At
the end of 2003 EHP set itself a challenge - to write and film
a short in a day. Now we know this isn't an original idea, there
are many one day and weekend short film competitions, but we thought
this was a good way of flexing our filmmaking muscles. Also an
excuse to use the then newly purchased Canon XM2 digital camera!
We kept it simple, only one actor and one location. Laurence
of Arabia was not shot in a day so we knew we had to keep
it small. The location was my home and the actor was long time
EHP victim, sorry collaborator, Paul Lloyd.
The team gathered in the morning and over a java PT and I bashed
out the basic outline of the story - crafting something we like
to call 'spacial horror'. Fear not based on a big salivating monster
or an axe welding psycho, but on the space around you. We picked
the most frighting space to turn against you - you're very own
home. In some ways this was a simplification of an idea explored
in the brilliant novel House of Leaves, where a door
appears in a wall that leads to a seemingly infinite space.
The script laid out we shoot the story in order and followed a
man returning home one cold winter night, having a simple dinner
then falling asleep in front of the television. He awakes hours
later and gets ready to turn in for the night and that's when
the house turns against him. We used camera tricks and invisible
cuts to create the illusion that the man was running into the
kitchen and ending up in the bathroom. We wanted his house to
become a maze of endless doors and combinations. No matter what
you do, or what door you go through, you will always end up back
in the house.
Sleep well.
PW
11/08/05
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