Ceven’s Blog

I’ve started working on the film short whose script was passed onto me a couple weeks ago. The more involved it becomes the more psyched I am about it. It’s been a while since doing a strict short film. The last was “Die Verrückte Teestunde” an original German translation of the Mad Tea Party from “Alice in Wonderland”. Looking back now the short is full of holes but it was the most complicated project to assemble at the time. It marks exactly where I was as a filmmaker in May 2008. In the end it would have worked a hundred thousand times better had I gotten the sound properly recorded or asked for voice-over work.

This time I’ve started with the audio and am building from it. By nature I am a musician but deep down in the heart of me there is also film director clawing his way outward. My life-long passion is learning how to marry these two together. Right now I start to see where that evolution is going. With the aforementioned film I struggled to get all the parts together plotting and planning every little detail. This time I know what to expect and find myself thinking, “Oh yes, and this is where we do blah blah blah…” I’m totally into the coordinating the photography, script structure, audio, writing the soundtrack, editing, how everything will look and layering. It’s really fun!

The film is titled Addis Abeba and it is about the duality of relationships, how they come together and break apart and the human mechanics thereof. I work at trying to be sympathetic to both the lead characters yet at the same time put enough distance so that they can be each whole 3-dimensional creatures. We will be using techniques and software that are completely alien to me which is also very exciting.

This is a really-really nice project and it brings Han van Acoleyen back into working with me which is always a treat. I’m really going to savour this experience.