"Unexpected" is the first short film, and the first project, for Studio Eclipse.
Studio Eclipse is a production company that's run by Will Brewster, RObert SMith III, and myself. IT was originally the former two, but they asked me to join and I was happy to join two of my good friends on this new adventure. The film was written and Directed by Will, produced by Rob, and the cinematography and editing was done by me. Plot-wise, the film is really simple and straightforward. There was no dialogue, which I was a big fan of because it allowed me to focus on getting the story told visually. From a cinematographer's point-of-view, I was trying to replicate the warm romance look from Wong Kar Wai's "In the Mood For Love (2000)," and from that I wanted to include a lot of the color red. I bought red light bulbs, made sure the candles we used had red wax, and even made sure that our actress, Arianna Tysinger, kept her hair dyed red to keep everything tied together. I chose red simply because it's a color for passionate love, which William expressed he wanted. Our actor, Sean Owens, wore blue just to pop from the background and because it's more pleasing to look at than another red shirt. Plus blue is generally referred to as an opposite of red, even though they aren't complimentary colors. But it's not to mean that the characters are opposites.
The shoot itself was really quick and quite easy. The crew was small, containing just the three of us from Studio Eclipse, Riley O'Dell as an Assistant Director, Sean Froeb doing sound, and Alysha Pytlarz helping me with camera and lighting. If I remember correctly, we finished ahead of schedule and didn't run into any hiccups outside of the rain.
