Fade In:

I'm Christian Fink-Irizarry and I developed this concept of telling a story through light and color in high school, but the idea to tell a love story through this concept came to me during my sophomore year of college. One idea and 12 drafts later, we have the script that will lead the project into production!

The Visual Style

The primary hurdle to overcome was creating the visual style of the different skin tones and the use of selective color. Oversaturated signifies an overwhelmingly positive emotional state, Saturated means you're content emotionally, desaturated means your emotional state is deteriorating, and Greyscale means your emotionally bankrupt.

In fact, the short film above, ALL IS FORGIVEN, was not only me wanting to make a short film but to also provide myself with test footage to play with, and the film effectively became a proof-of-concept. Both films use the same designing principle, they use selective color to draw attention to the characters' perspectives and advance the story. Based on the reception from the audience, I know that the use of selective color can provide a powerful, accessible, and visually interesting way to communicate story and character.

Visual Effects

A portion of this budget will go towards visual effects to make the orbs of light really pop because they will bring an extra dimension to the story. For me, it was important to distinguish love and your emotional well-being. Though they are intertwined, the story made more sense with the use of light in conjunction with the color because we have the ability to love in any emotional state. I actually built physical orbs of light using clear christmas ornament spheres, transparent matte spraypaint, and some LED lights!

Another aspect of the film is a cloning effect we are looking to achieve. Adam, the protagonist, is going to be led on a retrospective journey of his relationship, seeing his past self go through key moments of his relationship. This is going to be a more dynamic way to explore the emotions that precede a relationship's decline. We've all replayed memories in our mind and we either love looking back on those moments fondly, or wish we could go back and change our decisions at the critical moments. This story is aiming to tap into that visceral, human emotion of arriving in the future, seeing how things turned out, and wishing we could go back and warn our past selves.

We have the ability to achieve the cloning effect through stationary shots on a tripod, but we are aiming to take it to that next level. If we achieve our budget, we are going to rent specialized motion control equipment that can allow us to film shots that have dynamic movement while making the cloning effect achievable.

Safety During COVID-19

This budget will also aid heavily in making this film the safest it can be given current COVID-19 circumstances. Cast and crew safety is of paramount importance, and this budget will allow us to get sanitary supplies, masks, and anything else that current protocol calls for to achieve maximum safety.

Post-Production & Festivals

On the post-production end of the process, this budget will not only allow us to aid our VFX artists, but also allow us to complete the film on time to participate in the 2021 film festival cycle!

Due to the nature of the film, we strongly believe that this film can be a great festival contender. We intend to submit to large festivals like Sundance, SXSW, TIFF, etc., and smaller local festivals to help build a broader audience.

The Next Step

This short will serve as a stepping stone into a new brand of filmmaking that I hope to achieve with Nutcase Films.

I am currently in development and writing my first feature film! It is something that I can make on a very low budget, but it is useless without having an audience to watch it. Fading is aimed to tell the best story possible and jumpstart that process of interacting with the audience that enjoys it. The short film above was the foundation, and now we are pushing it further into new territory, to tell a story in a unique way that can transcend the genres this film adopts.

This film is something that has been inside of me for years, and I am excited to make it, despite the budget we end up with. To create something with a talented team of collaborators who also want to see the project succeed and enjoy the process of filmmaking is all I can ask for as a director. All I've ever wanted was to put something interesting out in the world and see what happens, see where it leads me. In my opinion, that's the whole point.

Get Involved and Spread the Word!

Any contributions are helpful in allowing this film to tap into its full potential. Even sharing this page is a huge help! Anything you can do to get involved will only benefit the film, and we would love to get the chance to interact with you and tell you personally how much your support means!

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