Behind the Scenes

Production Notes

The seeds of Transmission Interrupted were sown while director Samuel Marlow was still in college. He was interested in telling a story about how people can share a physical space, yet be separated by technology.

At the time the technology in question was television, but in the few years since the idea began development people have abandoned broadcast television in vast numbers, and the original concept of a power-cut would no longer cause enough disruption with recent improvements in battery technology.

When he started working on the project again in 2013, Sam looked for another event that would cause enough disruption to allow the events of the story to play out. The answer came in a Coronal Mass Ejection - an explosion on the surface of the sun that would send a cloud charged particles heading for Earth. The effects of such an event would all but shut down the technologically advanced world for days.

It was against such an event that Sam chose to play out the real drama of the story - a father growing estranged from his two sons.

Director's Statement

Transmission Interrupted is the third in a set of short films and projects I selected to grow my skills as a film maker and director. While my first short Life Is A Stage was my returning to directing after several years away, and I sought to tell a story in purely visual terms with Kite, Transmission Interrupted served the dual purpose of working strongly with actors and telling a longer form story.

At over half an hour, TI is more like an episode of a TV series than a short film. It has the structure and beats of a feature film, but is more brief. From a production point of view, it also represented a new set of planning challenges, made more numerous by featuring a trio of young actors in major roles. With a shooting shedule of eight days, shot over two months due to cast availability, the shoot had to be broken down and planned to get the best use of the actors' time. With daylight hours short in February and the legal requirement of regular breaks we were often shooting for only four hours per day.

Despite this, the cast did a wonderful job. Relinquishing the role of DP for the first time on an Ephemeral short, I was freed up to work with the actors exclusively. This would be the first time I would have the opportunity to work with a cast with various levels of on-camera experience to create nuanced character unfolding over a period of time. It was important that the audience buys into the emotional relationship between Richard and his sons because, without that, the story has no purpose.

Happily the cast were well up to the challenge, turning in consistently excellent performances even with the pressure of time we were under. Together, we were able to explore the complex thoughts and feelings of generations of characters who love each other, but have lost the ability to talk to each other, and how one freak event forces them to confront their problems before they overwhelm them.