Today I attended a zoom meeting that I found on Eventbrite. It was called “Creating the Short Film ‘Alone’ with DP Jimmy Matlosz” and the reason why I chose to attend this event was because there was a special emphasis on the lighting and camera work on the description of the event. While it is loosely related to my own project, it ended up providing valuable information about testing coloring and how a short film can be challenging yet rewarding when restricting oneself to a small budget. In the beginning of the meeting, there were the technical difficulties of the pandemic zoom world, but after a shining introduction of Jimmy Matlosz from the host Michael Bravin, the informational part started. DP Matlosz spoke about his process and why he wanted to make a short film about the emotions he imagined people were feeling at the beginning of the isolational period of the pandemic. In fact, during a preliminary trailer showing the short film was called “Isolation” which was then changed to “Alone” as production progressed. The most interesting parts that were told before the showing of the short film was the fact that DP Matlosz reverse engineered the film “Momento” to be a linear narrative so that he could properly understand how non-linear narratives in film were produced. “Alone” is a non-linear short film, which DP Matlosz equated to a poetic experience. After this meeting, I plan to attend more events from this group as I admire DP Matlosz for a quote he said which was “we gotta come out of this with films. if we don’t, we’re not film makers.”
The reason why this links to my own project was his consideration of the low light levels that the final and test coloring footage provided. The odd camera angles and lighting with little to no dialogue that DP Matlosz’s short film “Alone” featured fueled inspiration for my own weird camera angles and noir-inspired lighting. During the talk before the film showing (the film is not out yet, what was seen was the raw, temp coloring, and final coloring camera work combined with the temp score) was over behind the scene pictures. Due to the fact he was the entire crew on set when his girlfriend wasn’t assisting, he had to use an app on his phone to operate the camera automatically. All in all, I really look forward to seeing this film that is estimated to be released in December as I’m interested in seeing what a professionally produced DIY film is like.
