Shooting a Short Film for Sky Art's shortFLIX

Hello!

Last month I had the amazing opportunity to come on board as the cinematographer for ‘Left Behind’, a short film about two brothers and their response to grief within their family. Being part of SkyArts, the initiative was to provide directors who had less experience, not in full time employment or studying £10,000 budget to create a short. Having the opportunity to shoot a project with a large sum of budget was fantastic.

I was away in India during the weeks leading up to the project, despite that, Carrie (director) and I worked heavily into the project having constant chats and emails to prepare the days ahead. It was a two day shoot and a 13 scene script, this meant we had to be really fast when it came to shooting, and fast we were!

Ultimately, this experience has been a great opportunity for me and challenged me in a way that others haven’t. I was practically jumping into locations I hadn’t had opportunities to pre-visit, working with a less experience (but actually felt quite experienced) director and figuring out what kit we should order from the hire.

A short about Islamophobia and how media has pushed a perspective.

I recently got the chance to work on the BFI young filmmakers thriller competition for filmmakers aged 16-25. I was approached by a team of young filmmakers with an idea already in their heads. Zane (writer, director and actor) wanted to create this film that challenged the views that western media has put on society about Muslims. We created this powerful short that I will not spoil but really makes you feel guilty as a viewer if it makes you ‘think’ a certain way.

DOP of Remnants, My Next Short Film Project!

During the end of my university degree, while I was shooting Kilig, I had been contacted by two very lovely people. Jakob Barnes from Jumpcut Studios and Chris Boyd an up and coming writer and director with a keen interest in horror films. They both had seen my style of filmmaking and wanted to get in touch to have me on board Chris’s latest story, remnants. I thought it was crazy at first, I’ve never been in a position where I would DOP a short that wasn’t a student project. There would be a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, but I felt like after shooting Kilig, I have what it takes.

Remnants is a horror film set in the modern era. We follow Adrian, a teacher at a reservoir. He then finds a walker, one with a strange act to them and pursues them. Over the course of the film, we find to realise that the walker is the ghostly figure of someone Adrian knows very well…

After many discussions with Chris, I got a great idea of what the films visual style was. Chris and I both went to the location to scout and find places where we could shoot, I then boarded the film on CineTracer.

One of the main challenges we had was the time constraints. We were shooting a 10 page script in two days. This involved multiple scene changes, actors, possible weather disruptions, etc. I ended up boarding 43 shots on the first day and 47 shots on the second day. I know this sounds crazy, but both the director and I knew going into this project, we had to take on a guerilla-style approach to shooting. This meant a simple rig, easy to execute shots and shooting what we need as I could come back at anytime without the actors and shoot pick ups of landscapes, etc.

A new thing that I’ve never done is shoot in water. Like, actually put my camera underwater. This was scary considering the price point of my S1H and it being all that I’ve ever worked for but I decided, hey let’s trust this £80 glorified-sandwich bag from Dicapac and see what happens. It worked surprisingly well! One thing to note, the UV filter of the Dicapac seems to clash with any filters used on the lens, creating a weird rainbow effect on reflective surfaces, such as the water we were shooting in.

To summarize, this was a freaking epic shoot. Everyone on set were so on ball with the project, the actors were fantastic, all the crew nailed their roles and I am so grateful for this opportunity. I really look forward to seeing how Katie pieces this together in the edit (it’ll then be shipped to me for the colour grade!)

BTS Photography by Ai Narapol

Photo by Tom Sheffield

BTS Photography by Ai Narapol

Credits:

Cast:

Yara | Emma Leah Golding

Adrian | Simon Weir

Catherine | Rayyah McCaul

Crew:

Producer | Jakob Barnes

Director | Chris Boyd

DOP | Darshan Gajjar

Sound | Marcus Anuzis

AD | Nick Deal

AC | Tarik Skalli

Production Executive | Tom Sheffield

Make-Up Design | Isabella Percival

BTS & Unit Photography | Ai Narapol

Editor | Katie Senior