Students make gripping new sci-fi short film in Patrick Stewart Studio
University of Huddersfield students have had an exciting taste of film making in the creation of an original science fiction short film made entirely on campus.
THRUST is a 10-minute film set on a malfunctioning starship where a technician, Boyd, wakes up and realises she has to bring the ship back under control before the forces of gravity kill her.
Written and directed by Film and Production Technician Tom Phillips and made by a team of 19 students, THRUST is exciting and claustrophobic with elements of sci-fi classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien in its look, feel and execution.
The film took a year to pull together, with Tom and the students making up the cast and crew working on the project around their respective work and study commitments.
Filmed in the Patrick Stewart Film Studio on campus, the film set was, in Tom’s words “scrounged”, with disused IKEA panels and bits of old laptops and tablets being repurposed to give the single-room set a realistic ‘used future’ feel.
Discover more about Film Making (BA Hons) at the University of Huddersfield
“I wanted to do an almost industry-level production,” says Tom. “The Stewart Film Studio has industry-standard facilities, such as the lights made by ARRI which are used alongside ARRI cameras in much of the film industry.
“The studio is essentially an empty room if you don’t use it, but as a big sci-fi fan I thought ‘let’s build a set in there’ and be really ambitious by doing a sci-fi film.
“It was to give the students a ‘hook’, and I felt that making it ambitious would help. Making it fairly simple would help as I was looking to ease them into this level of production, so that is why it is a single location and character.”
Take a look behind the scenes of the making of THRUST
The cast and crew were recruited from courses both related directly to film making, and from areas that could have a direct input into making THRUST, such as costume design. Its sole human character, Boyd, is played by Aimee-Jo Evans who responded to an audition poster on campus.
“We put up posters for auditions to find an actor from Drama,” Tom adds, “as one of the goals of the Yorkshire Film School here at the University is to bring together drama, film and other aspects of different departments to build a film.
“The part was originally written as male, but with Aimee, who was at the time a first-year performance for screen student, she totally nailed it. I had to rewrite the part because she really played with the script, even in the audition.
Giving the starship set a gritty and realistic feel
“The set was completely scrounged as there was no budget. We took lots of things that were due to be thrown away from IT, the wall panels are peg boards from IKEA. Building the set really gelled the students as a team.
“The idea is that spaceships in the future will be thrown together, and that was the feel we wanted with how the set looks. It is also why the programming is so bad on the computers, why the systems don’t properly talk to each other – it has been hotchpotched together.
“Even the costume design – I did not want something ‘spacey’, I wanted her to look like a space trucker in overalls and t-shirts in line with what they went for in Alien. It was designed by Hattie Bushnell, a design student, who is now an intern on House of the Dragon.
“She saw the set when it was being built and wanted to be involved straight away. I had an idea in my head, but she came back with a fantastic design that works really well.”
Sound and music give the finishing touch
With pre-production on the film fitted around term-time commitments, filming took place in May after the students’ assignment deadlines, but it was the addition of sound effects and music after an initial edit that was a key stage for Tom.
Rebecca Emmett creates sound effects with a tray of stones and bolts“What really changed the feel of the film was once we had finished filming and the sound design and music came in. Rebecca Emmett was a third year on Sound Design and Music for Screen, and she did all the music, the sound design and the foley sound effects. The ship rattling was Rebecca in a sound booth with a bucket of stones and bolts! She also re-recorded 90 per cent of the dialogue ‘clean’ in a studio.
“Her first sound mix was a real turning point for the film. You can have a badly shot film with brilliant sound, and be fine, but a brilliantly shot film with bad sound will not work.”
Plans for THRUST II and more
Tom has plans for another film as well as a sequel to THRUST that would involve more sets and more characters. But THRUST has, he feels, given its cast and crew vital experience that will give them an excellent chance of breaking into the film and TV industry.
“It is a very competitive market when trying to get into the industry, but if our students can leave with an official credit that is on IMDB, on a film that has got into festivals, then that gives them that extra feather in the cap.
“I was taken aback by the commitment and competence of the students, most of which were first years. They went into it with lots of humility, knowing they are not experts and applied themselves. They were so onboard with it and really committed to it.
“For example, Enzo Amitrano the Director of Photography did lens tests and camera tests before the shoot, exactly as happens in the industry but he took it upon himself to do it and everyone else went with him. I am so proud of how they have applied themselves.”