The Moon | Short Film
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Aim
“The Moon” is a short film that follows a nontraditional love story through the medium of narrative drama and dance.
Falling into the orbit of his ex-girlfriend, Milo must redefine what it means to love if he wants to save his relationship with Sam.
The Moon is a 10-minute graduate short film that tells the nontraditional love story of Milo and Sam, two ex-lovers that learn to love again. Their love this time not romantic, but gentle and platonic. The story is told through dance and narrative, mixing the two in a dream-like performance.
The dance used in The Moon is expressive in nature, as Milo and Sam use modern, scenic dance to express their inner emotions and intentions without words. The dance will incorporate both the real world and the dream-like state by allowing Milo and Sam to brush and hold and dance upon the real world set and props. Their real world becomes their stage as they explore a new type of closeness to one another.
The film is set on Hogmanay during which the ex-lovers reunite at a party. Milo enters the film still longing and idealising Sam, and still seeking her understanding of him. But as the night progresses, Milo's rose-tinted glasses fall as he learns to love and appreciate Sam as a friend, recognising his and her flaws both.
We believe this story is a story we have all experienced in our own ways. Learning to love in new ways and navigating through the loss of a living person, so we hope this film sheds some light into an area of our lives so delicate some never even explore it.
Representing the project and working diligently, we are a group of passionate students at Edinburgh Napier University studying BA Film.
Peter Fraser
writer
Peter is a script writer from the North East of Scotland, with a love of mixing reality with melancholic, magical realism. With 5 years experience in short fiction scriptwriting, he has attempted to develop a distinctive writing voice. Drawing on traditional storytelling, ritual, and various half remembered events from his own life, his work explores themes of personal doubt, and social alienation. His hope is to create work that transposes intimate personal and social drama into strange worlds, where things are often not as they appear.
Luke McGlinchey
director
Luke is a director from Glasgow studying BA Film at Edinburgh Napier University. Having directed a multitude of films in their time at Napier they have found a great passion for working with every side of production. Their focus is centered on creating naturalistic performances with sincerity and wit, akin to the character of Scotland's social realist cinema. They are a filmmaker in love with the messy complexities of people and have centred their work around characters that reflect aspects of themselves and the people they know intimately. For The Moon, they wanted to harness the power of more subdued, realist drama with the surrealism of dreams and dance. Wanting to push themselves into new territory, explore a new style of shooting and structure in order to create something wholly unique.
Esther Elbornova
producer
Esther is producer and BA Film student at Edinburgh Napier University. She has produced several short films before including a graduate short film for the MetFilm School, and has worked on many other fantastic graduate productions such as Bottom Line and Hangnail as a production assistant. Her main interest lies within fiction film that utilises music to help further the story. She was drawn to this film because of its intertwining of music and narrative, and the absolutely excellent crew making it!
Laurie Corewyn
director of photography
While studying at Screen Academy Scotland, Laurie has worked as the Director of Photography on several documentary and fiction short films. Her short animated documentary Lockdown screened at student film festivals and featured on the Girls in Film and Argo short film platforms. Laurie is particularly drawn to projects which blur the lines between documentary and fiction, and looks forward to taking influence from both to create a unique visual language for The Moon.
Tom Makepeace
sound designer
Tom Makepeace has a background in music and found that moving into sound for film was a natural progression. He has taken on head of sound department roles in both production and post production throughout his studies over the last four years. He is particularly interested in projects that need a more surreal auditory treatment. He was drawn to The Moon due to the focus on score and the distinct styles of the real and dance space. As well as the added bonus of further collaboration with a great team of talented filmmakers!
Laura Bercebal-Armero
production designer
Laura is a production designer, and she is currently specialising in both sound recording and sound design. She is part of the social media team of Shortscape Film Festival, a student-led celebration centred on showcasing the work of young Scottish creatives. With her knowledge of film musicals, she intends to create sets that will express the characters’ emotions and fantasies. By integrating the dream realm into reality, she will establish a playful interaction between the characters and the world they live in.
Juno Glover
production designer
Juno is a production designer and writer, and has worked in several film festivals in the last 6 years. They are currently working on a diorama-animated documentary with director Alice Nelson, which has given them a lot of crafting experience. Juno was a trained dancer for 13 years, and will use this experience to inform costume and set for The Moon. They intend to create a stylised, romanticised world which the characters inhabit, using motifs of the Sun and Moon to enhance the character relationships.
Coleen Brennan
editor
Coleen is an Edinburgh-based filmmaker that has spent the past few years studying at the Screen Academy, specialising in documentary directing and editing. Alongside her studies, she has worked in the industry as an edit assist and runner. Her directorial work has featured in film festivals and premiered on GirlsinFilm.net. She has grown a passion for post-production and is looking to expand her skillset as an editor. She was drawn to the project due to the mixture of film forms, the combination of different elements such as dance and movement will be an exciting challenge to cut together well. She already has established good working relationships with the team on previous projects and looks forward to getting into the cutting room for The Moon!
The biggest initial inspiration for the film was Anima (2019). We wanted to explore a new aspect of performance, exploring the inner emotions of the characters through their bodies and movements. Looking at camera, we took great inspiration from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). The actors were allowed to move freely around the set during takes, so the whole environment had to be lit accordingly. This allowed for spontaneity in their performances and created a greater sense of intimacy between the characters.
In looking for further inspirations we turned toward the music video for Hania Rani's 'F Major' by our editor. The different styles of dance on display served as a great inspiration in differentiating the movement between our two characters. The way in which their movement affects their clothing was also of note; as part of our film takes place outside and this kind of layered clothing adds to the fluidity of their dance.
We want everybody who works on this film to be proud and happy to have been part of our team, and we know that cannot be done without providing people with warm food after a long day of work and making sure each individual person on set gets home safely after working on our set. We are still students, and we do not have the finances to look after the people who will be on their feet for us all day.
We cannot do this alone.
We need you.
The money we aim to raise will ensure all our cast and crew get one warm meal a day and a selection of snacks to keep us energised, cover travel fees to make coming to and from set safe for everyone working on this, allow the film to come to life through the art department's wonderful choice of props and production design, and lastly your financial support means we get to submit this film to all the right festivals!
As a thank you for your incredible support, we are offering lots of rewards for your donations. Every donation will help us, even as little as just £5 will go a long way (plus you'll get a Thank You credit in the film!). Donations of any size are hugely appreciated, we guarantee that your generosity will not go unnoticed. Every contribution will make a difference to our project.
Other ways you can help:
As we understand financial times are tricky at the moment, we hope you will be an absolute hero and share this film in any and all other ways you can. You can share this Crowdfunder on your social media, email or message the link to people you know could fall in love with this project just as we have, tell your friends and family how fantastic this project is that your friends are working on, or rave about it at work or in class! We will be unconditionally grateful for all your support. Being a hero has never been this easy :)
To keep up-to-date with the project or find out more information, follow us on social media via the links below:
And finally, if you have any queries or want to find out more about the project personally, do not hesitate to email [email protected] to speak to our producer.
This project successfully funded on 26th February 2023