Category: Short Films

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.

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.

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.

Haunting – My Rode Reel 2017

A love triangle between three people, one of which happens to be dead.

My entry for the My Rode Reel 2017 competition.

Starring Terence Mentor, Wikus Radyn and Jamie Lee Jacobs.
Produced by Leanne Phillipson
Music: “Eyes Wide Open” by Tony Anderson from Musicbed.com

Shot on my Canon 600D, mostly using a Canon f1.8 50mm lens.
Used the Technicolor Cinestyle picture profile.

Every Battle, Every Score – My Rode Reel 2015

A  finalist for Best Soundtrack and Best Sound Design in the My Rode Reel 2015 short film competition.

A medieval comedy about two warriors trying to determine who has saved the other the most times, which they try to figure out by singing.

This was a fun project. I went very DIY, making all the props, armour and costumes.

Music by Steven Knight Kukard

Starring Kelly Pearce, David Luyt & Wikus Radyn

Costumes by Stephen Phillipson & Leanne Moodley

Shot on my Canon 600D, with a Canon 50 mm 1.8 & 16-35 mm lens, my Rode Videomic and a Konovo slider.

Thanks to Thomas Holder for the lens and Grant Hinds for the microphone.

Reward

“Reward to he who slays yonder dragon.”

A story about expectations.

Perhaps less silly and a little darker than some of my other short films, this is a film I’ve been wanting to make for quite some time, held back a little by the fact that the story requires a dragon and real, live-action dragons are hard to find.

This film was shot completely Guerrilla-style, with my Canon 600D, 18-55mm lens, 50 mm f1.8 lens, Rode Videomic and a cheap plastic tripod.

Thanks to Wikus Radyn, Samantha Dyer and Bryan Banfield for acting and Simon Gottschalk and Christo Kruger for helping out on set.

 

Ice Cream: Part 2

A tale with a taste for time and space.

We continue the adventures of Jimmy and his ice cream-induced teleportation. This one was a little more adventurous on the technical side and I’m quite happy with how it turned out, mostly. There will be a part three eventually.

This film was shot completely Guerrilla-style, with my Canon 600D, 18-55mm lens, 50 mm f1.8 lens, Rode Videomic and a cheap plastic tripod.

Fight To The Death App

Two men determined to battle each other to the death, using all the the greatest advances in technology and weapony. Because that’s what bro’s do, man.

A rather silly but incredibly fun short. I wrote this script because I really wanted to shoot a sword fight.

Shot with my Canon 600D, trying out my new 50mm f/1.8 lens.

Incidentally, this is the fastest short film I’ve ever made: Shortest time period from inception to production, shot the entire film in 3 and a half hours and finished post production 2 days after shooting. My new personal best on all accounts there. I’ll have to work on that…

Thanks to Bryan Banfield and Wikus Radyn for acting in it.