THE RESIDUE OF A RELATIONSHIP: THE STORY SO FAR

My film 'The Residue of a Relationship' was released online by Short of the Week on June 5th and it's been quite the ride watching it find its own little audience ever since.

I just wanted to give a little run down of all the places it's appeared so far and where you might be able to find it in the future. 

The movie premiered on Short of the Week via Vimeo and got some really nice feedback from a few reviewers and publications...

Short of the Week said: "Reminiscent of a John Green or Woody Allen movie, Chapman’s visual diary is campy to the point of cheesiness, but gets away with it because of how utterly charming it is." https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2017/06/05/the-residue-of-a-relationship/

Film School Rejects said: "Every single person in the world can relate to what Chapman’s documenting, because regardless of the specifics, we have all loved someone we couldn’t quite have, even when we deserved them. How Chapman uses what he’s lost to discover more about himself and the conundrum of love is inspiring, endearing, honest, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful.” https://filmschoolrejects.com/short-day-residue-relationship-documents-ramifications-love/

Director’s Notes called it “A short that feels impossible not to like.” http://directorsnotes.com/2017/06/05/residue-relationship-brett-chapman/

It was also released as a featured short by Film Shortage here: http://filmshortage.com/shorts/the-residue-of-a-relationship/

I was pretty happy with the reviews the film got at this stage and it managed to garner a respectable enough number of views. I also received a heap of messages from people who watched the film and wanted to share their own stories with me or just talk about what it had meant to them. This was an unexpected but really heartening side effect.

Then I was contacted by a company called 'Omeleto' - I guess they're sort of like 'Upworthy' but just for video content. I was skeptical at first - I'm always skeptical of unsolicited emails from people claiming to like my work. All that considered, I decided to trust in them and they released Residue on their Facebook page and YouTube channel. Despite them slapping a clickbait title on the film that I'm not in love with, they managed to snag over 110,000 views (at the time of writing) across their platforms.

Hello, World!

Residue has also made it into a bunch of festivals and recently won the Audience Choice award at Indie Flicks. I'm still waiting to hear back from a lot of the festivals it's been entered into but I'm hopeful.

The majority of people commenting online or speaking to me about the movie have been really positive and I have to say that it's helped me to keep the faith in my own particular style of filmmaking and point of view. The support and encouragement I've also had from my local community of filmmakers has been amazing. 

I'm really excited to see how much further Residue can go but, also, I can't wait to get to work on the next project. Watch this space.

INTERVIEWED BY THE SHEFFIELD CREATIVE GUILD

I was recently interviewed about my work by the Sheffield Creative guild. You can read the full interview here

THE RESIDUE OF A RELATIONSHIP SCREENINGS

January came and went as a bit of a blur for me - I used it to put in place the groundwork for a year of projects so I've not really had a moment to reflect on some of the cool stuff that's happened yet.

The Residue of a Relationship was accepted into the 10th annual Love Actually Short Film Showcase in New York, which is amazing news. Add to that the fact that it'll be screened on Valentine's Day and I think it's a pretty great setting for my little film.

It'll also be getting a screening at an Arkade event in my native Sheffield which should be a good opportunity for my friends and peers to get a look at it amongst some other great work by Sheffield folks.

Feedback that I've had from advanced copies of the film has been overwhelmingly positive so far, which has been super heartening, but I can't deny that I'm slightly nervous about the prospect of it going out into the world. 

THE MEMORY BOOK

I've always been fascinated by my nan, I think this will be the fourth film I've made about her. For me she is a person full of contradictions. As a small child I recall being terrified of her but as we both aged and I became aware of her creeping vulnerability and her ever so slightly warming personality. I began to feel close to her.

She's a woman who has been plagued by tragedies and illness her whole life and in her 91st year dementia is one of the many obstacles she has to overcome on a daily basis. She's essentially bedridden and seems to have lost her appetite for most things. 

As Christmas approached I knew that I wanted to do something special for her, something that would reach outside of our usual interactions and try to muster something new. I wanted to bring back her appetite for life, even if it was just for a moment. What I came up with is detailed in my new film:

ANAMNESIS

Sometimes it's not the most obviously photogenic parts of our day that tell the deepest stories. It could be that the particular way the light lands on your sofa at a particular time of day transports you back to a particular memory that's still rich in your mind. Those are the type of moments I think great photographs, the keepsake photographs, should take us back to when we dig them out of a box years and years after the day we snapped them.

When we find a photograph that's personal and special to us we shouldn't be marvelling at the composition or lighting but rolling in it like a smell we've not experienced since that time we can't quite put our finger on. I think there's a different between a picture that was poured over and planned and one that was stolen in the moment without much thought about its future.

These are moments from my October and November 2016 that I think I'll one day rediscover and be reminded of the smell of Pumpkin seeds baking, the ice-cold air turning my face red and the special way the light built up in the room like layers of clothing readying you for the day.

THE ARTS TOWER - SHEFFIELD

I’m really do adore my adopted city of Sheffield. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived that has really felt like home. I often feel a little lost in the world but not in Sheffield.

Most of my friends are still here, as are a great many of my memories and there’s something about the city that just fills me with ideas. It’s a small place but full of life and diversity. It’s the sort of city that welcomes people of all kinds and I love that.

The Arts Tower is a symbol in Sheffield - the tallest building and perhaps one of the ugliest, it still has a working paternoster lift and houses a huge amount of the student population's most creative folk.

It's visible from a huge amount of places in the city and if you're lost can be a good landmark to gather your bearings from. I love this little city and this huge ugly building.

FREDDIE WOODWARD: BREAKTHROUGH

Freddie Woodward is an Olympic diver with team GB. He competed at Rio in 2016 and looks to have a super bright future ahead of him. I recently got the opportunity to produce a short film with him and it turned out to be a really interesting project.

Freddie is currently training for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics so obviously his time is relatively precious and as such we had roughly a two hour time slot to shoot the entire film. With this in mind I was pretty meticulous about putting together a realistic shot list for the day.

I did my research and watched a number of diving videos and also took inspiration from one of my favourite directors of short sport films, Gareth Bowler. His movie 'Sober' is a really great example of the dramatic and cinematic results you can get from a DSLR if you put real thought into shot selection. 

That leads onto the kit set up for the day. We were going to have to move quickly so decided to go with a Canon 6D teamed up with a Sony RX100 IV and a GoPro Hero 4. In terms of lenses we shot primarily on a 50mm 1.4 and a 24-105mm 4.0. I figured this set up would give me the range of shot options I was after and I'd be able to rig everything up quickly enough to work within the time frame we had. 

On the day my assistant Hannah and I arrived about 25 minutes early to scope out the location and eventually met Freddie and signed in. He was a natural in front of camera and a dream to work with. This was one of the key factors in making the shoot a success - Hannah and I were able to get on with setting up shots and Freddie was always ready and always nailed what we were after. 

It was an intense two hours but by the end we felt pretty satisfied that we had got everything we went there for and had managed to avoid dropping any kit or personnel into a pool. We shot our interview with Freddie First so that we could add anything new that arose to our shot list and because of this we ended up getting some really interesting angles with our GoPro and were even able to fit in a bit of lens whacking!

Once the edit was complete I sent the film to Freddie and his PR who both really loved the cut. Because of that we decided to throw together a quick teaser film that Freddie could share with his follower on Instagram. Within three hours of posting this 17 second clip had over 2,000 views and 600 likes. Not bad.

Excited to share this with you all on Thursday! #diving #olympics #athlete

See this Instagram video by @freddie_woodward * 883 likes

So today the film has gone live via Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Vimeo. I think everyone involved is really happy with the end result and it's been a great exercise in quick production and online distribution. The film was conceived, shot, edited and released over the course of four days. 

SHEFFIELD AT NIGHT

I love Sheffield. There is something about the city that has always made me feel at home here. I love it best, though, between October and December when the days get shorter and the leaves turn brown. That's the time of year that I think the city really comes alive and feel packed full of potential. 

Perhaps it's something to do with an industrial past but northern cities look most romantic when they're lit by streetlights and you can see your own breath. I made it a little project to try and capture some of the parts of the city that I see and adore at this time of year. Here are some of the results:

Elizabeth Street

A little over two years ago I had just released my first film called 'Lilly'. It was an overly long short that no one really saw but it meant to the world to me. I'd been in a really lost headspace for a long time when I finally managed to put on the page a story about an old women coming to terms with her failing memory and the missteps of her life.

The film was, broadly, based around the life of my grandmother Greta and I was lucky enough to be able to shoot the film in her home. It was such a blessing to be able to shoot these scenes in the spaces that I had imagined them in and I'll be forever thankful of having a record of that.

This week my mother and I went to Greta's house to move the last of her things - she recently moved into a care home. I did a lot of my growing up in and around this house so it was startling to see it be stripped of its character. My grandmother might not be in that building anymore but it will always be a special space for me that gave me the opportunity to actually make a film I cared about.

PEREGRINATION: A SERIES

Earlier this year I put together a series of four films that all shared some DNA. The connecting thread that ran through all of them was an appreciation or acknowledgment of a particular journey. 

It only occurred to me recently that I never specified that they should be viewed together, as a series, so this is my attempt to rectify that. Viewed in order, there is a story to be decoded and understood.

MY STUDIO IN SHEFFIELD

For the longest time I've wanted a space that I can work from, with everything that I need for my films close to hand. Since I came back from travelling I've worked hard to make that desire a reality and I think I'm just about there.

My brand new fully functioning studio

I knew that I wanted to be based in Sheffield, for a while anyway, so the first port of call that jumped into mind was the amazing CADS. It's a great organisation that's committed to an ethos of affordability, inclusivity and creating spaces that are laid back and multi-functional. It's full of genuinely lovely and really helpful people too.

I had a look around their spaces and found a little room that was somewhere close to my price range. It was a little run down but had good light and a certain charm. Plenty of potential - I'd found my studio. 

My studio before I got my hands on it.

Over the next few weeks, with the help of my friend Ollie we transformed that room into a functional space that gave me everything I need to make the sort of output I'm passionate about. We had a lot of fun doing the work and improving our DIY skills too - I'm now very very handy with a drill.

We painted walls, put up shelves and filed everything so that I always know where the thing I need lives. The space usage for the room was planned out so that it mixed storage and practicality with versatile free space to shoot against.

I want to be able to meld art, film and romance into a finished article that inspires and encourages people and this is now my base of operations. I can come here and when the door closes I am focused on whatever work is at hand. I think that's vitally important - to have a space where work is the priority.

Since having this place I've completed more work and met more people than I think I managed in the last few years of living in Sheffield. This is a procrastination free zone where ideas are king and nothing is too silly to suggest.

It's not perfect, not just yet, but I have a great overhead shooting space, access to some incredible areas and a collection of tools trinkets and talent that will help me produce pretty much any film. 

One of the important aspects of my work is to mix what some would think of as outdated technology with modern tools to produce unique visuals with definable personality. I like to incorporate stationary and found objects into my work too so that a real hand-made feel and defined perspective is present.

Something I really love about my new home though is that my building is packed full of interesting characters.

I share my floor with a boxing gym and an artist and our building even houses a church! There are art directors and furniture makers and many others so it makes sure that every day is a school day. Always something to learn, always someone to collaborate with. 

Upstairs in my building

Over the next year I want to collaborate with as many companies, artists and makers as possible to produce some work that really has something to say. I want to make honest films and artwork that is unafraid to share a point of view and I want to do everything I can to put some goodness out into the world.

Films and art has always encouraged me to see the best in people and pay attention to the world around me and I hope that I can contribute to that tradition even if it's just in some small way form my little space in Sheffield.

Everything in the studio has a purpose and a use. 

So that's it. I have my own studio and I'm open for business. Let's make some films. If you want to work together or have some ideas you'd like to develop I would love to hear from you. I also love to have people swing by so if you want to pay a visit just get in touch at: info@brettinthecity.com

WHEN SONG AND VIDEO COLLIDE IN HARMONY

I have not been able to stop watching this video or listening to this song. They've managed to find the perfect visual story to complement the audio one and it's an absolute joy. Maddest of props to everyone involved here. 

THINGS ON PINK

SHOOTING IN NATURE

I have always preferred shooting in a city to shooting out in nature but sometimes you've got to mix it up. I've got a lot going on at the minute so I guess a little walk out in the countryside was just what I needed.

STUDIO

We're getting there.

THE MOMENT BY KARIS OH

I saw this film and was totally captivated by the animation style and the little story that it tells. I think this is an incredible piece of work and deserves to be seen. Really looking forward to seeing whatever it is that Karis Oh makes next. Bravo.

MUSIC INSPIRED BY 'THE GUEST'

I just got finished watching Adam Wingard's 'The Guest' and I was blown away by it. It's rare to see a film that so perfectly nails a very particular yet unfathomable tone. All of the performances are pitch perfect, the cinematography is crisp and the score is one of the most awesome I've heard in a very long time. With that in mind I was inspired to write a little bit of music that is definitely going to pop up in one of my videos in the future. So happy to have found this film and the inspiration that it provided. You can hear my interpretation of the whole viewing experience below: 

WE WERE HERE

Four months in Europe with a camera in my pocket. These are some of the moments I will remember. Really helped me to learn how powerful the Sony RX100 IV can be if you put in a little time with it. Pushing it to it's full potential is kind of my little pet project at the minute. Looking forward to seeing what I can get out of it next.

FUJI 3513 LUT

I've been experimenting with LUTs for a while now and one of my favourites, especially for night time stuff, is the Fuji 3513 emulator. You get a really authentic film feel with some subtle orange & teal vibes thrown in. I also like to add a bit of additional grain into the mix as a composite.

It combines pretty well with the footage from my Sony RX100 IV which can also shoot in S-log, incredible for what is essentially a pocket camera.

I gave it a proper little test run with my latest short and I'm really happy with the results - it's really helped me set the tone and find the mood I was looking for. As much as finding the narrative of your piece, I really feel the look of the project can also speak volumes and this LUT really helped me out here.

 

TRAVEL FILM FOR SEE YA NEVER

I spent the first part of this year travelling around Europe. During that time I was also shooting a little film for an indie clothing company called 'See Ya Never'. Travelling was never supposed to be a holiday for me so having a few projects to focus on was great. I'm pleased with how this came out.

I shot everything using a Sony RX100 IV and a Go Pro Hero 4. If you want to read the accompanying blog that See Ya Never put out with the film, you can read it here.