Can you believe FILI CREATIVE made a short film?
The FILI CREATIVE production team created a 16-hour film making challenge. The intention is to grow into a quarterly event with multiple teams. This first round was to test the format with the FILI production team, Devin Frederking, Alicia DeHaan and Tim Burns.
The project objective was to create an original short film in only two business days becasue limits needed to be included. The team wanted to add some more specifications to the project. They made two lists of elements to draw from. One was a list of film genres, the other was a list of elements. These included “the color red” or “an old telephone” of which they would select three.
The team met on a Thursday morning and drew items from the lists at random. The genre drawn was Film Noir/Crime and the three additional elements were “break an item on camera”, “must contain one fake-out” and “final edit can only be 60 seconds long”.
The next couple hours were spent brainstorming a story to pull all elements into a one-minute story, and the rest of the day was spent gathering props and costumes, preparing a set in the lobby, writing a script, and storyboarding.
With plans in place, the team was ready to film. While most of the film would be shot the next day, the team met late that evening to get some exterior shots at night. It was a dark and stormy night, and the team ended up shooting during a thunderstorm. For a noir film, the setting couldn’t have been more perfect, although keeping the camera dry was a challenge!
The Day of Production
Friday morning filming began in earnest. The film was shot mostly in the sequence, with the main location being the detective’s office in the FILI lobby. Alicia and Tim served as the lead actors, while Devin worked as director and cinematographer. Julie, FILI’s administrative assistant is featured in a supporting role.
The bulk of the film was completed in the morning and after a quick break for lunch the final two shots were filmed, the set was torn down, and the voice over was recorded.
Tim made quick work of cutting the bulk of the film together and adding music. Only a few tasks remained: finalizing the edit, creating a poster, and settling on a name. The working title at the end of the day was “60 Second Film Noir”.
The 60 second time limit, which initially seemed like a massive limitation, however it ended up being the project’s saving grace. A longer film would have been very difficult to complete with the 16 hours.
The production team shared the film with the wider FILI team during staff meeting the following Monday morning. After the meeting, the team decided to digitally add cigarette smoke and change the film’s name to “A Shave Too Close”.
Fun Fact #1: The “blood” used for the dead wife scene was chocolate syrup. This was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s use of the substance in his phenomenal film, Psycho.
Fun Fact #2: The shaving of Tim’s beard was worked into the plot because he had to lose it for a production of Guys and Dolls at Theatre Salina.