Monday 20 March 2006

HERMES Short Film

Hermes is the first short film that I wrote/ produced & directed after University and the student films I made there.

First inspiration for it came one late evening, when I heard a song by Chicane, (Saltwater - Thrillseekers Remix) on my car's CD player. I knew the song already, but it was the first time I heard the particular remix. A single image somehow invaded my thoughts while listening to it: A wheel chair, tipped over on the beach, next to the surf.

I don't know where it came from, or what it was all about, but is was crystal clear. This image on the sandy beach haunted my thoughts. Instinctively, and while the song was approaching its end, I pressed repeat on the player. And kept pressing repeat, again and again. I tend to get like that with music I like (which is something that tends to drive people crazy), but something about this case was different.

For about a week, every time I would get behind the wheel of my car, I would listen to the same song over and over. Each time, would be slightly different from the previous one, however they were all the same, in the sense that I started to get more images in my head as the week went on.

Few days later, I had a basic concept of a story I had to tell. I decided I would let it go, and see what came of it out of my subconscious. Surprisingly enough, not a single aspect of the story diminished when I came to it again a few weeks later. This is when I decided to put pen to paper, or rather, bytes to memory, as I started the first draft of the script, which was to be "Hermes".

The rest is of little importance, as I of course went through all the usual trials and tribulations facing all the various production stages of a new film, faced by everyone who has ever attempted making a movie of any kind, I am sure. In the end, and after 2 years and a half in which many people shared in my vision and were willing to get involved in helping it come to life, I finally got in my hands the finished product.

Despite it very much being my intellectual child, it is no longer my own. It was a team product, and every person involved, every event that affected the process of making "Hermes", greatly added to or took away something from my original idea, making it better most of the time, or occasionally worse, but surely overall something greater than whatever I could have hoped for.

That is, I feel, the beauty and wonder of any creative piece of work. It now belongs to everyone out there. People will either like it, hate it, or worse, be totally indifferent to it. It may affect some in many more ways, then again maybe not. I have of course moved on to making new things, and each new thing will always have a little journey of its own ahead.

"Hermes", however, no matter what, will always be my single tiny idea, come to life.

HERMES - Short Film