Sunday in the Park

Completed: September 16, 2004

Synopsis

If you can't trust your friends, who can you trust? Stuart has lived for a year, struggling to overcome the loss of his girlfriend in tragic circumstances. On the anniversary of her murder, he returns to the scene of the crime in an attempt to gain some closure.

But closure isn't what's waiting for him. In fact, spending Sunday in the park with some friends will open up a whole new world for Stu.

Stuart stands at the resting spot of his dead girlfriend

Background

This film was made for the 'Jonny Oddball 24 hour filmmaking challenge'. Basically we had to write, film and edit a film all inside of 24 hours.

The title and theme was emailed to us at 9am on Sunday morning, by 1pm we (Julie, Steve, Stuart, Phil and I) were all making our way to Hampstead Heath to film a mini "thriller" - which actually, I think turned out more like a horror - but what the heck.

We filmed for about 6 hours in the park, in the process covering Julie in my fake blood concoction and generally having some good fun in the park. That said, there was some considerable screaming from Julie within the woods, and no one came to investigate...our world really is becoming less and less caring.

I might add - that the whole script was add lib'ed so if there's a few jarring sentences - that's why!

Anyway - once all the filming was done (that we could do) it was off home to edit. I started at 10pm and finished at 6am - it was a slog to say the least.

My final opinion is that the opening is very good, but the main plot doesn't really come across. Plus, a friend mentioned that the death blow at the end isn't effective enough - I'd agree. It was however, great fun and I'd do again, but maybe in 48 hours this time!

==== UPDATE: 05 Nov '04 ====

I'm working on a new edit of the short film to see if I can salvage the plot that seemed to be missing and tidy up some of the bad late night editing. I'll keep both versions online so the original efforts are still there - but I'm doing the re-edit for two reasons 1) I think that with a little more time I could have made the film a lot better edit-wise, and 2) it's my film so I can do what I want with it :-)

Cast & Crew

Sofie: Julie Sharp
Phil: Phillip Reed
Steve/Lenny: Stephen Arundel
Stu: Stuart Mclaren

Directed by: Remy Sharp

Related Links

» Behind the Scenes Photos (gallery)
» Oddball Challenge (external link)
» Fake Blood Recipes (external link)

A Sharp Focus Film Selection