Help fund my next film project: 'The Landline'
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"The Landline" marks a true passion project. An entirely original short film scheduled to shoot for 5 days across the week of the 13th-20th of July 2024, in Scotland, the Isle of Skye.
This is a meticulously-crafted screenplay: 17-Pages in length, and with over 160 Storyboards currently mapped out. A richly-layered and ambitious twenty-minute production I have spent the last year assembling and deconstructing on the page. The intent is to make a truly special film -- Tense, anxious and emotionally powerful -- with a tight and intricately-layered narrative structure, charting a tentative relationship over a series of phone calls...
My name is Jeremy Silcocks. Over the past five years I have been keenly developing my filmmaking craft; honing it across all its facets. I have written several feature scripts with accompanying pitch-decks and shot and edited my own short films, in live-action and stop-motion media; all-the-while continuing to pursue my academic studies as a BSc Neurosciences Graduate.
My latest short-film was an entirely no-budget affair, with just myself behind the camera; serving as writer, director and editor. "Eva." as it became went on to be awarded Best Student Film at the RS Film Festival in 2023, a truly unexpected result and one awarded against funded competition. It is my hope for this project to follow on in that spirit of creativity!
All aspects of the filmmaking process, from performance to sound design and cinematography will be fully utilised to express this script: Using the camera to convey multiple moods, styles and genre shifts in the storytelling, and sound and lighting to act almost as their own characters. This will be approached as 'pocket cinema'. Compelling and unexpected. Playing with tropes of mystery and tension, and rich in concept and execution.
All brought to life by a small and fully-dedicated filmmaking team...
The money raised from your support will actively go towards all essential requirements for the cast and crew, including such factors as transportation, insurance, expenses, day rates, and equipment fees for camera and lighting rentals; as all accounted for in the present budget. This window gives us six-months to raise the necessary funds to meet all necessities for our highly-ambitious and rigorous production schedule.
Once produced, the film will be shown for select festival submissions and cinema showings, before broader release. All patrons will be recognised in the closing credits and invited to the in-house premiere!
This film is a study of loneliness and connection. It's the madness of a writer, escaped to the middle of nowhere to finish her story, and the one person left waiting by the phone...
A complex, neogothic tale about avoidance and isolation, in every sense of the word. A dual character study, about two lost people, separated by unknown distance. Talking.
Haunting and atmospheric, this will be both visually striking and tonally resonant. Drawing from a multitude of classic filmmaking influences and styles, from Kubrick and Hitchcock, to Powell and Pressburger. The framing and blocking is designed to be highly-stylised: Using Match-Cuts and splicing to bring together the 'incomplete frame' of these two central characters; each caught in their own separate worlds, like two sides of a coin: "Day-and-Night". Unfolding across many months, this narrative will employ an array of filmmaking techniques to play around with the passage of time...
The Highlands shoot will be comprised of the Sound Recordist, Gaffer, DP, Assistant Camera, as well as the Writer/Director and Actors. The latter half of the shoot will be divided across both sides of the phone-line: "Home and Away” and employing this same unit of hardworking creatives. The selected production crew are highly-skilled and deeply-talented across their respective fields, and each carries a strong belief in this project.
The plan is to shoot practically: Entirely on-location, and without dependency on soundstages or sets. The remote Sligachan region of Skye provides the perfect setting to suit this story of solitude and distance. We have sourced a truly wonderful property for our shooting dates; the owners' have been highly-obliging and fully-supportive towards this project. Beautiful. Stark. Bucolic. You could not ask for a better setting to stage this particular story. All offset by dramatic mountainsides and inherently unpredictable weather patterns. This achingly beautiful part of the world demands the best image format possible to display it.
2.39:1 Aspect Ratio will therefore be employed to give that filmic look and immersive, wraparound feel. Our intent is to use a series of Atlas Orion lenses to give that horizontal emphasis; based upon a preliminary test session conducted at the end of last year. Anamorphic is truly the only right way to approach this story, accommodating both the detailed framing storyboarded, and wonderfully capturing the expanse of these real-world locations.
Given the practical limitations of our timeframe for filming (and the logistics required to reach Skye) this will all be shot digitally on the Alexa Mini/LF. Yet will aim to have the hazy, nostalgic hallmarks of past cinematic classics, derived from colouring in post: from halation and film grain to image jitters and technicolour contrast. For this story to truly work, every detail must be fully-realised; from the colour palette and costuming to the suited locations. Every element of this film will be fully-conscious and deliberate. Having spent the past four months in preproduction, this is as ready-to-shoot as it gets. Ready-to-go!
Your donations here would be truly invaluable. To really do this story justice we need all the backing you can give, in any amount. I can promise your support will go a long way. Please help us bring this very special project to life beyond the page!
I believe that cinema stands among the most wonderful and hopeful things we have to offer, with such a rich history and legacy of storytelling to inspire and be inspired by. The personal power and broader community cinema achieves is something I will always strive to capture. And there is still so much more to explore.
Organizer
Jeremy Silcocks
Organizer
England