I composed and recorded the musical score. I played live on my keyboard as I watched IN BLOOD on the computer, doing take after take, trying to get the timing of my performance right. This is my first time scoring a film, even though I’ve been writing and recording music for years. The final score is dark and mysterious, just like the film. I’m happy with it.

I invited my friend Crissy to come over and watch the film. My first audience member. She seemed quite impressed and said she liked it. Her reaction gave me a strong morale boost because up to that point I wasn’t sure whether the film played as I intended it to.

You can now view IN BLOOD on the Short Films page.

I have edited the film and it’s 90 seconds long. I also recorded the foley (sound) effects. I didn’t bother recording any sound on the set because there is no dialog in the film.

To do the sound effects, I stood up late last night, waiting for the traffic to die down and the neighbors to go to sleep. Shortly after midnight, it was quiet enough for me to do some recording. I had written a short list of sound effects that I needed, and I recorded them by reenacting Klaus’s actions from the film, inches away from my Oktava microphone. This gave me good, clean sound, and syncing it up to the film in Final Cut Pro was simple.

Klaus arrived at my apartment around 9 PM last night, about an hour late. I was hoping we would start shooting by 9 PM and be done by midnight. Even though the script is less than a page long, I needed eighteen shots, and that could take a while since I was doing everything myself.

While we shot, I had a bucket of water standing nearby as a safety measure against fire (candles near carpet is not a good idea!). I would feel very stupid if I burned down my apartment in the process of making a one minute short film.

By around 1:30 AM, I got all the shots I needed from Klaus. By then he looked tired and wanted to go home. After he left, I shot a couple of remaining insert shots and wrapped up. All together, I shot over forty minutes of footage. Not bad for a one minute film. I did a lot of takes -- each shot had to be right in terms of framing, lighting, timing, and performance. Four hours to get eighteen shots in one room might seem excessive, but hey, I was doing everything myself. Also, it was my first time lighting for film and my first time making a short with the Panasonic HVX200 camera.

I bought 60 feet of black fabric from a fabric store and used push pins to hang them on the walls and windows of my living room. This creates the dark chamber that I need. I shot some tests with six candles and two 25 watt compact fluorescent lamps covered with CTB gel. The gel adds a nice orange glow to the light.

I asked Klaus, a colleague from work, whether he wants to play the mysterious man in my film. There is no dialog so the role doesn’t require much acting. I just need a tall, slim man who will fit nicely in a black monk’s robe. Klaus was hesitant at first but I convinced him.

I’ve written a script about a mysterious man who writes by candlelight in a dark chamber. The script is called IN BLOOD, and it’s less than half a page long! The film will actually be longer than it appears on paper because there is no dialog, and dialog takes up the most space on the page in a properly formatted script. The finished film will probably be somewhere between one and two minutes long.

IN BLOOD will be my first film where I light the set and do production design. All my previous shorts were shot with available light and decor, and didn’t look very appealing. I recently purchased a Panasonic HVX200A high definition camera, and that camera, along with good lighting and production design, should lead to a good looking film.

I wrote a script that involves candlelight in order to give myself an opportunity to put the cinematography theory that I’ve studied for so long to practice. I want to create a unique look and atmosphere. The candles won’t provide adequate light for the camera, so I need to augment them with lamps. The challenge is to use lamps and yet maintain the illusion that the candles alone are lighting the room.