Hello folks.

Some of you may or may not know that I love my Indie (Independent) films. Why? because there are those select few which haven't been tainted by the big studios, and it's these ones that have full control over what a film should be. Now, that's not to say I don't enjoy or love any 'tainted' Indie films, because there are a huge amount of great Indies under major studio banners.

Anyway, check this out:

The Story

Little Brother is a short psychological drama about Ray, a hypochondriac whose obsession with his own body leads him to think that a parasitic twin living inside him causes his chronic pain.

When his co-worker and only source of human interaction Rachel invites him to come to her baby-shower, Ray sees a way out of his lonely way of living for the first time. His hope is shattered when an incident related to his compulsive life-style causes him to lose his job and Rachel’s trust.

Faced with losing his last connections to human society and indeed with losing what remains of his sanity, Ray has to confront his own obsessions. He has to go face to face with his Little Brother.

Where does the money go to?

This student short film is one of the most challenging and demanding projects that we had until now. Because this film is a Master Thesis project we have the luck of getting the equipment for free from Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh Skillset Screen & Media Academy and that means that we only have to cover the rest of the expenses to make this project possible and real.

Our expenses include location fees, catering, costumes, make-up, props and distribution materials. In order to make a believable set, Ray's apartment requires a lot of work and props. We will need more then a hundred x-rays which are accumulated by Ray over the years of monitoring his own body. Picture a small dark room, with a row of back lit x-rays running along the walls. The x-rays play an important role in the film and will give us a lot of opportunity to play with surreal light-effects. Another challenging location is Ray's working place which is a private clinic.

As odd as it sounds we have a Mariachi band in the script. Yes, there is a rehearsal room of a Mariachi band next to Ray's apartment. Again, they play a vital role in the story and their light-hearted, comical music serves to contrast the disturbing scenes involving Ray’s compulsions. Finding them will not be the easiest task In Scotland so we might need to create our own. This means renting or even buying costumes.

We are planning to shoot in July for four days with the probability of extending to five or six days of filming. At this point everything depends on the development and evolution of the script. Even though none of the crew and cast members will be paid we will need to provide them with catering and transportation.

We will be shooting on the Sony F900 camera which is provided by the university and doesn't cost us anything but the HDCAM tapes do and they are quite expensive.

So far our budget looks like this:

Team

Andrei: Director’s notes