A scientist tries to cope with the death of his family.

After Death

48 Hour Film Challenge version

A short film for the Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge 2017
Title: Six Times Six
Prop: Watch – a character resets the time on a watch one hour ahead
Dialogue: “I don’t see how it can be right.”
Science (optional): Scientists create the first sentient Artificial Intelligence, but not evil or dangerous
Team name: Pardinus

Making of

This is my first short film for a 48 hour challenge. I have always wanted to participate in one of this contest and I decided to participate this year (2017).
I had an idea of a robot rebelion short film long time ago, but then Westworld came out and so I continued thinking in robot ideas for a short film. So the initial idea evolved into a new one: a robot replaces the live of a human. This concept was the initial idea we used for the 48 hour challenge.
We started the contest with that idea, that fitted very well with the optional topic we recibed in the contest (Scientists create the first sentient Artificial Intelligence, but not evil or dangerous), so we continued planning how to use the prop and the title in the story (in the new cut this is deleted and the title changed). Once we had the entire story we started to film it.
The first thing we filmed was the robot scenes at home. We used a “double” for the human back. That kind of tricks are the ones I enjoy the most, cheating in front of the camera. After those scenes, we continued filming the human part also at home. We finished them and it was late, so we went to eat something. It was around 3-4pm already. After lunch, we shot some robot scenes outside and filmed the interview shots. We had almost everything, we continued shooting the final scenes where the robot returns home. And we finished the day with the train station shots around 7-8pm.
The filming was done, then it was time for another fun part, the editing. I went back home and I started to edit. At 11pm I had the first rough cut. I saw it and the world collided. What the hell I was doing, it was crap. People trusted in me and I was doing that, seriously? I went to sleep very nervous and sad thinking how to fix it. I wake up early next morning and started to work on the edit. I put a temporal soundtrack, readjust some clips and it started to feel better. Once I was happy with the rough cut I started to do the VFX. I spent all the Sunday on the computer doing the VFX and adjusting the cut. I finished at 12am, with my eyes hurting and very tired. Y rendered the short (it took 1 hour to render) and I went to sleep. I couldn’t change anything else because it takes 1 hour to render and I had to work next day, so I decided to go to sleep without seeing it. I wake up early next day, before going to work, and I saw the final cut. I was happy on what I had accomplished in that short time. I would like to have more time to do reshots but next time…
We didn’t win the contest but I enjoyed participating a lot and I learnt a bunch of things to do better next time. I would like to repeat the experience and put in practice what I have learnt with this one. I think filmmaking is always learn from the previous mistakes and try new things at the same time.
Some months later I decided to re-edit it and change some things I didn’t like in the original cut (I would like to do some reshots to add more scenes but I couldn’t). There will always be things I dont like or I would like to change, but the prefection doesn’t exist.