director + writer + photographer

The Visitors

““...be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.””
— Rainer Rilke
 

While in quarantine with nothing but an iPhone and a handful of things found around the garage, my kids and I shot the following short film:

 
 

It was a fun exercise in genre storytelling as much as a great challenge to make something cinematic with the iPhone’s native camera. There’s a lot I could talk through about the production process — from art direction to costuming to directing family — but, I think the most universal lesson I learned through this process involved turning constraint to my advantage. So, I will focus my energy there.

Our Inspiration

The impetus for making this film came from Roger Corman’s challenge to directors to tell a story using only what you had on hand and shooting that story on the lowest common denominator camera — a cell phone.

Shot entirely on an iPhone 11 while sheltering in place during the Covid-19 pandemic using nothing but items we found in the garage. My daughter (14) and I conceived of the story together -- I directed and she plays the lead.

The iPhone camera is incredibly powerful, but the lack of aperture control means that in most lighting conditions, you have next to no ability to manipulate depth of field, so I wanted to do some tests with shooting at night. My daughter and I went out (before I wrote a script) to see what was possible and, more importantly, what was cinematically exciting.

Visitors Color Test - 1

The best thing we shot that first night was a hand reaching toward the back windshield of my wife’s car as we pulsed the brake light.

In much of my work, I choose to shoot wide -- or nearly wide -- open because focus directs the eye. However, by shooting with limited light sources, I was able to use contrast, rather than depth, to create compelling images.

The Script

Another area of constraint was the time limit Mr. Corman asked all the filmmakers to adhere to. In a commercial, two minutes is a luxurious amount of time but for a narrative story, it felt very short and would require us to be visually efficient.

In thinking about the story, I wanted to create a pretty traditional three act arc for the heroine -- she would need legitimate character motivation to kick off the journey, the second act would need good escalation and a clear midpoint turn and, finally, the payoff with the blinking light would have to make the whole effort worth it.

I wrote the 2-page script based on the questions that reaching hand seemed to be asking -- I guess in that way, I was writing with the end in mind. Because we were moving quickly, I only wrote a single draft of the script, which you can read here.

I love screenwriting and this was a tremendous opportunity for me to develop a character exclusively through an escalating series of actions and reactions, rather than relying on dialogue. As a document, though, the script was most helpful in getting Sarah and I synced on the overall journey of her character. It offered us a springboard for conversation about the things we were interested in showing, which was that tension and conflict are part and parcel with discovery and wonder.

The Production

The initial shot list was 35 shots (which I drew on notecards) across 8 location setups. The script was simple enough that we worked exclusively from the storyboards across our two nights of production. I also edited an animatic just to make sure I knew where I had room to be spontaneous and to ensure my screen direction held up.

IMG_4593.jpg

We were quarantined with another family at a beach house in Florida. So, between my two kids and the other family, we had enough bodies for the three roles and enough hands to pull off all the lighting gags.

In the bedroom scene, my son held a work light on the roof that we blasted through the window. Inside the house, we simply blinked light switches (an idea based on this music video our colorist, Neil Anderson, worked on). To create the red lights on the construction site, we just put red reflectors up in front of flashlights and verbally called a cadence to keep them blinking in sync.

Post Production

We were incredibly fortunate to have the support of my friends Sai, Neil and Scottie from Lucky Post. Sai (editor), Neil (color) and I have worked on a number of projects together over the years and it’s always a joy to collaborate with them. Their instincts as artists and craftsmen elevated the film significantly.

Scottie Richardson, Lucky’s sound maestro, and I got to know each other while working on an animated spot I wrote and directed for Look Inside. His brother-in-law, Joe Gardner, came on to the film and wrote a brilliant score for us.

One of the best ways to overcome what you lack as a creator is through relationships and these talented friends of mine are a great reminder that collaboration is essential in filmmaking.

Final Thoughts

I don’t want to overplay what was meant to be a fun creative exercise with my kids while practicing physical distancing. But, I do believe films should offer more than cool lighting, fun costumes and great cinematography -- so, I hope this one offers thoughtful viewers a little bit more.

I started this post with a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter written to his protégé, the budding poet Franz Xaver Kappus because I think this film has a bit of that curiosity of the unknown embedded in it.

There’s something terrifying about asking a question, about chasing it down and, by contrast, I think there’s something beautiful about the bravery of this little girl and her flashlight. Something akin to the rest of Rilke’s advice to Kappus:

““Do not now seek the answers ... because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.””
— Ranier Rilke

In that way, the film is kind of a meta reflection on the journey we said yes to taking by choosing to make this film. It didn’t start with an idea fully formed, we were constrained by what we didn’t know. Our first question, led to another, which led us to others until we were living the questions.

I believe that is what it means to be a creative person, to be a maker. We are called to bravely face the terror, to let what we fear, in a sense, propel us from where we are to some new place.

It’s your turn, now, to live your own questions.

 
iPhone, personal, NarrativeTrey Hillfilmmaking, philosophyComment