Finished now is the filming of “Date of Death”, a student’s graduation motion picture, produced by FILM.UA Faculty within the annual contest for the students of the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University. The selected work received a comprehensive aid package from FILM.UA Group, including both production and post-production stages.
Supported by FILM.UA Group, on a competition basis FILM.UA Faculty would annually select three students of the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and TelevisionUniversity, to receive scholarship, and also there is an annual contest for 4-5th year students anticipating one selected film producing. The selection process of the films for the academic year 2016/2017 is kicking off as early as this year’s September.
Apart from financial aid, FILM.UA Faculty offers the scholarship holders expert support throughout the year, assistance with filming course and graduation movies, aid with submitting the works to film contests and festivals (if necessary), as well as free of charge Skill Bill program master-class attendance.
“Date of Death” will tell us the story of a girl called Masha, who had once received a link from her friend to a “funny” online test allegedly guessing the date of your death. When she clicked the link, Masha finds out the day is really soon to come. She laughs at it with her friend and forgets it at once. But next day, while reaching a swimming qualifying standard, her leg is cramping and she starts drowning. Strangely as it looked, nobody even tried to rescue the girl. When she woke up, she realizes it was just a dream, but she cannot forget about yesterday’s joke. Moreover, further events only exacerbate the situation…
Here is what Kateryna Demska, the film’s director from Mykhailo Illyenko’s workshop, tells us about the filming of her graduation project:
“The hardest scene was the scene of drowning. The shift in the pool was by far the heaviest of all in the project, from the search of location to the shift itself. We have combed through all the pools in Kyiv and in the outskirts, but we could not find one suitable. And when we thought this was starting to be a fail, we found it, the ideal swimming pool in the city of Bucha.
Speaking of directing, for me the most difficult task was explaining the actress the way she was to be drowning. This frame was dangerous both for the equipment and for the actress herself. The film set had two divers, but I was still very much afraid she could really choke and drown before we film the scene. Technically, the stuntmen taught her how to drown correctly, but we could not play it true, for the audience to know what is going on, and not to get an impression of the girl swimming and starting drowning on command. I wanted her to stay underwater as long as she could and keep releasing air from her lungs trying to rescue herself. But I could not make her do it, for I felt responsible for the actresse’s safety. But as the director, I needed her to stay underwater before she runs out of air to breathe, I needed her to struggle for her life but not come up, and, moreover, leave within the frame. I mean, humanist and tyrant director were struggling inside of me.
What added up to the bad luck with that scene was our need to turn off all the noisy power cables hindering to record the sound, which meant that hot water stopped coming in into the pool. Only a few hours after the shift started filming, the water in the pool cooled down and became very cold. We started filming underwater closer to the noon, and spent nearly two hours filming the underwater piece, and for all this time the actress stayed in the water, blue with cold, her teeth clenched, she went on acting and drowning I believe in the end she was absolutely exhausted, and that’s how I got exactly what I needed.
Generally, the main actress had a rough time with us. We were torturing her most of all, freezing her, drowning her, crippling her every day. And for all this time she never said a word of feeling tired, feeling pain, cold, needing a rest, or anything else people would usually say… For me personally this is the vital feature of professionalism and commitment, even being of such a young age.”
If necessary, the film would also get supported at various festivals and international venues.
Supported by FILM.UA Group, on a competition basis FILM.UA Faculty would annually select three students of the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and TelevisionUniversity, to receive scholarship, and also there is an annual contest for 4-5th year students anticipating one selected film producing. The selection process of the films for the academic year 2016/2017 is kicking off as early as this year’s September.
Apart from financial aid, FILM.UA Faculty offers the scholarship holders expert support throughout the year, assistance with filming course and graduation movies, aid with submitting the works to film contests and festivals (if necessary), as well as free of charge Skill Bill program master-class attendance.
