Ninth Floor

A horror film short about an evil elevator entered for the two days later competition 2006. The film had to be shot and edited over a 48 hour period hence the competition name and the (perhaps) amateur look of the film.
The idea is that you write the film, storyboard, shoot it, edit it and put the sound on within a 48 hour period. We are given a list of items to include in the film to prove that it was made as part of the competition.

All the sound (apart from the actor's speech) was home made and dubbed on afterwards. Most of the mechanical sounds were samples of trains coupling and going over rusty bits of track. The evil whispering voice was partly made up of a sample of the irritating woman from AOL run though Reaktor. The lift dropping sound contains a sample of a B-52 taking off. Seemed to work.

THE 4 MAIN CRITICISMS WE'VE HAD:

1. The phone dropping sound is a cheesy "glass breaking" sound from the net.

ANSWER: The sound is a sample of the casing of that very phone used in the film plus an equally heavy object being dropped on a hard floor.

2.Ha Ha I saw the cameraman for a split second. You're rubbish at editing etc.

ANSWER:No you didn't!. That's the "Entity", an evil, medieval, lift-haunting spirit. I know I don't look particularly scary with a pillowcase over my head but what do you expect in a film made on a budget of £0.00?

3. In the end scene the lift drops for far too long, the floor indicator shows he is at ground level and he continues to grimace for far too long after that.

AMSWER: Well what do you expect for a film edited in a few hours? Just give it some artistic license, imagine there's a basement or that the lift has fallen into the bowels of hell.

4.In the end scene the actor (Mr Stephen Moorhouse) should stick to the ceiling when the elevator cable snaps.

ANSWER: Er...no, although he may not have fallen to the ground as he does, the man may have experienced a brief split second of weightlessness but after that a phenomenon known as "terminal velocity" takes over. The actor, the lift, a feather or a herd of elephants will all weigh the same in that situation, there's no air resistance. Galileo proved that in the 16th century....blah blah blah.
What do you expect in a film made on a budget of £0.00?

By Chris Russell, Chris Renyolds, Liam Dermott, Marcus Roberts and Fran Shine.

It was hard work, but as you can see, we chose a very simple idea in order to make the film somewhat successful.

Unfortunately the signs don't show too well on the small screen, but hopefully you get the idea that the building is empty and due for demolition, hence no one comes to his aid.

The film took 5 hours to shoot in Margate's tallest building in Kent, UK. We had to share the lift with the residents of the building, so we felt pretty sick going up and down all day in a little windowless box... which probably explains Stephen's brilliant acting as the film goes on.

We spent most time on the sound, which was very important to the film, unfortunately some of the sounds have been lost due to compression for uploading. The film is best viewed with the volume up as there are some very haunting background effects going on.
We used sounds from submarines, and planes landing and taking off, mixed together along with all sorts of metal sounds and gunshots, and generally messed the sounds up so much you'd never recognise them.

Feel free to post comments

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Evil
• Elevator
• Lift
• Claustrophobia
• Horror
• Student
• Ninth
• Floor

[thund3rs]

what place did you come?

[NickToznost]

We won "Best Student Film" and narrowly missed getting "Best Sound" by 1 point.

Alan did fabulously well though with his mobile phone movie winning "Best Film" and "Most Popular Film" awards. It was his night for sure.

[CoyBeard74]

Brilliant film I watched it for free at BESTMOVIEMOVIE [dot] com

[WatchingStuffIsGood]

well done, i like the editing. could even try out one of those online contest too.

[FartMaster4000]

...I can't seem to find the entity.

[LeMcChris]

what's this?hahaha

[fr0ggy626]

Yeah whenever I go on elevators alone I get a weird sense that somepthing is watching me... 0_o

[penguinz1987]

Yea, I live in a residence hall that has elevators that run to the 13th floor....thank God I'm only on the 4th floor and can take the stairs like usual

[bookmistress4ever]

wow! That's really good guys! Especially given the time restraints and budget.

It's actually causing me to get nervous. I'm not a big fan of elevators. And if just watching this movie makes me uncomfortable, then you've done your job well!

Bravo! Hope to see more from you guys.

[FRIENDLYMEXICANBOY]

5 stars, definately the best short "film" ive seen on youtube, genuinely chilling, great work!