This was the first production on which I served as first assistant director in addition to post production. The short was set in a single location; while this would normally make things easier, issues with the central prop (a huge plexiglass panel) and limited use time of the location proved major challenges.
I managed to streamline production as much as possible, ensuring that we got all necessary shots to make up the story coherently enough. My post production experience was useful, as I was well-informed on what shots we could do in post.
There was no time to shoot the projections on the walls - a central theme to the short representing the spectre of societal authority. Instead I had them shoot a blank wall and added the titles in post.
I chose Transport as a font. This is the same font used on the British road network and has recently been adopted for the UK Government website gov.uk.
It has become the quintessential font of authority yet still uniquely British; in this context it aims to create an unnerving feeling of both familiarity and horror.
I used this same font for the credits and promotional material.
We did shoot a tablet prop on-site. Due to the frantic rush to get all the shots completed, we did not realise the counter representing the "vote" percentage did not have any decimals, showing "48" instead.
The table scenes were reshot afterwards in a similar lightning setup and then corrected to match the footage shot on set.
The original ending of the short had the English character walk out the exit door, leaving the foreign character trapped behind the transparent barrier. This was shot, but in post this felt wrong. We were imposing a moral choice on the audience, or inferring that when given the choice to walk away or help, we must walk away.
Instead, we focussed on the foreign woman and her reaction, with the English woman facing away in the foreground. The open door is instead revealed in the reflection of the glass. The English woman looks at the door and then back at the foreign woman. At this point we cut to black. This was a much more powerful ending. It encourages the viewer to contemplate what they would do in this situation. Do you fight, or do you run?
The film's trailer. As most of the film consists of shots of the two leads and not much else, I kept it very short and frantic to tease the theme of the short without giving it away. I composed a creepy, electronic sounding version of "God Save The Queen", the British national anthem, descending into static chaos towards the end.
