''Pressed'' Trailer - 168 Film Project

A unique, creative short film that tells the story of a prison preacher who recalls a conversation with a past friend; the friend presses him into answering, "Am I going to hell?" Years later, this preacher meets this same friend. The final film is captured in just one, continuous shot. The creative method by which the film is captured is extremely technically challenging. The narration aligns with silhouettes that are projected live onto an alley wall during a live rain storm. The camera is attached to a projector, which achieves a very unique effect; wherever the camera moves, the projected silhouettes are aligned in front of the camera at all times. This creates the illusion that the only "thing" truly moving is the wall, which produces a mesmerizing effect that looks as if the projected silhouettes are interacting with an ever-changing landscape. Due to the several "layers" of the narrative, the entire project, from start to finish, was filmed, edited, and rendered at a bare minimum of four times. The entire final production "layers" had to be recorded well over 6 times from start to finish. 1. First the story's 'landscape' was filmed. This allowed props from the wall, such as a window frame, to be extracted from the landscape to be used in the story and narration. 2. The story's narration was then recorded and aligned with the ever-changing landscape. 3. The silhouettes were recorded as they interacted with the landscape and narration. 4. And finally the silhouette-footage was projected onto the wall and recorded live, from start to finish. Completely conceived, written, and designed on a $0 budget in less than 168 hours, this project was filmed entirely by just three people; a husband/wife team and their 7 month old daughter, Lucy, who was toted around in a car seat and happily suckled on a roll of tape thus fondly earning her the crew role of Gaffer. The lead performer, Beau Chevassus, is a professional mime. The story is based off of actual real life events.