And The Award Goes To…
And The Award Goes To…
Celebrating three nominations and a big win for short film ‘Crash,’ created and directed by our very own Shaun Forsdyke.
As the competition drew to a close, guests at the 2024 Oxford Shorts International Film Festival settled in for the annual award ceremony. A line-up of over 120 short films were whittled down to a shortlist of 57, split across 19 categories. Among them, ‘Crash’ was nominated for three awards: best experimental film, best sound and best cinematography.
By the end of the night, ‘Crash’ had become an award winner, clinching best cinematography
(whoop whoop!).
Satisfyingly, the award ceremony was almost a year to the day that the Bruizer crew stood round an overturned Nissan in the middle of a disused airbase. The titular car crash scene culminated a weekend of filming, where the Bruizer team – comprising a ten-man crew, plus two talented actors – had filmed four consecutive night shoots on-location around east Suffolk.
By the Monday night, we were all a little worse for wear, lacking sleep and some of us having lived out of rucksacks over the weekend. But it was all worth the sense of achievement, as we wrapped the actors and swept away a car windscreen’s worth of stunt glass.
Before filming, ‘Crash’ was years in the pipeline. Created and directed by Bruizer’s Shaun Forsdyke, ‘Crash’ is inspired by his real experiences of hypoglycaemia, a state of intense low blood sugar in diabetics. Side effects include sweating, dizziness and hallucination, in extreme cases.
Written in 2023, the pre-production stages began in earnest the following spring and were worked through over 4 months. Alongside Shaun, producer Kate Wingar and DOP Andy Parsons shared the load to get the project off the ground. This included recces for numerous potential locations, casting calls and the auditioning process for selecting talent.
Our leading role was superbly portrayed by Matt Biddulph – who’s also enjoyed recent nominations at the Vox and One Voice awards, congratulations! – and the role of his wife being played by Katie Hamilton, the hugely talented actor and writer.
The story follows main character Charlie through stages of increasing delirium, experiencing disjointed visions. Crafted and shot by DOP Andy Parsons, various cinematic techniques are deployed throughout to signpost and intensify hypoglycaemic symptoms.
One such technique uses light to achieve a flickering reality effect as Charlie attempts to process his hallucinations. The filming location – a complex of three converted barns – was partly chosen for its full height windows and beamed structure, casting intricate shadows when lit. We employed our CamMate crane, positioned outside each scene and used it’s 21ft reach to sweep a spotlight through the shot, creating the distinctive light tessellations.
Kit-wise, the project was also the perfect opportunity to christen our latest purchase: the Arri Alexa 35. The gold standard for cinematography and Arri’s newest model, the Alexa 35 brings a feature film feel to ‘Crash’s’ seven minutes and 57 seconds.
As well as being the brainchild of Bruizer’s Head of Post-Production, Shaun, ‘Crash’ was 80% internal Bruizer team, who burned through several dozen takeaway meals, bucketfuls of tea and innumerable rounds of midnight toast to bring Shaun’s vision to life. Special mention also has to go to Gemma Smith, who helped expertly recreate these hypoglycaemic symptoms on set with her concoction for bottled sweat and other magical make-up techniques.
Once in the can, Shaun himself edited the final film, augmenting the filming effects in post and creating an immersive soundscape. In part, these sounds were designed from audio recording of an insulin pen and blood tester. Extremely slowed down, the resulting noises are warped and unknown, contributing to the sense of disorientation and distorted reality experienced by Charlie.
The finished result is a compelling piece of short cinema (if we do say so ourselves!) And we’re not the only ones to think so, with Oxford Shorts judge, Lorenzo Levrini, agreeing that:
‘This experimental, daring and original piece reconnects us to what cinematography is all about: making the audience feel something through the use of light, camera movement and lensing. Cinematographer Andy Parsons employs surrealism and metaphor in his use of moving light, atmosphere and lens artefacts to convey his director’s subjective experience of hypoglycaemia, displaying imagination, creatively and resourcefulness on a limited budget.’
You can watch the full film of ‘Crash’ here, winner of Oxfords Shorts 2024 Best Cinematography.