Sundance success for The Sweet Shop

25 Jan 2010

The Sweet Shop’s design director Dylan Pharazyn's debut short film, Vostok Station has been nominated for a New Frontier Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

It's The Sweet Shop's first short film entry, co-produced with Richard Collins.

Set in the wilderness, the eight-minute film follows the single survivor of a catastrophic disaster experiencing a mystifying moment of transitory beauty.

Written and directed by New Zealander Pharazyn, it was co-produced by The Sweet Shop and Collins.

Funding came from the Screen Innovation Production Fund, a partnership between the New Zealand Film Commission and Creative NZ, with post-production handled by the NZ Film Commission.

Filmed on Mount Ruapehu, situated in the North Island of New Zealand, the film offers an almost paranormal, apocalyptic vision of beauty, in the shape of a kaleidoscopic apparition featuring shards of broken icicles.

A wounded man trapped in an arctic wilderness finds renewed hope of survival when he spots a convoy of freight vessels at shore. When his survival hopes take another hit the line between reality and imagination become blurred as the sky descends into a flurry of poignant crystal beauty.

“I guess the plan was to try and break the mould a bit with the traditional short film format," says Pharazyn. "I liked the idea of making an art film that utilised a heavy post component. A combination not that common in short films."

With a shoestring budget of $10,000 (NZ), the aim was to film with $2,000, leaving the rest for full noise and faultless visuals.
Due to this financial restraint, a locked-off camera was used wherever possible, making visual effects infinitely more achievable.

“It meant that I could get anyone who was great at Photoshop, without them needing a Flame or Shake and they could composite our backgrounds," says Pharazyn.

"It also meant that for the destroyed container ship elements I could shoot stills at ports around New Zealand and there were our sets, limiting CGI right down to a doable couple of boats.”

Composer and sound designer Max Scott was responsible for all the audio.

http://sundance.bside.com/2010/films/vostokstation_sundance2010;jsessionid=211E480F3A34E5E7706BC35CEAD29C36