A
couple of weeks ago I put call out on Facebook for friends to shoot
phone videos that I could cut together into a short film. The idea
was to give myself and a few friends something to occupy ourselves
with during the Coronavirus era and maybe come out of it with a ten
minute short I could put on YouTube.
I
didn't really have a story when I put the post out, but when 16
friends sent me excited messages asking to be involved, I started
sending them lines written specifically for each of them, their
voices and mannerisms. I gave them brief dialogue parts that would be
talking head type interviews in a documentary. As the only thing I
can really shoot on in lockdown is my bog-standard smartphone, I
thought it would make sense to shoot some linking footage along the
lines of the Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. Yeah, the
found-footage trope has been done to death, but I thought I could
play with the format a bit by including documentary-style audio
recordings set to odd visuals in there too.
I
shot original footage in the house, sat in the car on our drive, in a
supermarket car park sat in the car and even while out for our
exercise sessions. I pieced this together with the talking heads,
audio recordings and free stock footage from sites like Pexels and
Pixabay plus music from Bensound and FreeSFX. I added a title
sequence and additional music from friends and cut it all together in
the video projects function in Windows 10.
Suddenly
I had a 37-minute movie. Not just that, but a 37-minute movie which
is watchable and makes narrative sense.
I
staged a YouTube premiere and got 157 views that night. That was
awesome.
I
sent tweets out about it to local news outlets, and that's when it
got a bit crazy. I got press in the Gedling Eye and was asked on to
be interviewed on BBC Radio Nottingham (skip to 49m 50s for my interview). My video views doubled. I went on
the radio and had an absolute blast talking to presenter Mark
Dennison on-air. Messages poured in about the film, several asking if
I would do another.
So
yeah, I'm proud of this thing that came out of a need to do something
to take my mind off the world being weirder than me right now. I'm
proud of making something that gave a bunch of my friends a bit of
fun. I'm proud of making something for fun which cost absolutely
NOTHING at all to make. Seriously. It was made entirely for free,
entirely in lockdown, and entirely for something to do in the
evenings once the kids were asleep.
I
believe that we have an incredible chance with this era of lockdown
and social distancing. We have the opportunity to make stuff and
focus on it in a way we can't usually give. 'The Demon and I' is rough
and lo-fi, but it came out damn well and wouldn't have been made had
it not been for me clawing my eyes out for something to do as a
hobby. It would also have been a much lesser thing without the involvement of my friends, so thank you so much to everyone.
Before
I post the film below and the teaser trailer for the sequel I'll be
making, here are some bits of trivia.
- The
first time I'm visible on screen as John Evans, my sons are literally
in front of me and taking a brief break from talking to me about
Minecraft.
- In
the scene where John is sorting out recording gear, the 'gear' is
really a hosepipe attachment, an old phone charger and a wireless
plug for my guitar.
- While
text in the film says that it takes place in different cities, it was
all shot here in Arnold, Nottinghamshire. The footage of houses at
the start and the night-driving footage later on are both free stock
footage clips of London, which I've trimmed to hide the fact they're
not where they say they are.
- The
audio recordings of John Evans confronting the demon were completely
built in the free Audacity suite. I recorded one audio channel as
John, then performed the demon lines on another channel. The demon
lines then had their pitch lowered plus reverb and a paulstretch
effect applied. The two sets of lines were split into individual
audio parts and rearranged in their timelines to form the
conversations. I ensured that the two 'voices' overlap at various
points to further give the illusion of it being two different
characters, and not just me walking around my kitchen and shouting.
Once completed, I added a little reverb to the John Evans lines for
room ambience and imported an audio file of ambient background
sounds. These were either free from FreeSFX.co.uk or original pieces
supplied by my friend Huw Davies, who also supplied the voice of
Clifton Regent in three sections of the film. While the above was
relatively simple in terms of audio production, the recordings are
remarkably effective. I'm really proud of what I was able to achieve
just with Audacity and a bit of effort. These recordings are a
highlight of the film for me.
Anyway.
Here's my movie.
Aaaand as I love a quick turnaround, here's the teaser for the sequel.
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