“Embrasure” is an extraordinary first film, which was the Fiction category winner in the FiLMiC Pro competition. The saga of the film’s production is also dramatic, as the novice director Jared Brown overcame numerous problems ranging from drunken tourists ruining the sound in a key scene to a near editing-app  catastrophe. Brown, a Londoner living in Stockholm where he earns his living as a reader of audio books,  shares his inspiring experiences in an interview following the movie.

 

MMM:  Could you tell us how you developed your filmmaking skills?

Brown: I have no formal training in film other than from my junior school in the mid to late 70s, where, for some reason, the school invested in a Sony video camera and tape machine. We made such classics as – “MasterEyes” where the school was invaded by evil, flying, drone-type robot aliens. I was in the cutting edge SFX group tasked with sourcing fishing line and poles. Also, “The Red Herring,” a brutal murder mystery scripted by my 10-year-old screen writing nemesis Sharon Douglas. Other than that, well, just the usual feverish watching of films over the years. Books on cinematic history. YouTube videos. And most inspirationally, watching my wife’s avant garde home videos.

MMM:  Are there any filmmakers whose work influenced you?

Brown: The greatest influence on what I hesitate to call my filmmaking skills would be Hitchcock. For hairstyles, cigarettes, close-ups and possibly editing I would have to say Godard and Truffaut.  Walter Murch for sound. As a child of the 70s, I must include Spielberg. I love the meticulous Kubrick. When I made “Embrasure” for the FiLMiC Pro competition, another of the entrants was Clare Gordon-Webster with her film ‘”Girl. London. Night.” It really astonished me and opened my eyes to what one might accomplish with a phone camera.

MMM: How did you come up with the idea for “Embrasure”?

Brown: The film springs entirely from my fondness for the word embrasure. In my capacity as a reader of books, which is in fact my rather cushy profession (kind of like “Three Days of the Condor” but with slightly less brutal murder), I once read a huge volume on European architecture. I found that I really liked the terminology and words like edifice, facade, architrave and embrasure. I jotted them down on one of my lists of possibly useful things. I particularly like embrasure not only for the metaphoric aspect of  “a small point of entry into a protected place,” which chimes with Isabelle’s nature, but also simply the sound of the word – the voiced palatoalveolar fricative ʒ sound at the end (as Professor Higgins would have it). So from the word, I fancied the idea of applying that to someone: a loner, a bit closed off from the world. Not really shy, but quite private. And then opening up.

MMM:  Your actor is remarkable. Could you tell us about how you found her?

Brown: Ah yes. The fantastic Lottie Johansson. She is a professional actor who fortunately for me works occasionally at my job on audiobook projects. We had discussed film and writing prior to working together on “Embrasure.” I read about the competition and wrote the script. Lottie liked it and wanted to do it. Bingo!

MMM: How did you prepare for the shoot?

Brown: It was all pretty much on the spur of the moment. We had the script, but I didn’t really prepare shot-wise, other than thinking that I wanted some nice close ups. Coffee machine. Phone. Psycho shower head. I had the locations in mind, so we just went for it.

MMM: Where was the movie shot?

Brown: The film was shot in and around Stockholm. The interior cinema scene was filmed at a multiplex called ‘Filmstaden’ and the exterior at ‘Skandiabiografen,’ which is a classic art déco cinema that first opened in 1923. The interiors of Isabelle’s flat were shot in Lottie’s flat in the south of the city and at my house in the northern suburbs. The scene where she waits for the tram was shot on Djurgården, an island park in the centre of Stockholm, outside of ‘Nordiskamuseet’ (Nordic Museum). The tram itself belongs to the ‘Spårvagnsmuseet,’ the ‘Tram Museum’ and is in service only on weekends in the summer. It’s a tram-café actually and was built in 1949. If you ever come to Stockholm, I urge you wholeheartedly to try and take the ‘Cafévagn’ tram for a trip. The coffee and buns are grand and the woman who serves the refreshments is possibly the most hilariously non-customer friendly person you could hope to meet. She is a fully formed Netflix documentary in waiting.

MMM: Is there a reason you used a smartphone rather than a traditional camera?

Brown: It was my first attempt at making a film, so I had no experience of the restrictions that using a phone might entail, specifically low light problems. I had seen the Filmic Pro competition promo and thought I’d give it a go. They stipulated that a phone must be used for 70% of the shots as I recall. So the die was cast. I had a Samsung Galaxy S8, which I used for the first day, but then when I looked at the footage in the evening, the sound and visuals went out of sync as the clip progressed. I contacted Filmic Pro and they looked at the footage and said that it would need an update to their Android version to fix the bug. They gave me a Beta version to try, but I didn’t really want to risk any problems so I borrowed my wife’s iPhone 6S. You can see it reflected in the coffee machine!

MMM: Could you talk about how you did the lighting in the movie scene?

Brown: That was tough on Lottie. This scene was lit with an LED light I had bought that morning. I was sitting about a metre away from her and shining it in her face on full power. How she managed to stop blinking I don’t know. What a pro. The phone was on a tripod and I held the light and waved my hand in front of it to try to get a cinema type of effect.

MMM:  Tell us about your approach to directing.

Brown: It’s funny because, as a professional, Lottie is used to taking direction. As an amateur I am unused to giving direction. For me it was quite an unusual situation where someone asks you exactly what you want them to do. The movement. The position. The mood. I must admit that I had not given any thought to actually directing Lottie. I had been thinking about how I wanted it to look. How I wanted the viewer to feel. How I could accomplish it. But it turned out that directing the actor is equally important.  It seems ridiculous that I would only realize something so obvious so late. Luckily for me, Lottie was patient with my inexperience and we soon fell into a really good understanding. I directed her actions, her movement. The physical aspect. She entirely improvised the character of Isabelle. The sense of who she is. The melancholy. Her barrier to the world. Her interpretation of the lines and what I wanted her to do was fantastic and surprising. I suppose that’s what actors do. I supplied the eyepatch.

MMM: What about the editing?

Brown: It was a nightmare. From idea to fruition the project was only a few days. I edited the film the evening of the deadline. Fortunately for me the deadline was midnight Seattle time. This gave me, in Stockholm, a few more hours. I started out using Adobe Premiere Pro, watching tutorials as I went. I think I stayed up until 5AM working on it. At about 3AM for some reason, Premiere started acting strange, I could see the film in the ‘play’ window, but as soon as I pressed play to run the clip, the screen went blank. As a novice I was completely confounded. After some panicking, Googling, YouTubing and hair-pulling, I downloaded Final Cut Pro and finished it using that, with the help of more YouTube tutorials.

MMM: What was your approach to sound design?

Brown: Again, flying by the seat of my pants really. I knew kind of how I wanted it to sound—a bit sparse, a bit New Wave, a bit 70s big raspy sound. I wanted Isabelle listening to Anna Karina’s lines from “Vivre Sa Vie.” I really wish I had had more time though. I didn’t want to use any incidental music at all. I didn’t want to use music to imply anything or for dramatic effect. I feel I chickened out a bit in using the French Fuse music so much in the last part of the film, but I ran out of time. Luckily it still works quite well, but I think could have been better.

MMM:  You include a credit  for FiLMiC Pro. Could you explain how that app contributed to your movie?

Brown: The whole shebang was done as an entry to the Filmic Pro 2016 competition. The app was, in that sense, the raison d’être of the film. I tried to get to grips with it as I went along and found it very easy to use. Great interface and also again I watched a whole series of tutorial videos. I used the pull focus function in a couple of places; firstly on Isabelle’s face as she is rehearsing her call to Alex and then again towards the end on the radio dial as the music kicks in. It’s really a testament to Filmic Pro that I, as an utter novice, was able to make a film, on a phone, in a couple of days. Despite my mutterings about the end result and what I might have done better, it’s actually an amazing advance. From a massive, prohibitively expensive, group endeavour just a few short years ago; to an individual with a phone and an app today. Whoa.

MMM: During the production, did you encounter any unexpected difficulties?

Brown: I filmed Lottie in one day on the tram, but could not use the audio as there was a group of drunken tourists sitting directly behind us just out of shot who were, shall we say, rather loud. I returned the next day by myself and recorded the background audio separately. And then, as I said above, there was the Android sound problem, the editing near-debacle, and the challenge of directing another person. At almost each step of the way something happened that was unforeseen and slowed things down or forced a change of plan. A lot of it was down to me. Stopping the camera too soon. Talking too close to audio that I wanted to use. After I had finished the film I made a document called, “Things I learned making Embrasure” and saved it as a reminder in case I made another film. Here it is:

1. Check that the camera is rolling for each shot.
2. Review each shot immediately afterwards.
3. Check focus every time.
4. Check resolution and bitrate settings every time.
5. Check audio is rolling for each shot.
6. Listen to audio after every shot.
7. Film each shot as a complete shot. It must stand on its own.
8. Fake dark in post is better than real dark with bad equipment.
9. At least consider the rule of thirds.
10. Let the camera be dynamic.
11. Stop talking all the time – you might need the audio.
12. Tell the actors exactly what you want them to do. Tell them who the character is, how they react to things. How they respond. Direct them.

MMM: That’s terrific.

Brown: Well, as a complete beginner I have little experience upon which to base any advice, but with hindsight following my own experiences making “Embrasure: I might offer the following thoughts:

• Think of how much time you will need and then I’d say double it.
• Plan each aspect of the project as carefully as possible. Planning is simply a tool to give you a rough idea of what you need to do and when you should do it. It can also be instructive. Writing things down might give you further ideas. Planning doesn’t necessarily preclude spontaneity.
• Discuss your plans with others. Speaking your ideas out loud is often helpful.
• Don’t let your idea become a slave to its own execution. The idea is the important thing. Don’t get hung up on some technical aspect of how to do something. Keep it simple.
• Remember William Faulkner’s advice – Kill your darlings.
• Always check that you are actually filming.

MMM:  What’s the best way for people to learn more about your work?

Brown: My Twitter is https://twitter.com/BirdycatBooks

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The editors of MobileMovieMaking Magazine have chosen “Embrasure” as the Mobile Movie of the Week.