Film Club: Working with small budgets and high expectations
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At We Are Social we run a regular Film Club, where we aim to educate, inspire and entertain the team with some of the best content from the world of film. Here, Senior Producer Alaina Olsen talks us through the first showing of 2016.
The much-anticipated kick off of the We Are Social Film Club for 2016 went a bit further than just our usual cinema-screening. With short-film Snare the focus of the evening, we were also lucky enough to be joined by the film’s Director Dani Deville, and his Executive Producer Andrew Davies, who came along to answer our questions about their work.
It was a particularly relevant event for the We Are Social team and the work we’re doing right now. Over the last couple of years, we’ve evolved our offering to clients, and are creating more short and long form video content than ever before, with a growing production team with expertise across both digital and traditional channels.
One thing everyone in our industry has in common though, is that we’re no strangers to small budgets and high expectations.
Snare demonstrated how well a story can be told using a micro budget, and a team that are in it for the sheer love of filmmaking. It’s the first short feature to come through Unit9 films, the same team we worked with on HSBC #IsPossible last year. We were lucky enough to be the first agency to see the film screened, drawing a mixed audience of account teams, creatives, designers and producers.
‘Snare is a dark tale of family, revenge and redemption. An intimate portrait of a young traveller family who leave their community, and head out into the nether regions of rural England. Told from a young Mother’s perspective, she is faced with the harsh realities of life on the road, and the haunting shadow of her Husband’s past.’
Dani and Andrew told us how they shot on a micro budget across four very long, and very cold November days in Brighton. What really hit home was how important it was to have a big network of passionate people within the industry, speaking about how they pulled favours to get everything from crew to sound composition.
They also took time to explain a few production choices they made on the film. Dani wanted to dramatise both the internal and exterior shooting locations, which, when shooting in a caravan, can be quite challenging. The result was to shoot on a RED using anamorphic lenses, giving the scenes a real sense of scale and impact. After months of post production, the film is now doing the rounds on the short film festival circuit.
It’s increasingly difficult to find a time where we can put down our laptops and phones and just spend some time watching a piece of film, let alone to have time with the team who created it. We hope to run more of these events, not only to showcase new film talent, but to give us the chance to be inspired to create more stories ourselves.
