Format: HD Running time: 20:30 mins Aspect ratio: 16/9 Edited on: Avid

STORY:

Ed Bracken, a man dying of cancer, begins to see demons in his last days...

PRODUCTION:

"We May Be Shadows" began after Director Paul Dudbridge mentioned to Writer Will Griffin that he wanted to make a story about demons, as his follow up project after "Winter's End". Will replied that he was about to start a short story about demons so why not write it as a script instead?
After Will delivered the script in October 2008 the decision was made to make "We May Be Shadows" the next short film production. How the shadows would be realised was yet to be considered as the film entered Pre-production in May 2009. Due to the film being set at 3am and with some shots requiring a crane and dolly within a bedroom setting, the decision was made to construct the character's flat in a studio. A meeting was then held with Bristol based set builder Dave Garbe from "Sets in the City" who agreed to build the set for the flat interior. From there Production Designer Alec Walker came on board through his association with Dave Garbe and he agreed to design the look of the flat. From here other department heads came on board. Roger Pearce as Director of Photography, Pia Pisa on costumes, and new to the team was Jon Biggins as Visual effects supervisor.

An advert was placed on the film production website, "Shooting People" looking for an actor for the role of Alice, the long suffering wife of Ed Bracken. After auditions, Bristol based actor Margaret Desallais was cast. Pete Townsend was already known to director Paul Dudbridge through previous projects. The cast then began two months of rehearsals at ITV studios in Bristol, leading up to the three day shoot. Principle photography took place between Saturday 9th to Monday 11th January 2010 at Central Studios for interiors and on location in Bristol city centre as well as the green screen studio elements that were shot at Vision Studios in Portishead, near Bristol. Differing from previous films, "We May Be Shadows" moved up to shoot in HD using the HDW-790 camera shooting 1080p. All the camera kit was hired from Bristol based hire company Films@59.

The green screen elements shoot for scenes involving the character of Ed as he meets the shadows took place over two days on one of the largest green screen stages in the south west of England. The decision was made early on that actor Pete Townsend playing the role of Ed Bracken would also play the role of the head shadow. So one day was scheduled for the filming of each part. A face cast was taken of Pete by make up and prosthetics artist Jacqueline Russon to allow Pete to have extensive make up alterations for the shadow transformation. To aid the visual effects compositing, tracking markers were placed on the green screen by visual effects supervisor Jon Biggins.

The scene was shot on stedicam by operator Marc Covington to give the scene a ghostly, floating type quality with the camera never staying still. The shots only represent one element of the final shot with smoke and backgrounds and multiple shadows yet to be added in Post Production as well as being heavily manipulated by Jon before making the final scene. Production Designer Alec Walker chose a drab feel to the flat interiors to reflect the state of the relationship between Ed and his wife Alice. A colour palette of browns, and off-whites were chosen with conscious attempts to avoid primary colours, in addition to this the flat set was aged with marks on the wallpaper and stains on the carpet. Director of Photography Roger Pearce decided to light the interior of the flat with a 5k tungsten coming through the flat window. The 5k was gelled amber to give it a sodium street light ambience with the HD camera set to tungsten too. The set was then augmented with some kino-flos and 650w arri for fill.

The film is now being edited on Avid Xpress Pro as an off-line edit, and will then be on-lined at the Films@59 post house later in the year. From here shots will be exported to Jon Biggins where he will then work on the green screen composites before being placed back in the final film. Then the Sound mix can take place at the BBC in Bristol.

As the film features many visual effects shots, those sequences were heavily storyboarded to aid shooting and preparation. Some of the storyboards can be found below where Ed meets the shadows.