Nokia Low

SYNOPSIS

Michael is a vandal, he supports himself and his girlfriend Jasmine. Jasmine is an addict who depends on Michael to fund her expensive habit. Michael loves her and knows if she keeps using, she will die, but he cannot bring himself to deny her because of the fear that she will leave him if he does.

OVERVIEW

Nokia Low aims to tell a compelling story on a manageable scale. As students, we want to use this film to explore powerful artistic emotions and create something with serious value in the New Zealand film space. As a team we always knew we wanted to do something ambitious for our final project, but we knew this meant we would have to be clever and ruthless in our development. For us, 'ambitious' didn't look like replicating a large scale production to create a blockbuster, with the fear throughout of it falling to pieces. Instead, we decided to focus on telling an ambitious story. One that might stand out in the space, with a darker theme and more compelling, conflicted characters.

STYLE

Nokia Low is dark, with an early 2000’s digital grunge aesthetic. The film is mostly set in a dank motel, or in the fluorescent outside of a broken world.

The visual style of the film will be similar to the fast-paced intercut blur of a music video. With flowing action, flashy transitions and a sharp, hard look with bold contrast and blasted exposures - the film aims to achieve a sense of personability with these effects. While this style is visually interesting it also aims to humanize and dehumanize the characters when appropriate - when desired, the bold look will force a ghostly, exposed look on the subject. This has the purpose of pulling the characters together in moments of humanity, and pushing them apart when their flaws overcome them.

ABOUT US

Our crew of Massey students have all spent the past three years in the BSA program honing our skills as filmmakers. We all have several high quality works under our belt, including films, music videos, commercials, podcasts ect. We have worked hard to earn our talent as creatives, and we are excited to express that talent in this final project. We are confident we can make something really special.

RATIONALE

This film aims to extract powerful performances from talented young New Zealand actors and capture them in a condensed and controlled short film. Our goal is to screen a dramatic and potent 'slice of life' between the two characters. The story strives to generate moments of conflict and bring about difficult decisions for the characters (and the actors portraying them) to explore 'gray' moralities. The production aims to provide a safe and inclusive outlet for young creatives to express deep and powerful emotions through their work and influence on the film.

Our secondary goal, besides making a good film, is to have Nokia Low screened in at least one film festival here in New Zealand. It would be a serious achievement for our crew, and the satisfaction of having our film showed in a professional manner would be the perfect way to end our Massey journey as graduates and [hopefully] slingshot us into working in the film industry.

UPDATES

In the next few weeks you can expect to see a music video being posted here and on our Instagram as a test production for us, shot and edited in the intended style of the film. The video will feature a song by a Wellington artist that will likely appear in the final film.

We intend to do a fundraiser quiz as in the next month or so, so give us a follow on Instagram to stay updated on that, and for some extra behind the scenes content!

YOUR SUPPORT

This is an all or nothing campaign, meaning if we don't reach our goal of $4400 we won't receive any funding to make this film so every donation counts!!!

Every dollar will go towards:

• Paying our amazing cast
• On-set catering
• Art department costs (Set pieces, props, costumes.)
• Location hire
• Other production costs like software etc.

OUR CREW

Oberon Romond: Director/Writer

Kit Coira: Producer

Seb Boyes: Director of Photography

Phoebe Blackwood: Art Director

Ruby Kibblewhite: 1st Assistant Director

Samuel Ogle: Sound Recordist/Mixer

Andre Dapitan: Editor

Liv Lamb: Gaffer

Lachlan Semmens: 1st Assistant Camera

Harry Armstrong-Coop: 2nd Assistant Camera

Tim Dann-Hoare: Best Boy

Katherine Wang: Assistant Editor

River Han-Ellen: Composer

Xander McCurrie: Concept Artist

THANK YOU

Thank you so much for your support, even just for checking out the work. We are grateful!