by Tony Mills
Visual FX Supervisor – Fischer Edit/FX
(see the trailer here.)
In 2002 when I was working for Hi-Wire, Bill Slichter approached a group of us in the post industry in Minneapolis to discuss his ambitious plans to direct a short film to be named “Flourtown”. Armed with his vision, and a short story he persuaded many of us to sign on for the adventure of producing an all-green-screen film on essentially no budget. He managed to come up with the money to pay for needed gear Rentals, got Ice House to contribute use of their greenscreen space, and persuaded director Rich Michel to shoot a couple of minutes of the story. From this we produced a proof of concept clip, that then led to Bill being able to raise more money and win a small grant or two, that led to the monies necessary to complete the film.
At the outset, the decision was made to shoot on Sony’s Cine-Alta camera, a video camera capable of shooting filmic motion of 24 fps, with a color response much like a film camera. Few companies at the time were attempting fx work with digital motion cameras, and the efficiency afforded by shooting on tape as opposed to film made it an attractive idea.
Cut to 6 years later… now it’s 2008 and “Flourtown” is finally making the Festival rounds. It has been an official selection of the Florida Film Fesitival, the Palm Springs International Film Fesitval, and Dances with Films, and impressed one film critic enough to call it “ A dense, beautiful, hypnotic combination of live action and animation, not unlike some of the visions of Dali. Director Slichter incorporates both fantastical and anachronistic images in this animation tour-de-force”.
Although a Minneapolis premiere is in the works, there is not a date set yet or specific local festival it will screen in…
Next time I’ll discuss the production and post production processes and workflow that allowed the film to be made…
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