Featured Sneak Preview into 2012:
Sneak Preview for 2012
Happy Birthday Jim
It was a busy first week of 2012 with us pitching on 3 big projects. It looks to be a promising year for Pretzel. In continuing support of our young directors we have three shorts for 2012 currently at different stages of completion.
Following on the back of Giles Ripley’s win for Orrible at the Super Shorts International Film Festival 2011 and its nomination for'LoCo Award for best Comedy Short' at the London Short Film Festival is Happy Birthday Jim.
Ed's a fun guy. I mean what could be more fun than cancelling Jim's birthday party, only to invite their friends round to surprise him? Imagine the look on his face! Priceless.
Now he just has to divert Jim home. He hushes the party, puts the phone on loudspeaker and starts to lie through his teeth. The guests are loving it, squirming with stifled giggles and anticipation.
But Jim doesn't really mind, he's not fussed for a party...well not with that lot anyway. What's he on about, they're all mates aren't they? But with friends like Jim, who needs friends?...
Sammy by Jake Dypka
Our second short is a very powerful and emotive piece of filmmaking commissioned to highlight the importance of rail safety and the horrific consequences when teenagers fail to understand the dangers and ignore the signs.
Of the film he says:
“Sammy originally started as railway safety film but from hearing Leighton's story I thought there was great potential to make it something much more.
The film is based around two really simple concepts. Rather than trying to recreate realistic scenes like other reconstruction films, everything we see is how he recalls the events, making things far more fractured and dream-like. The images that we see over the interview are there to represent what he is recalling in his mind as he tells the story.
The other concept is concentrating his interview not only on the event but how he felt about Samantha. What he recalls about her and the feelings he associates with her memory. The reason we approached it this way is because we wanted the film to impact on kids of a young age and felt that young teens can all identify with powerful feelings of love. Once we can get them to recall their own feelings towards someone they love then imagining them dying in front of their very eyes has far more impact emotionally.
A big influence on the cinematic style and how I wanted to the images at night to look was the photography of Bill Henson. I thought they we're amazing and really conveyed the mood I wanted to achieve.”
James Lawes – Black Dust
Following on from powerful short Nadja’s Circus shot entirely in Polish explores the themes of Human Trafficking. This film recently received a nomination for Best Newcomer at the 2011 Rushes Soho Short Film Festival.
His third short is Black Dust, set in 1978, is a short story about best friends Andy and Bryn; two coal miner’s sons, growing up in the 'old county of Warwickshire'. A caved in tunnel has resulted in Andy’s father, Stan, being trapped down a mine. It is up to Ike, Bryn’s abusive father, to get him out. The film focuses on Andy’s discovery of the fragility of mortality and his transition from child to man, as we follow the events prior to, and surrounding, the two-day entrapment of his father.
