Watch This Tense And Awkward Short Film, Shot in One Take By Drone
WHAT: A voyeuristic short that appears to be about a man’s mental breakdown, but actually has a lot more on its mind.
WHO: New York-based filmmaker Paul Trillo.
WHY WE CARE: A lot has been said about the public shaming of people like Justine Sacco, who fired off a gross tweet before getting on a plane and found herself newly jobless by the time she landed. Jon Ronson wrote a fascinating book about these kinds of phenomena. The latest season of Black Mirror tackled them in a fantastic episode too. But perhaps nothing has made a more succinct statement on the merging of technology and lynch mob mentality than the new short film, At The End of the Cul-de-Sac. Creator Paul Trillo uses a showoff-y, tech-angle format of shooting on a drone in a single, unbroken take to tell a story about public scrutiny . . . that isn’t the story you think it as at first. The camera–floating eerily, like a disembodied spirit–captures a man pitching a fit outside the unbudging front door of a woman named Susan. A neighborly crowd gathers as his rant becomes more unhinged. Around seven minutes in, things take a turn, but the entire film is designed, in every regard, to provoke maximum discomfort. “I can’t tell if this is getting interesting or tedious,” a gawking bystander says at one point, filming the incident on his phone. You won’t have the same issue.
Have a look below at the making-of video.
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