers wrote the screenplay based on Backderf's original story, and says he even used some of the artist's imagery to guide his camera shots. After writing an initial draft, four years ago, Meyers paid a visit to Backderf and got a personal tour of the places where all of those scenes actually happened.
"I stayed with him in October of 2012 for a couple days," says Meyers, "and he drove me around where he grew-up, showed me the Dahmer house, we walked around it together, and it helped inform my re-write as I was considering how to better improve the draft to make it more dramatic for the screen."
Now that shooting has officially wrapped, Meyers is returning to New York to piece all of his Ohio footage together. The final product is due to hit the big screen, next year.
