A young athlete descends into a world of terror when he’s invited to train with a legendary champion in Director Justin Tipping’s sports horror, Him.

In Tipping’s film, Cameron “Cam” Cade, a promising young football player is invited to train at the isolated compound of Isaiah White, a legendary almost-retired quarterback. But things turn unsettling as White takes his protégé on a blood-chilling journey into the inner sanctum of fame, desire, power, and pursuit of excellence at all costs.

On September 13, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Tipping discussed the making of the film during a Q&A moderated by Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (I Know What You Did Last Summer). During the conversation, he revealed how he created the x-ray look featured in part of the movie.

“We got a military grade thermal camera off of eBay and jerry-rigged it on top of our ARRI cinema camera. We tried to get them to line up o we could pull focus on both cameras and still operate them as A, B cameras. We were able to go handheld even. I mean it was so heavy — I’m so sorry [Camera Operator] Scott Dropkin wherever you are — but it was really like we were experimenting. We felt we were all like kids like, ‘What if we did this?’ The UPM’s freaking out, ‘We don’t have time for this.’ We don’t even know how it’s gonna look, but like everything in this movie we wanted to take the biggest swing we could at every turn. So, ultimately, what you’re seeing is those two images merged together.”

Tipping’s other directorial credits include the feature film Kicks; and episodes of Joe vs. Carole, Flatbush Misdemeanors, Run the World, Twenties, The Chi and Black Monday. He has been a DGA member since 2017.