(5 Ways Of) Killing Time

Synopsis

Five short scenes, each one a different way of putting time on hold: playing a Game Boy with no real goal, watching a candle burn, throwing a Rubik's Cube in the air and catching it again without ever solving it, waiting at red lights, typing something pointless on a computer.

None of these activities matter on their own. What they have in common is that feeling of being stuck between one thing and the next, filling the gap with something that isn't quite living and isn't quite resting either.

Process

Made on a seven day deadline, idea through storyboard through shoot through edit, all in one week. The look borrows a few specific things from Wes Anderson, used with intent rather than just for the aesthetic: planimetric composition, symmetrical framing, and a 90s period setting. A recurring hourglass bookends the film, overturned at the start and empty by the end, standing in for how small and finite time really is.

The car and rain sequence gave the most trouble: the "driving forward" shot was actually filmed in reverse, which made it easier to set up the framing correctly ahead of time. Rain had been forecast all week and then stopped right before filming, so it got faked with a garden hose sprayed into the air, kept well clear of the camera and the open window. A red LED on a tripod stood in for a stop light, and all the ambient sound (engine, rain, wipers, city) got added afterwards. The Game Boy shot was filmed with the camera held tripod style between the legs, hands centred and the background blurred out. The screen wasn't backlit and came out too dark on review, so rather than reshoot, a tracked colour window was added around just the screen to push the contrast and gain up in post.

All the sound design came from Epidemic Sounds: waves, Game Boy music, a ticking clock, the candle, hourglass sand, and so on.