LOFI VFX SHORTS PROGRAMME
Darklight present a selection of shorts submitted to us for our LoFi VFX Call for work. We contacted filmmakers asking them to send in their projects which featured in-camera / post production DIY VFX made for lo/no budget projects. Whether its homemade green screen techniques or Sci-Fi monsters crafted out of pipe cleaners and lego, we have something to please all tastes.Schedule of Screenings
| Date | Time | Location | Film |
| Friday Aug 24 | 18:00 | The Factory | The POW | Solaria | Not of This Earth | Penumbra 3 | Gasp at End | Shift | The Periodic Table Table | Slow Derek | Invisible |
| Friday Aug 24 | 20:00 | The Factory | Foxes (Screening before Distant Voices, Still Lives) |
| Friday Aug 24 | 22:00 | Waterways | A Proposal for Possibilities (Screening before Grabbers) |
| Sunday Aug 26 | 15:00 | The Factory | In The Sargasso (Screening with Meet The Fokkens) |
Ellen and James live alone in a silent maze of uniform houses populated only by spectral shrieking foxes. No neighbours means no business for Ellen’s photographic portrait studio. James commutes to and from work each day, leaving in the morning, returning at dusk.
Ellen spends her time photographing the foxes. The creatures seem to beckon. She follows them into a feral and twilight world. Ellen’s pastime becomes an obsession. An obsession that alienates James. James confronts Ellen. She flees the house, vanishing into the endless rows of overgrown gardens. Night falls and she does not return. James’ search yields nothing.
James is left alone in the silent maze. Weeks pass as he tries to cope with the isolation. Trying to get on with it. Trying to ignore the shrieking creatures that call from outside the house, beckoning.
Foxes
THE PERIODIC TABLE
Dir: Kirk Zamieroski
In Assoc. with Imagine Science Film Festival
Some people collect stamps. Wolfram Research co-founder and author Theo Gray collects elements. Step into his office, and you'll see a silicon disc engraved with Homer Simpson, a jar of mercury, uranium shells and thousands of other chemical artifacts. But his real DIY masterpiece is the world's first "periodic table table." Within this masterfully constructed table-top lay samples of nearly every element known to man, minus the super-radioactive ones.
SLOW DEREK
Dir: Dan Ojari
In Assoc. with Imagine Science Film Festival
The tale of Derek, an office worker, as he struggles with the true speed of planet earth.
INVISIBLE
Dir: Evin O'Neill
In Association with Imagine Science Film Festival
When a science and superhero obsessed boy finds out about the importance of invisible-to-the-naked-eye marine micro-organisms he decides to use his own perceived invisibility to help his parents.
THE POW
Dir: John Hamlett
A film noir short set in Germany during the final months of the war. After four years of captivity a British Prisoner of War risks his life to escape from a railyard during a prison camp transfer. But why take the chance when the war is nearly over? Finally recaptured, the cause of his desperation is revealed.
'The POW' (trailer) from lunar.co.uk on Vimeo.
NOT OF THIS EARTH
Dir: Laura McMorrow
Not of this Earth is a no-budget sci-fi film. Strange natural phenomena are recorded growing and moving in the landscape. Forms evolve from unidentifiable substances and move eerily in the landscape. As darkness descends a lone meteorite is spotted hurtling towards earth, its surface bubbles and oozes with black goo. Meanwhile, the last man on earth is awaiting his impending doom in a potting shed.
Not Of This Earth - Director Laura McMorrow
PENUMBRA 3
Dir: Paul Murnaghan
Shot over a period of three years, Murnaghan constructed this work within the confines of a small suburban garden at the rear of his Dublin studio. The garden served as an ontological notebook envisaging ideas through opportune recordings and structured scenarios. 'Penumbra 3' is thirty-three minutes long but plays as an eleven-minute looped triptych and singular soundtrack, devoid of human presence and presenting a glimpsed understanding of things animal, ritual, ethereal, immortal, psychological and the moon.
More at http://paulmurnaghan.com/cake/penumbra.htm
A PROPOSAL FOR POSSBILITIES
Dir: Fintan Ryan
'Faced with the prospect of complete control over unlimited space, what sort of work would an artist create to take full advantage of such a situation? And where, exactly, do robots fit into the equation? A Proposal for Possibilities was created as the first step in the exploration of these crucial questions.'
SOLARIA
Dir: John Hoey
Alex Russell, a geneticist on-board the Solaria Research station has devoted his life to test subject Rachel, a comatose woman who is immune to the ageing process. After being contacted by Earth, he is informed that his research is coming to an end. Battling against the clock and diminishing resources, Alex has one last chance to save Rachel.
Solaria :: Official Trailer (2012) HD from Solaria on Vimeo.
IN THE SARGASSO - TIERANNIESAUR
Dir: Bowsie Workshop
Mixed media Music video for Dublin band Tieranniesaur.
SHIFT
Dir: Max Hattler
Synopsis: Using the New Age idea of a 'dimensional shift' as inspiration, Shift combines science fiction themes through abstract, stop motion animation of objects and colour.
GASP AT END
Dir: Ruth Clinton, Niamh Moriarty
The subject of this piece is a tortured animal/radio hybrid that acts as a receiver and transmitter of sound. This haunted protagonist is inhabited by the deathly cries of Dublin’s recently silenced foghorns and the keening reply of the deer in the Phoenix Park. An obsolete warning signal and a group of routinely culled animals lament their own demise; together they sing a disjointed, dying song.
Filmed early in the morning at two deserted endpoints of Dublin’s landscape, we hear these peripheries calling to each other in thundering sibilance. The noisy, disturbed quality of the film acknowledges the overwhelming precariousness of natural and technological power; floating motes of dust become noise in the signal, creating a nebulous and suffocating interference in meaning.
Gasp at End
OTHER LoFi VFX EVENTS AT DARKLIGHT
The End OF The Earth Is My Home. Screening and Workshop. MORE INFO HERE
HiFi v LoFi >> VFX
In-depth round table discussion which will host representatives from both sides of the budgetary divide who will discuss the techniques and tricks of both and how all have a part to play in today’s filmic landscape. MORE INFO HERE