Looking at the monitor with VFX supervisor Øystein Larsen
It’s time to paint that sky blood red.. After four weeks of work, we locked the editing in the beginning of this month. I’m very happy with the result, both because we ended up with a final version that remain close to my original idea, but also because I feel we’ve been able to make it very character driven. After all, this is a short film and the goal has always been to make it no more than 14 minutes. It’s 12:37 to be precise, sans générique.
But hey, the film is far from finished and much can still happen. Another two months of postproduction remain, as we kickstart VFX work with color grading this week. Norwegian postproduction house Storyline Studios will handle both the grading and the VFX/sound work. I’m very excited about this part of the process, as I have yet to see the image in high resolution. Further more, as the whole film was shot day for night, I’m anxious to finally being able to see our “night look”. With that finished, we will start working on the VFX itself. The editing process has resulted in less effects work than I had previously envisioned as the final edit is a much more intimate and character driven story. Still, there are a number of effect shots, and some are quite a challenge. Supervisor throughout all of these, will be Øystein Larsen – the man responsible for, amongst others, 2nd World War blockbuster Max Manus. Frankly, we couldn’t be in safer hands. Øystein was present during the whole shoot, and knows pretty much every detail about everything that could affect the work we’re now starting. Having an effect supervisor on set is becoming more and more normal in the industry, even here in Norway, but I still feel lucky having been able to have his guidance throughout.
The work deals with everything from creating an articifial sky over the head of our protagonist to developing dreamy visions of the jazz singer. I have a very clear image of all of it in my head, and whenever I close my eyes I can easily see them play out in my mind. But the problem is to get it out there and across the table to the animators. I have never done anything like this, so it will surely be a learning experience. It’s all very exciting, and just a little bit nerve wracking too…
Five days, 24 cans of super16, 28 crew members, three actors, four musicians, two locations drowned in rain, one location dressed all in black, blocked streets with every sign of modern life removed… Late Friday we wrapped The Knife after an intense, but very satisfying shoot. Hopefully the material will do justice to the hours spent creating all the elements that was needed to bring such a project to life. I have to admit I have a good feeling, but you never know. All I do know, is that I’ve been very fortunate to work with such an enthusiastic crew and cast! In two weeks, we start the postproduction at Drømmesuiten, with editor Pål Gengenbach, co-editor Svein Olav Sandem and myself in front of the macs, trying to find a way to cut all this weirdness together.
Below are some very discrete, non-revealing glimpses from the production, taken by our set photographer Line Skjærvik. For details on every photo, head over to my Flickr account.
It’s been almost precisely three years since I met jazz singer Tora Augestad in a bar in Paris. The meeting resulted in me going to a concert with her ensemble Music for a While a few weeks later. That ended up being the foundation of what later developed into the short film The Knife, a screenplay I first started drafting in the fall 2008.
The Knife leans down and takes off the young man’s shoes, attaching them to the hooks on his coat. The movement is clearly routine, but is cut off as he start caufing heavily. He drops the shoes, bends down to take them up, but stops. He sways from side to side, looses his balance.
Dark passages, backyards, alleys, narrow streets and small squares… Ever since the first draft of The Knife, I always wanted the action to take place in Bakklandet, Trondheim. This picturesque part of mid-Norways biggest city has it all, including a river and a very cinematic harbour area. As I always had this in mind when I was writing the screenplay, I knew we would find everything we needed here. But when we finally were able to bring director of photography Jakob Ingimundarson, production designer Kristine Wilhelmsen and producer Agnethe Sophie Buus Jensen up there, I realized it was even more perfect than I had hoped for.
In Norway, the production designer is usually replaced with the art director or similar positions. Instead of having one supervisor for costumes, make-up, sets and props, the crew usually lacks that one overall position. Albeit it’s changing ever so slowly, there is an alarming ignorance to this area of film production, both from the producers side and the directors in my country. One result is that most Norwegian films end up lacking a true visual identity, something that also has to do with the financing institutions lack of interest in this area in the application process. I’ve written an article (in Norwegian) as part of an edition of the film magazine Z I guest-edited last year. The theme was visuality in Norwegian cinema, and thereunder the weak position of the production designer. Hopefully the focus on this part of film production will increase in the upcoming years.
Jens Lien is in my opinion one of the most interesting Norwegian directors working today. Before making Johnny Vang and his Cannes award-winning The Bothersome Man, he had two short films in competiton at the festival.
With funding in place for my next film project, my mind is all about nightmares these days. The protagonist of The Knife is a serial killer, and the film may best described as a state-of-mind portrait of his final days. It doesn’t belong to a certain genre, but I like to refer to it as a nightmare.
I'm an aspiring and ambitious filmmaker with wide interests in the world of cinema, dividing my time between personal film projects and editor-in-chief work here at Montages.
A jazz ensemble performs the story of a serial killer, while red clouds circle over the empty city outside. Meanwhile, The Knife wanders the desolated streets, haunted by the memory of his first victim; the female jazz singer. Accompanied by the music, the city sinks into shadows and he faces his destiny.
Producers
John Einar Hagen
& Agnethe Buus Jensen
Short, in production with support from Mid-Norway Film Comission and The Norwegian Film Institute.
Project in development: “In-between”
A woman realizes that her entire love life has been controlled by external forces more focused on schedules than real life.
Short, in production fall 2010
Project in development: “Shadows”
A brutal murder, a demented witness, a stuffed cat without appetite – a story about losing touch with reality when reality no longer cares about you
Feature, applying for development funding fall 2010
RSS Feed