Creating “Perfekt”
Perfekt - A Short Film
A conversation between Alex and Rachelle, two friends that used to know each other well. The short explores themes of sacrifice, love, pain, and commitment.
Filmed at Linnaea’s Cafe Film Festival.
What’s Unique?
I tried to use palindromes. At several points the conversation winds back on itself as characters continue to say the same things they’ve been saying, but the order of the lines is reversed. Just one method of showing how difficult and frustrating their predicament is.
From Script to Final Cut in One Week
Creating the short video “Perfekt” took only one week and a healthy dose of miracles. From equipment to writing to actors to editing… it all seemed to fall into place at the last possible second - every time.
In the end I am very proud of how it came out - especially considering all the crazy circumstances. What follows is the story of the video’s creation, still images, and the script.
No tripod
We were schedule to shoot on Sunday night and I thought my tripod wouldn’t arrive until Monday. That’s a small problem.
It turned out it actually came on Friday - but I was out of town until 5:50pm and couldn’t sign for it. Once it did come in I rushed to the UPS shipping center to pick it up myself. Unfortunately, on Fridays the truck drivers try and finish early so the truck it was on had already been unloaded and there was no way they could find it in “the stack.”
The nice employees working there offered to look around just in case and found it being unloaded as they went by. (That truck was delayed in its unloading process.) Joy of joys, I know had something steady to shoot my video from.
No script
We were schedule to shoot on Sunday night and I had a cast, some crew, equipment… but no script. I had a lot of ideas in my head, sure, but nothing on paper. And that makes it hard on everybody. I also did some teaching for PCF’s Large Group meeting that night, so I already had a busy evening ahead of me.
That night I stayed up late and started typing. I must have begun around 12:30 or 1:00 and typed until 3am. At that point I crawled into my bed and dreamt of my own script, I’m sure. Around 8am I woke up and crawled back in front of my computer and continued typing.
By the time 10am rolled around I was printing out my first copies of it and my director of photography was knocking on my door to do pre-production.
Rehearsals, anyone?
We’re schedule to shoot on Sunday night and Saturday day is the first time my actors got to see the script. That evening I rehearsed with both of them and they fell into the parts pretty naturally.
Whew. Time to get some rest. After I made some phone calls to see who else could complete my needed shooting crew.
Evening of shooting
Sunday evening finally arrives. We arrive a little before 6pm to set up in the back of Linnae’s Cafe. Actors are set to arrive by 7. At 5:45 one my extras cancels on me and I’m left with out a small but important player. Oh well… I’d figure it out on the fly.
At 7:30 we put the final touches on lighting and set design. We were all set to shoot - except I had forgotten headphones. We began shooting and I sent someone home to go get some, but the first several minutes of audio were blown way out of limit because I set my levels wrong. Fortunately, the mic on the other channel picked up the audio I did need and it worked out.
Some friends of mine - Garrett and Sarah - were there hanging out at the coffee shop that night already. Perfect. I needed someone to play the waitress in my script, and Sarah stepped right into the role. Problem solved.
There was a lot I wasn’t used to in shooting that night: time to spend before adjusting camera angle, how much light is truly necessary for each scene. ways the boom mic shoot be moved. I know now, but it sure compliated things in the moment. We only got through 50% of the camera angles I wanted to shoot. We barely worked through the whole script twice.
But you know what? It was enough. I couldn’t go back for pick-ups or retakes - setting up the lights would just take too much time. I had to live with what I had.
But that’s what director’s do: they make what they have available in any given moment just work.
And it did.
James, I am shocked you only stayed up till 3am and got up as late as 8a when writing the script. Where was the sence of urgency!??!!? j/k.
Could you elaborate on your film’s story? A guy and a girl alone at a table in a private, introspective, and focused setting. Heavy focus on character interaction and conversational dynamics I’m assuming? I’d be interested to hear more about your vision for your film.
Perhaps this is something out of nothing, but the color tones on the video (well- the frame grabs) are nice. Even in low light, the color depth is nice with the distinctness of the varying reds and greens. Peachy skin tone, too! Guess that’s what you get with 3 CCDs.