School project: "Slutna Rum"

[DavidW]

Now our latest short film is available on the net in the Windows Media Streaming format. Please choose your desired bandwidth on this page:

http://webtv.brainspark.se/webocaster/show/yqajpvtfxr/slutnarum/speed.asp

It was shot during the autumn as a school project, using a Canon XL1s camera. Feedback is very welcome! :-)

[NorthernLights]

If anyone needs help with translation (shouldn't really be nescessary), or help understanding the depths of the psychological issues in the movie, I'm the turn-to guy. While DavidW did the excellent work behind the camera, I'm the semi-decent guy in front of it, plus I wrote the script so hopefully I can answer any of your questions regarding that ;)

[arlen]

i watched ur movie david, give me a great impression of ur composition in it.especially the shot when the car hit the girl, really fantastic.

but something confused me, is it a story about a mad man who was so sad about the traffic accident of his girlfriend and maybe he did it by himself,(i am sorry that though i wacthed if for 3 times, i still haven't got the real meaning),if it is,where the blood came from, the girl? all u do in the film before the car hit shot just made me a misconception that the boy killed the girl and he was so regretful and mad about what he did but at last the car hit the girl. what i want to know is , is the man became mad and killed the girl then be sent to the hospital or he saw what happen to his girlfriend and because of that he became mad? and what about the car tried to hit the man too.

and the other thing is that about the editing rhythm, it's very slow and redundant in some shots,maybe just cut a few frames at the end or begin of these shots off and cut off some useless shot, it will become better. and as i think when it goes to the tangly scene(where the women scream,the police alarm etc in the bg sound),it should break out in edit, i mean with the shot around the man, we should combine it with such like lots of close-up shaking flashing and so on to express the mad and chaos but not only just the bg sound and the light flashing. i think.
i dont konw do i express myself well but that is just what i feel. totally i watched 7 times, i like it.every shot we shoot when we r studying in school is our painstaking effort ,with little money,few person, miniDV but have to do good even great work.
great work david.

*forgive my english* hehe

[NorthernLights]

What we see in the movie is that the guy is bloody, and he obviously knows the girl who's been hit by the car. This can be confirmed as he knows her name, and she whispers his even though the second is a bit tweaked. If you don't know Swedish though, it can be hard to understand what is a name and what is some other jibberish ;)
It can also be confirmed that he did not drive the car himself as he sees himself run past the doorway after the girl is hit by the car, which is very subtle. Through this it can be concluded that he was nearby when it happened, and through some logic you should be able to understand that he held her in his lap since his t-shirt is bloody.

In short, and more clear. Sarah was Anders' girlfriend, he saw her get hit by the car and had a mental breakdown. By subtle hints we've tried to establish the background environment. It starts with lots of confusion on his own side and then the visions he have get more and more severe until he snaps. This is where the lights are turned back on in the bathroom-looking scene. From here on up until he hits his head all camera angles simulates security cameras on an asylum. Up high in the ceiling, but slightly tilted to create subrealism.
During this sequence of the movie I've edited it slow intensionally as I wanted a realtime enviroment and the security cameras do not cover exactly everything.

That he is about to be hit by the car himself is mainly due to a guilt-feeling, like he thinks he should have been the one hit instead of her. It is also partly because he was so close to her that he experiences what she did.

The bonus ending is just a way to show that he's stuck in this internal struggle of his and that everything happens over and over.

The slow editing on a couple of scenes I am aware of, however, I rather have a bit slower cut than a movement of the head or an arm going in the wrong direction. The scene before Sarah is introduced for the first time could have been much better, but the material we had unfortunatly didn't allow mr to cut it anyway differently. At least not with a good rythm of movement. Personally I like rythm of movement more than a tight cut.

There are some scenes however that I wanted to draw out on a bit longer, pressing the audience to feel a bit singled out and desperate about the emptiness. Hard thing to create though.

Very good point about closeups in the chaos-scene. If I were to redo this film, that's definatly something I would have planned to bring in.

If I missed any point, forgive me and please point me to it =) Thanks for your criticism.

[DavidW]

Thank you very much for your great comments! :D
I'm especially overwhelmed over the number of times you guys have watched our short!

I'll start with who made what in this production, since we where 4 guys and a girl on it. NorthernLights/Daniel (why posted here earlier) wrote the whole script and is the main actor as well. Therefore he'll do the answering on the story part. Then we got Håkan who was the responsible guy for all sponsorship and those kind of things. Malin did the production of the title and end credits with some help from me, mostly with 3D tracking. Adam was more like a helper on set (of course everybody helped with all kind of things on set, for example electricity).
I took the whole visual responsibility part, and that was a big job! Everything from camera and lighting on set to all compositing and color correcting (NorthernLights assisted me with some retiming). I also did the DVD authoring for final delivery.

Thanx again! // David

[NorthernLights]

David forgot that I also created the 3D asylum room together with manual "ragdoll"-tracking of the shadow.

And with help from my more technical father I created a PVC-dolly that was used for a couple of the shots. The dolly-shots in the intro however were created using an old pram/sulky.

The actress name is Sara (without h). She was my inspiration when it came to developing how I wanted Sarah in the movie to look like, so I am more than pleased that she accepted to take on the role.

[DavidW]

If you want to see some production pictures surf to:
http://www.brainspark.se/publik/trapped/

[arlen]

hi northernlights, with ur word i watched the film again and now i can easily get the meaning. but one thing u said "From here on up until he hits his head all camera angles simulates security cameras on an asylum" if i didnt remind myself about this while watching it, i still can not feel it.
and suddenly a thought came across me, how about let the story happen again and again with analogical shots but a little difference in each shots. to let audience get more emptiness but maybe wanna know why and at last find the result is a cure,but u know u r the director;)
and to the rhythm i think u r right about the slow and emptiness but i still insist the burst out at the chaos, audience need breath there

still like it
-cheer thnx:)

[NorthernLights]

Well, if it wasn't a 10 min short movie, the repeating could be something to look into. If it were a 1 hour movie perhaps something like that could be very interesting. I like repeating stories, and I love psychological horror movies. Perhaps one day I will get the chance to work on a bigger project that doesn't have zero budget (which this is).

Thanks for the comments, I am eager to learn more about how artistic people feel about editing as that is the field I want to work in after school.

About finding a cure, I don't like it. Happy endings are for Hollywood ;P

[arlen]

hehehehe, hollywood happy ending :)

my course is editing and i really want to know someone in A.C.E, u know their film cuting skill is fantastic great

here is the A.C.E site
http://www.ace-filmeditors.org/newace/home.html
consider about their Intern Program

-cheers