Short Fiction
"The story of a Witch, in the hunt of a fresh heart to expand her lifespan. The story of a Young Heart, brave enough not to coward before death. The story of the Hunter becoming the Prey."
This film was made last minute while deciding to enter the #1minutehorror short film competition from Raindance. From the start the narrative was the biggest challenge. Short stories are the hardest to create because there is literally no time to explain anything. So everything needs to be efficient and straight to the point. I had to work around the difficulty of being alone in this and against my natural instinct of soothing everything. I am a real poule mouillée and horror is not my strongest genre. I actually worked on a narrative for a week (when I started working on the heart) but fast enough I realised that my story was too weak to carry itself and I gave up a couple of concepts. Then time growing shorter, I decided to just go for it a couple of days before the deadline, which was October 31st midnight. On the morning of the 30th, I focused solely on writing. Did some logistic preparation after lunch and starting shooting mid afternoon. I wrapped around 3am, after shooting the Witch scene last (imagine me wandering around my house at 3am, all dressed up with a knife. I got lucky not to wake my flatmates up!) I slept a few hours and spend the next day editing, shooting the missing inserts and designing the sound.
I started working on the score late afternoon if not early evening and finished by dubbing the end whispers. Those weren't scripted and totally improvised. I also liked the idea of dropping some of my French heritage in the mix (L'Huitre et le Rat is a tale from Jean de la Fonntaine, we study his work from an early age in school back in France. This tale is about the French saying of Tel est pris qui croyait prendre or The Biter Bit would be its English equivalent). A PARTE: As a foreigner, it is often hard to have the feeling of truly belonging. English is not my mother tongue and even if I am now completely fluent, some words are still not natural for me and I believe my English, as good as it is, will never be entirely perfect and seemlessly easy. I chose England as my home but still am treated like a foreigner. I do not have the feeling of belonging in France either, which is one of the reasons that got me moving out. It is not something we hear a lot about but this kind of situation can give a feeling of loneliness and the idea that we, misfits, don't really belong anywhere. My mind think in French and I often translate this feeling in my speaking and thoughts process. Most of the time I end up being barely understood and have to provide explanation. Which I don't mind but once again, a lot of my jokes remain poorly received, and everybody knows that explaining a joke is a killer! So I wanted to create something that us, the foreigners who think slightly differently and spend most of our social time being awkwardly misunderstood could actually understand and relate too. Like a private joke that only us could get. To give us a feeling of belonging somewhere in this cul entre deux chaises kind of situation. I knew this choice would cost me in the competition, as most of my audiance speaks either French or English, and very little do speak both languages well enough to understand everything but it felt important to me.
And after all, I made this film for myself. As a way to challenge myself, to push my own limits and also as a you can do it kind of hug/reminder. So as a fair chance for everybody to understand the whole story as it should, I am right here and now translating the end whispers: I knew I was going to die
I knew you were coming I didn't want to die An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth I was ready I knew what to get ready for I knew what to do If only you knew
I knew what to do
You on the other hand
I win
You won't kill anymore
Duality as a main theme
By talking about my film yesterday with a friend, I realised something I tend to forget in my work. He said that he perceived the Witch as an evil double. Which is incredibly interesting and something I had uncounsciously in mind during my creation process. I like the duality of things, it is a major theme in my work as an actor, as a writer, even when I paint or write music. I like the balance created by opposition. And I knew the second he said it, that it was true. One of the challenge was to get the villain part. As completely alone in this I would have to play both character. And as much as I wanted the Witch to remain unseen, I knew she would have to make some kind of appearance to give a sense of danger and a body to the fear I was trying to convey. And funnily enough, the Witch is like a negatif ot the Young Heart. She is old, have a black wrinkly skin and white hair. She is also a symbol of Death and everything that we fear. In order to contrast with the Young Heart, who is young, have a fair skin and warm tones. The Witch appears in cold light frames and set, while the Young Heart is surrounded by softness and warm lights. As part of the plot twist, appearances were deceiving. The warm tones of the Young Hearts are just a mask as she is already dead. While the Witch only seems to be alive as an incarnation of death.
The heart is black as it has been poisoned by its owner (The Young Heart) and is no longer fresh and juvenile. In her arrogance, the Witch does not pay attention and insert this heart in her chest. Only to be instantly killed by the poison it contains. Once again, I knew this concept was too deep to be properly comprehend within a minute and that it would cost me in the competition. But as part of the story concept I decided not to try and change it. Loving my story for its imperfections as they complement it rather than trying to make everything fit in a box and loosing in unity and flow.
The heart was made of paper mache, kid face paint and glue.
The same mix of glue and black face paint was used to create the wrinkly look of the witch's skin. Which was incredibly tricky to preserve as it would melt away and become sticky again with the fake blood.
I had no camera operator and ended up covering camera and light with it. Also scratch my pinky as we can see in this shot. Initially my entire chest was covered, but some parts ended up naturally rubbing on each other and tearing the make-up apart (for instance neck, breast and arm pits). While shooting this movie I also was recently injured (my chest and face were covered in wounds from a burn) and couldn't paint on the wounds. Incorporating my facial injuries in the make-up was tricky (as much for the witch than for the young heart) but the final results work and that's all that matters!
