Escarpment is now fundraising on IndieGoGo – a website that allows you to independently run a fundraising campaign to realise a project. Of course, for an artistic short film like this it is not expected that a huge amount of money can be raised this way: if the target of $2000 is hit, I would consider that a huge success.
Donations of anything from $20 upwards are being accepted. Please visit the campaign website; and if you are persuaded please consider contributing something. You will receive an extremely warm thank you in the credits and life long friendship as a result (cheap, when you look at it that way!)
In this startlingly original collection of short stories, Poya Rostami tells tales about himself, and all the many things he does that end badly: at work, with his family, in relations with women, and his misadventures traveling to unexpected places. Poetic, tragic and occasionally comic, it is also a book of stories about telling stories. Driven by a restless need to sculpt life into a narrative, Poya ends up breaking lovers’ hearts, driving friends away, and taking himself to places where he ends up putting others’ lives on the line to rescue him from his reckless fantasies. Lovingly translated from Persian by Richelle Sorin, ‘Stories that end badly’ should place Rostami firmly in the centre of the literary map for many years to come.
The Cuillin Ridge on Skye. Obviously, for safety reasons, we will not be filming this high up the mountain.
Writing a short film can be a paradoxical process: if like me you start with a sense of the overall impression, feeling, mood and sentiment of what you want to achieve it can sometimes feel like writing the actual script is no more than simply dropping in characters and filling in a bit of plot to give a narrative drive to the film. Unfortunately, whatever the intuitive appeal of approaches like this, the reality is that it is in fact totally inadequate to simply airdrop in characters into your film, unless you are going for — to give an extreme example — something entirely experimental on the level of Gus van Sant’s Gerry.
So for films like Escarpment, which are heavily orientated around the landscape as almost an equal parter in the film alongside the characters, the challenge I have found is to keep reminding myself that ultimately a film is driven by its characters: they need to be real, they need to have history, depth and enter into a situation which is credible and compelling. And here I have encountered another difficulty, the fact that the film only has one pair of characters (the couple: Poya and Richelle) has proved to make it very difficult to advance the development of a story on the mountainside. Because almost all narratives turn around a ‘third person’ entering, and disrupting in some way, the relationship between two people, because they are alone on the mountainside there is no obvious mechanism for their stories and problems to be brought to the surface and/or resolved or exemplified. As of yet, I have not decided whether it will be necessary to introduce another character, even if only briefly, to turn the events in a new direction.
In terms of the overall plot, too, I have not yet resolved how it will end or progress; and, again, this is a result of not having yet fully understood the motivation of the characters. Poya is trying to live out one of his stories from his book ‘Stories that end Badly’, translated by Richelle, and this involves in some way elusively dumping her on the mountainside, perhaps even abandoning her there after bringing her all the way to live out a fantasy of fusing fiction with real life. And I know that a lot of the dynamic of the film will revolve around the parallels or discrepencies between the story in his book on a mountain climb and what actually happens when they go up there, but exactly how still remains a mystery. When that is resolved, I feel the whole film falls into place.
In terms of the location, I have discovered that island of Skye is perfect for the film. It has dramatic mountains capped with violent black rock; scree slopes just as I have written into the film. Basically, everything I imagined and more for the film. It seems a convenient place to film too given that the island is relatively small and that the impressive mountain routes are not far from the roads that wind their way around the island.
Below is a video of the great stone chute to feature in the film. Turn off the atrocious music instantly to appreciate the location!
But how can one create the experience of pain through film? That is, not so much Kubrick’s desire to traumatise the audience, but to convey emotional anguish, so that the audience in some sense feel it themselves? Here, there is a double problem: not only that as a linear, two dimension medium film is limited in what it can communicate to the audience; but, moreover, that the internal pain of a relationship is something uniquely difficult to convey through the medium of film where — unlike literature — one cannot follow the self-reflections of the protagonists (or, at least, not as deeply as would be necessary merely through their interactions).
This is because film is a physical medium. It charts the interactions of physical, communicating things; and excels when that limitation converges with its subject matter. Hence, the immediacy of ‘action movies’: bullets flying, exploding cars, jumps over chasms, sword fights — all physical interactions, with implicit existential stakes. The action film aims to create both fear and excitement in the viewer: its attempted stimulation of adrenaline being a result of a manipulation of speed and rhythm in the editing and construction of the film’s plot to converge to a decisional singularity.
So without resorting to literary ‘cheats’ (e.g. voice over narration) how can one make the audience feel pain? In some way it has to be through a heightened physical experience. The visual sharpness of the rocks and the dizzying heights should fuse with intensely emotional acting — crying and shouting — to emphasize pain. And an often neglected, and very important, area of filmmaking that can also serve to make the audience quite literally feel pain is the incorporation of a high pitch squeal into the audio track to blend in — but not be erased through interference with — the audio channel carrying the whistle of the wind. This can be modulated so that at times when a particular heightening of pain is called for, its gain can increase, perhaps at times to break through as a discernibly extra diegetic feature of the sound track. But because of its organic emergence out of a feature of the audio landscape of the film it will not feel like a foreign intrusion and external manipulation; instead, the audience will experience and feel it as their own emotional reaction to the emotion drama unfolding on screen.
Given that ‘Escarpment’ will be an almost zero budget film — by which is meant, in realistic terms something like £1000 -£2000 — filmmaking practicalities are very much central to thinking behind both the form and content of the film. Partly for this reason, the entire film will be shot outdoors on location (not without its own hazards, mind) in order to save on lighting, renting interior locations, art design, and to reduce the amount of shooting days. Given good weather, the aim is that the whole film can be shot in 3-4 days. There being only two characters, thus no need for extras, this should make things even more practicable on this timescale.
Another perennial question facing shoots like these is: to use film or go the digital route. It is practically an orthodoxy nowadays that if shooting on a very low budget, one should save money and hassle and shoot on digital. To be frank, in the end I think if your film has a good story and is shot well it probably doesn’t matter all that much. So why consider an extra £600-800 pounds to shoot on super-16mm? Well, there is still, in my opinion, an almost intangible quality and character to film. The dynamic range and ability to handle highlights makes it particularly suitable for outdoor shoots. A bit of grain is nice too. The costs can be spread out additionally — although the film stock has to, of course, be purchased before the film shoot, the development and telecine costs can be spread out over longer post production period to make it more affordable.
Further, things can be stripped back even more by operating a very small crew. Director, DOP, camera assistant, and sound man should work as the bare minimum to pull off the film. Simply put, it means you can operate quickly (less people to move about and coordinate), cheaply (less mouths to feed and bodies to sleep), and more flexibly. Whether or not a 3-4 day shoot with four crew members and two actors is feasible on such a shoestring budget is another matter, and something to think about some more.
Escarpment is a short film (15 minutes) about two people stripped of everything down to the bare minimum of their relationship — one where there is nothing left but agonizing uncertainty. It is a film about the tragedy of being for another. It is also a film about mountains, and wind and grey clouds, and hard rock and slate, cutting into flesh and bone. Humankind on a mountainside exposed to the raw elements and left in their materiality against an inert world completely indifferent to them, but inserting itself as more than just a backdrop to a human saga.
Richelle and Poya travel to a rocky outcrop in the Scottish highlands. There something is about to play out: something both of them know, even if neither of them know exactly what. One of them doesn’t even know why they are there, or what the point of their trip is. They climb up steep escarpments to the gloomy plateau the mountain where scruby grass gives way to grey and black rock.
Richelle trips on the climb upwards but is left alone to cope for herself by Poya, having to wrap up her bloodied hands by herself. When she gets to the top of the mountain Poya is waiting for her, agonizing about something over a camping stove. He tells her that they had to come here to do what he has to do. He tries to kiss her; she bats him away. He tries again; she turns her cheek so that he cannot kiss her lips, but lets his kiss creep down to her neck until she has to force him away.
Richelle presses him to know what he has to say and, reluctantly, he can only tell her to read page 128 of his book. Richelle has translated his book of short stories into English to him, and given everything to him over the past year, yet she cannot take having them discuss their relationship and future through his book: everything centered around him as always. She tears the page out of her copy of the book and lets it drift off in the wind down the mountainside. Then she runs away…
Rather than chase her, Poya pulls out his book and turns to page 127. He pauses, not wanting to turn to the next page … [more of story available on request]
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