Brian is a short film produced within the Motion Picture Arts program at Red Deer College. The film is currently unreleased pending a festival circuit and the dates of future screenings will be listed on this page as they come, as well as information on a wider internet release this year. You can follow our progress on social media or get in touch with our team directly here.
The film contains gore and coarse language.
Run time: 8 minutes.
The film contains gore and coarse language.
Run time: 8 minutes.
production stills
production notes
The 3-walled set was designed by Amanda Dziwenko, Sam Burns and Alex Falk and built out of 12 panels, two of which were wild and could be moved back or swung over to the other side of the room. This allowed the camera to have the freedom that the characters in the film do not, while still giving the illusion that the camera (and by extension the audience) is right there in the room with the characters. By moving the walls we were able to shoot all 4 sides of the room to complete the dimensionality of the space, which was essential to establish the visual claustrophobia of the film.
The mood of the space needed to reflect the internal world of the main character. This allowed our art team the freedom to experiment with light both in texture and colour. We relied entirely on found objects and junk to filter and break up light sources and find creative ways to motivate them. The script called for an overhead grate that the protagonist looks through, and that became the main source of light in the room along with the bare bulb that hangs over the bathtub.
We splattered the walls with black and brown paint both to create visual interest and to distract the eye from the seams in the wood panels. Wet and dry coffee grounds were rubbed into the walls to create a dirt/cement texture and to add a layer of grime to the cellar. As you can probably imagine, for a week afterwards the room smelled like a combination of syrup (from our home-brew blood mixture) and old coffee, which is a rare and hideous combination totally unfit for human observation.
Raemi Carlson is a high school student with an interest in theatrical make-up and gore special effects, and after proving her talents on a previous Motion Picture Arts student production she was called on to do the make-up for the corpse in Brian. She created the injury on the left temple and over two litres of fake blood to be dispensed liberally on the actor and set.
The short film was created on a shoestring budget and shot over the course of one 8-hour day. Principal photography was completed March 14th, 2017.
The mood of the space needed to reflect the internal world of the main character. This allowed our art team the freedom to experiment with light both in texture and colour. We relied entirely on found objects and junk to filter and break up light sources and find creative ways to motivate them. The script called for an overhead grate that the protagonist looks through, and that became the main source of light in the room along with the bare bulb that hangs over the bathtub.
We splattered the walls with black and brown paint both to create visual interest and to distract the eye from the seams in the wood panels. Wet and dry coffee grounds were rubbed into the walls to create a dirt/cement texture and to add a layer of grime to the cellar. As you can probably imagine, for a week afterwards the room smelled like a combination of syrup (from our home-brew blood mixture) and old coffee, which is a rare and hideous combination totally unfit for human observation.
Raemi Carlson is a high school student with an interest in theatrical make-up and gore special effects, and after proving her talents on a previous Motion Picture Arts student production she was called on to do the make-up for the corpse in Brian. She created the injury on the left temple and over two litres of fake blood to be dispensed liberally on the actor and set.
The short film was created on a shoestring budget and shot over the course of one 8-hour day. Principal photography was completed March 14th, 2017.