In Conversation with Michael Oblowitz Director of Confidential Informant
Confidential Informant stars Mel Gibson, Dominic Purcell, and Kate Bosworth
A Scream that’s trapped inside
Date: 20th May 2019
Director: Savvas Christou
Producer: Amari Agee, Savvas Christou, Huidi Sun
Writer: Savvas Christou
Lead Cast: Birgit Ludemann, Dustin Ardine, Jhonny F. Sarmiento
indieactivity : What is your film about?
Savvas Christou : “A scream that’s trapped inside” is a psychological horror short film with experimental elements. It’s about an unfaithful wife that comes back home from her husband’s funeral to experience a mind game full of guilt. After discussing a lot of stories with friends, I wanted to explore the theme of “guilt” around relationships and expose feelings of someone who cheats.
indieactivity : Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Savvas Christou : The short film was screened around the globe and won 27 awards in total. Going to the festivals helps you to connect with other filmmakers by sharing and learning about each others’ experiences. Some of the awards the film got was “Best horror short film” at the Equality International Film Festival, North Hollywood CineFest, Paris Play Film Festival, Mindfield Film Festival Los Angeles, Frostbite International Film Festival, “Best Experimental” at the Things 2 Fear Festival, Oniros Film Awards, Indie Suspense Horror Sci-Fi Film Festival, Dreamachine International Film Festival…
indieactivity : Dramatic Feature?
- Director: Savvas Christou
- Producers: Savvas Christou, Amari Agee
- Budget: $1,600
- Financing: Self Financing
- Production: Independent
- World Premiere: Los Angeles Greek Film Festival
- Awards: 28 awards including “Best Horror Short”, “Best Experimental”, “Best Director”, “Best Cinematography”, “Best Actress”…
- Website
indieactivity : Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Savvas Christou : An unfaithful wife comes back home from her husband’s funeral to experience a mind game full of guilt. Memories, thoughts and self- criticism are messing with her head and leads her in an agonizing experience with the paranormal. She follows some notes to find an anniversary present by her husband. His promise was to be always by her side.
indieactivity : Development & Financing?
Savvas Christou : I was writing the screenplay for about six months and as soon as I was happy with the vision of the story, I secured screenplay rights. It wasn’t a traditional script format since the film is 15 mins long with approximately just 1 min of dialogue. Everything else was purely visual by jumping time on a linear timeline. The script was done at the same time as the shot list with visual references. There was no coverage shooting.
It’s hard to finance a short film. I basically self-financed the project and also had friends and family helping me with kind donations, and at last we made it happen.
indieactivity : Production?
Savvas Christou : “A scream that’s trapped inside” had a six months development period and a month of pre production. As soon as we felt ready after the rehearsals and the camera tests with lighting, we started shooting and finished it in four days. The principal photography was intense, because the cinematography had to match the emotions of the main character with the right colors and light in every single shot. We used blue, red, green and orange gels interchangeably. It was shot in a single location – a small studio-apartment.
The tight space was a big challenge for the whole operation, but mostly for creating the right light. The post-production took about three months – a month for editing and two months for sound and color. The film has no music scores but has a heavy sound design effects track. Javad Emami and I worked very carefully for the editing and sound design due to the importance to articulate correctly.
indieactivity : Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Savvas Christou : The premiere happened in Los Angeles Greek Festival at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. We were nominated for a “Best short film – Van Vlahakis Award”. After that, the short film had a run around the world with destinations in Europe, America and Asia.
The film got “Best short film awards” on several online film festivals such as Gold Movie Awards, Hollywood Film Competition, Hollywood Hills Awards, Los Angeles Horror Competition, UK Monthly Film Festival, European Cinematography Awards, Barcelona Planet Film Festival and at the end of the year they screened the movie along with all the other award winning films.
indieactivity : The Release?
Savvas Christou : After the festival run, a distribution company “Meridian Releasing Group” approached me and included the short film to a Horror anthology called “Horror Volume II”. People can get the DVD and Blu Ray from Amazon and soon it will be released in VOD.
indieactivity : Advice from the Filmmaker?
Savvas Christou : Making a film is a collaborating experience and I couldn’t make it if I didn’t have such an amazing cast (Birgit Ludemann, Dustin Ardine) and crew; Cinematography by Manuel Velasquez, Film and Sound Editing by Javad Emami, Production design by Yukti Dhingra, Costume design by Darcy McPhail, Jahnoy Edwards as Assistant Director, Kiyanoush Jahaandideh as Boom Operator, Bobby Gutierrez as Gaffer, Valeria Costa as Key grip, Jhonny F. Sarmiento as Assistant camera and Shuntian Jiang as Colorst). Without these people the film couldn’t have happened.
My advice would be to invest a lot of your time in finding the right people to be next to you in this journey, who will be passionate about the project, have the right culture and each one drive the rest of the team forward towards the desired result.
Tell us what you think of the Case Study for “A Scream That’s Trapped Inside” What do you think of it? Genre? More genre? Lets have your comments below and/or on Facebook or Instagram! Or join me on Twitter @oladapobamidele
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