W(M)atching Future
This short film is the final result of my 2013 Spring Term ELC Shanghai Filmmaking Class.
By Franc Peret
I did as usual, meeting my students first, to discover their personality, their availability and their motivation to be part of the project both beside and in front of the camera.
Then I came back to the class prior to the 3 shooting sessions (15 hours total) with a script workable according usual limitations: location, time, people involved, workforce and budget.
I came out with this very short story of a TV channel (Next TV, I preferred that name as a too obvious “Future TV”) which present News prior to their happening or so is thinking the main character who is watching that channel; crime, electricity black out…
Every detail in this short story is important as clothes, accessories and behavior helped to get the whole idea. 2 examples:
1 – The sparkling bowl next to the TV host, similar to the transparent glass ball fortune teller are usually using for reading the future.
2 – The weird white uniforms everybody (coming from outside) is wearing. This Uniform appears at last wear by the strange lady at the end of the story while she is looking at herself in the mirror: this is her own interpretation of the outside world.
This uniform is just an illusion, as well as the pale face of the people she is getting in touch with. Technically, the big challenge was to turn out daytime in nighttime, getting this dim lighting and dealing with those too reflective white uniforms which didn’t help to get the lighting right in every condition.
It was tough as usual, as we were missing time to get a perfect set up for every cut and there was a lot.
We did first all the TV Host scene and Advertisement shot in front of a green screen. Camera: Panasonic AF100 and GH3. Lenses: Voigtlander 25mm f0.95, Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95, Nikon 50mm 1.2, SLR Magic 12mm f1.6.
Lighting: Blue LED light, 150W, 300W and 650W tungsten fresnel light, green screen and actors were lit by 6 x 200 W kinoflos for the TV host shots.
Former ELC Photography teacher, Franc Peret is teaching Essential Photography Classes, Advanced Photography Workshop and Film Making Classes in Shanghai, for the last 10 years.
