Dark Static 2008 cut

Woken by the ringing of a telephone a beautiful girl wakes to find herself in a dark nightmare of white noise and strange, haunting whispers.

Written as an experiment DARK STATIC is a ten minute chiller set in a darkened house in England. I wanted to create a twist on the old theme of a Ghost in the TV and shoot with the kinda German expressionist/ high contrast look. Poltergeist meets Eraserhead if you like.

Directed and photographed by myself and starring my fiancé Rachel Logan DARK STATIC was shot over two evenings in October 2006 on a zero budget using a DVX100 mini dv camera. Because I'd just moved house from Wales to England I hadn't yet made any contacts and so the film was planned with this in mind. Thus the main characters were both written for Rachel and all scenes storyboarded with our new house as the location. After the first day of editing I realised that the job was just too big for just myself and if it was going to meet its deadline I was going to have to relinquish some of my absolute power and bring in ASF regular Gareth Ward to assist me with the sound. His input was, as always, vital to the quality of the final piece and due to the amount of work that he put in I also credited him with a producer title.


Special credit again goes to Rachel Logan who, after working a whole day as a store manager, would come home and run around in her pants all night in the name of art!

I hope you enjoy our latest work as much as we did making it

Alun

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Dark
• Static
• avante
• garde
• chiller
• super
• natural
• nightmare
• house
• woman
• ghost
• television
• white
• noise
• horror
• lonely
• telephone
• Alun
• Pughe
• Rachel
• Logan
• Gareth
• Ward
• Poltergeist

[1simonmatthews]

The menacing atmosphere builds nicely throughout this chiller, making the little hairs on the back of your neck rise in unison with the sound FX volume. The technical aspects of the film are of cinematic standard, the sound as good as that of any mainstream film I've seen of late, and the chiaroscuro lighting further enhancing the dramatic quality of the shots. Rachel Logan provided a very convincing performance, a must in any film. Excellent work. Alun Pughe needs to make a feature!

[johnnyjazz]

@1simonmatthews Thanks Simon - you're very kind!

[Camerafreakuk]

really enjoyed watching this guys well done, love the look to....

[johnnyjazz]

@Camerafreakuk Thanks dude!

[johnnyjazz]

@3rdeyepress Completely agree - just look at Lynch's Inland Empire. He created a masterpiece on a PD150. Genius!

[3rdeyepress]

@johnnyjazz Excellent! You know, I do have to say that this is the *one* MiniDV feature that really keeps me happy with my Canon. I was so impressed with what it's capable of, seen in full potential here. Like I've always said, you can have he best tools on the market but they mean nothing if the person behind the camera has no talent. I'll message you a link to the blog, as well as forum this is featured on. Take care!

[johnnyjazz]

@3rdeyepress We'd be honoured! I really should upload an HD version at some point too...

[3rdeyepress]

Excellent - very impressed. Do you mind if I do a review for this and put it on my blog?