Author: Stephen Phillipson

Couples Counselling – 48 Hour Film Project Short Film

 

A once-happy couple face some difficult questions about communication, expectations and committing crimes.

This film was created as part of the 48 Hour Film project. I wrote and edited this film, which was produced and directed by Jonathan Degueldre.

The 48 Hour Film Project is competition which gives you 48 hours – from 7 pm Friday to 7 pm Sunday – to write, shoot, edit and deliver a short film. Our team was assigned the genre of dark comedy and the film had to include a potted plant, a famous author as a character and the line of dialogue “I hope it’s good news.”

The film was selected as a finalist to screen at Filmapalooza Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2023, and of all the films screened there, was selected as one of 24 films to play at 48 Hour Film Project screening at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023.

This was my first time writing and editing for a contest like this. It was great working with a crew of people instead of doing everything myself. We had a makeup artist, a gaffer and two composers. This is the first film I’ve worked on in many years where I wasn’t operating the camera. I spent most of the shoot off to the side of the set, editing whatever we had already shot. I’m very happy that we managed to finish the film in time and I’m even happier that is turned out to be pretty good.

It’s incredible that something I wrote between 01h00 and 03h00 one morning made it all the way to Cannes. It wasn’t an Official Selection and wasn’t in competition, but I learned that a lot of the films that get shown at the festival aren’t either.

I was lucky enough to attend the screening and experience some of the festival. It was great meeting some of the other filmmakers involved in the 48HFP and getting a better understanding of how film festivals and film markets operate.

Why I Never Started Smoking

Inspired by a true story.

Very loosely inspired. That is to say, I never fought the undead in a graveyard, but someone did threaten to injure me if I ever started smoking, due to all the grief I gave them about their smoking when I was a teenager.

Concluding my trilogy of garage-based green screen projects, this is my second lockdown production, as well as my second attempt to make this short. I shot and edited the short in it’s entirety, then decided I wasn’t happy with it. So I reshot it, with better makeup and wardrobe choices, as well as tweaks to the lighting, compositing and colour grading.

Here’s a look at that process:

This is the second project I’ve completed using Hitfilm Pro for all post-production.

Shot on my Canon 77d, with the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 pancake lens & Canon EFS 24mm f/2.8 pancake lens.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? A Mad Scientist Musical

A short musical comedy about a scientist who spends too much of his time wondering if he could and not enough time wondering if he should. My entry to My Rode Reel 2020.

Official Selection to the Great Canadian Sketch Comedy Film Festival 2020.

Filmmaking has always been a collaborative effort. In this time of social distancing, gathering a group of people together to shoot a shoot film, hasn’t been the most practical or even possible idea.

Despite this, I was determined to make a short film this year. Determined to create for the sake of creating. Also to enter a short film contest.

The result of my determination is the short film above. Made entirely by myself, both behind and in front of the camera.

It was also an exercise in creating a short film with limited resources.

I recently had to cancel my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, so post-production on this film was done entirely in HitFilm, which I had purchased a few years ago. This was the first real project I had tried in HItFilm. Unlearning habits learned from years of using the same software was a little tricky, but I soon learned to enjoy HitFilm and I’m quite happy with how the effects turned out. All photo editing was done in a demo version of Affinity photo, which expired on my final day of editing. All stock photos were sourced from free stock image sites.

To be very honest, I had my doubts about this film. I thought it might be too weird, or too odd or would only appeal to my own sensibilities. But in the few days since I’ve released it to the world, I’ve had so much positive feedback from people. It even made it into a film festival. I guess I should just trust my weirdness more.

Shot on my Canon 77d, with the 40mm pancake lens, Rode Videomic and my cheap plastic tripod.

The Film Noir Detective Agency

An advert for a detective agency from a typical Film Noir. All tropes and fedoras are part of the deal. Short comedy.

Official Selection for The L.A. Neo Noir Novel, Film & Script Online Festival 2020.

So there I was, sitting around the house on a Thursday night, thinking, “I should make a movie today.” I had two lights, a green screen, an overcoat that used to belong to my grandfather and, of course, a fedora. So why why not shoot a Film Noir? I’ve always loved Film Noir, or at least the idea of Film Noir. Every time I try to write something noir-ish, it ends up leaning in a comedic direction, so I thought I’d go full tilt and poke fun at some staples of the genre. I got to write a 1-minute sketch that somehow managed to fit in two separate cheesy voice overs and I got to deliver both of them.

Conceived, shot, edited and uploaded within the span of 20 hours.

The second short filmed with my Canon 77D, exclusively using the 40mm pancake lens.

Space Lizard Versus Giant Robot Bear

Official Selection for The Great Canadian Sketch Comedy Film Festival 2019.

Short film/fake trailer about a giant lizard from outer-space, and the giant robot built as humanity’s last hope to fight it. My entry in this year’s My Rode Reel contest in “The Trailer Is The Movie” category. The idea was to make an homage to 1950’s monster movies, using practical miniature monsters to test out my compositing skills.

This is one of those ideas that have stuck around in my brain years. This idea first surfaced in 2012, while I was up to my elbows in paper mache, making a dragon puppet for another short film. I originally wanted to build human-sized monster costumes, with a miniature set to scale and have actors destroy the set and their costumes while slugging it out. I shelved the idea in favour of slightly more practical short films. The allure of building monster suits and destroying things was eventually replaced by the curiosity of trying to film miniatures and practice compositing.

Here’s a look at what went into making it:

Starring Terence Mentor, Jamie Lee Jacobs, Bryan Banfield, Andrew Stuart Baird and Leanne Phillipson.
The first film shot on my Canon 77d, still using my cheap plastic tripod and my Rode VideoMic.

Behind The Scenes

Aunty Merle: The Musical – Behind The Scenes
Directed, shot & edited.

Darren Simpson & Sherlin Barends Photoshoot – Behind The Scenes
Directed, shot & edited.

From Soundcheck To Showtime – Jimmy Nevis At #HauweiKDay
Directed, shot & edited.