Toni Hipwell’s micro short The Lure is a mordantly packaged, sublimely macabre dark comedy teasing in fine horror elements and ripe with lush visuals despite the dark foreboding night setting. After being inspired by fellow filmmakers who found success with the format and wanting to challenge their own technical skill, Hipwell translated a 100 word writing sprint into a script, set about bringing together a team who were able to complete the shoot over one night and brought their love of horror to life in a svelte 92 seconds runtime. Ahead of The Lure’s premiere on DN today, we spoke to Hipwell about building an exacting shotlist that was essential for the short’s concise runtime, using a lot of practicals for their lighting needs and shooting open gate.
What exactly is it about micro shorts which appeal to you as a filmmaker and made you want to take on the challenge of this particular format?
I find micro shorts to be a wonderful challenge. To be able to express an idea so neatly and succinctly requires a high level of precision and I’d been inspired by friends such as Tiago Teixeira who made an incredibly smart short called Acorde that won the DepicT! competition a few years ago. It pushed me to make my own, initially for DepicT! before it was sadly shut down, and then just for my own experimentation. To paraphrase Scorcese, “shorter is harder”, and he’s absolutely right. You have to rethink all your bad habits when doing a micro short as that run time buffer you normally give yourself is no longer there and that impacts literally everything because more so than ever, every second counts.
The film also presented an amazing chance to shoot in the open gate format seeing as we were shooting on the Arri Mini LF and really wanted to push the sensor in such a low light environment.
The actual idea itself came out of a writing sprint with my partner to produce a drabble which was precisely 100 words long. I hit on the idea for an unlucky fisherman as I’ve always found bodies of water to have an otherworldly, liminal feeling to them and from there I eventually landed on the hook, if you’ll pardon the expression. Once I had the idea pre production rolled along quite quickly as we didn’t need much, a pond and a fisherman really. I luckily found a location very close to home and I asked Johnny Vivash to come aboard who I’d wanted to work with for a while and was very pleased when he said yes. He really brings that character to life in such a short time period. The film also presented an amazing chance to shoot in the open gate format seeing as we were shooting on the Arri Mini LF and really wanted to push the sensor in such a low light environment. The frame allowed for some gorgeous close ups and left just enough headroom to forebode what is coming. The initial plan had been to shoot 2.39 but the full image proved too beautiful to shave down.
To be able to connect with an audience in such a short time is no mean feat, I want to know about drilling down your shot list, sticking to that and ensuring each beat mattered.
It was a really rewarding exercise building the shot list for this. I spent a lot of time with my DOP Steve Wyatt breaking the structure of the narrative and partitioning that off into shots. Every one had to convey something and bring new information to the viewer, otherwise, we’d just start treading water which you can’t do in a micro. I had set a max run time of 90 seconds, initially for DepicT! and then to keep us honest when that competition fell off the radar. That run time forces you to be highly economical but I enjoy that challenge as it’s something I had a baptism of fire with my first feature a few years ago. That experience instilled in me a bit of a ruthless streak when it comes to coverage.
We were also realistic with the shooting schedule as I wanted it done in one night and not too late either so we spent time finding a good, easily accessible location which we could spend the late afternoon prepping so we could be shooting as soon as night fell. Being hyper-specific helped make the shoot much quicker as you tend to overcompensate for more long form films as you fear you might miss something or hope to find something in the edit. With this we didn’t need to do that, we knew exactly what we needed and only captured that. We had a small, hyper-capable unit, including members of Dark Rift films who I AD’d for on How to Kill Monsters so we had an easy shorthand. We got everything we wanted by midnight and only dropped one shot as we decided we didn’t want it anymore as it felt too much of a giveaway of what the nature of the twist was.
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How did you plan, film and perfect your pesky, tormenting fly?
Creating the fly was a lot of fun. Initially, the plan was to do a simple puppet on a monofilament, but that felt a little cheap. It needed to have that uncertain fly-like movement, but also a degree of intent. It’s not a large animal so it was quite a straightforward task for my producer and VFX artist Cal O’Connell to model and animate. It’s never large in the frame until it meets its fate and then it’s a practical toy with some schmutz to give it that gross insect innard feeling. So with that in mind, I just gave off camera direction to our unlucky fisherman played by Johnny Vivash. We ran it at a couple of levels so we had options in the edit for how wild the flailings would be. His eye line also gave Cal something to key off so it was very much performance driven. Cal also pulled off the wonderful penultimate shot which was vital in the whole thing working and we tested before shooting.
What lighting did you have and what advantages did shooting open gate offer you?
We used a lot of practicals for lighting but swapped out the bulbs and used filters to give them more pop and glow. We had a big china ball just off camera to enhance the practicals and then a big Kino to provide the moonlight. Steve and I were really clear on what we wanted the light and colour to look like. We both love bold 80s horror and miss that kind of colour so wanted it to have a real John Carpenter vibe. We went full old school blue with the moonlight and super warm with the lamp light so you got a lovely contrast and deep shadows with this man looking cosy in his island of light, but also, a little exposed. We used black pro mist to enhance the glow off the lamps even more.
It suits big close ups really nicely of a person’s face and for other shots it gave a wonderful amount of negative space above to portend what is to come.
Shooting open gate was a wonderful opportunity as I hadn’t done that before and I really wanted to push the sensor’s capabilities in low light. Funnily enough, using the full frame wasn’t in the original plan as I normally find the use of 4:3 quite laboured and gimmicky but as soon as we were framing up, it favoured what we were shooting so well. It suits big close ups really nicely of a person’s face and for other shots it gave a wonderful amount of negative space above to portend what is to come so we switched on the fly which is the first and probably only time I’ll do that. I’ve since seen the film on an IMAX screen and it looks incredible. The Arri Mini LF is a beaut for that type of end result. I also can’t talk about the look without also mentioning our colourist Lee Robinson who did an amazing job adding a subtle layer of grain and making the colour even more dynamic.
The sound is so perfect, each whistle, sniff, chirp and croak all come out in those first 30 seconds before we hit the foreboding minute mark – this must have been intricate to construct.
This is the most I’ve obsessed about sound for any film I’ve made which feels ridiculous being the shortest thing I’ve done. But that length is what makes the sound so important; just like the shots, every sound had to be precise, with a micro short I found everything became maximized and hyper-focused. I spent an inordinate amount of time just timing breaths and grunts right as pretty much all the sound is post. That was done by Sam Mason who Tiago recommended and worked on films such as Censor and Flux Gourmet as well as a brilliant short I’d caught on the fest circuit called O, Glory! Happily, he liked the short and jumped in to produce a wonderfully crisp and vibrant soundscape that matches the visuals beautifully. The mix feels wonderfully alive and Sam was very patient with me as we dialled in creaks for the fisherman’s chair or adjusted the amount of buzzing the fly produced. We’ve since worked together on my new short Body Worn Video and that soundscape is every bit as detailed.
The tempo needed to be high impact, maximum information, but not feel rushed which is easier said than done.
What advice would you give to others and what did you learn from editing such a sharp, punchy short?
I think the key learning was that no matter how economical you think you’re being with the edit, it’s not enough. When I got the first few shots on the timeline it tallied up to 30 seconds so I immediately had to rethink my sense of pacing. The tempo needed to be high impact, maximum information, but not feel rushed which is easier said than done. The opening was hardest, just grounding the audience with the info they needed as well as establishing the tone. I went through a lot of variations of those opening shots, chiefly the order they occurred in to get things established. After that, it was just being precise and not allowing yourself to be too enamoured by a shot. Have we got the info we needed from it? Yes, then move on. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t have moments of stillness as it had to build to that reveal so it felt clear and inevitable.
The way horror can talk about social problems in a subtextual way never ceases to amaze me.
After having watched some of your other films, is it fair to say you are a horror man? Why are you drawn to the genre and what are your opinions on what horror allows us to discuss and examine?
I am very much a horror person. I’ve always adored genre and horror in particular. It is such a pliable space to work in and enjoy. You can shift from absolute camp silliness to the highest levels of drama (sometimes in the same film). That malleability makes it able to tackle subject matter audiences are frankly afraid of in others, especially drama. The way horror can talk about social problems in a subtextual way never ceases to amaze me. It is also something that in its extremity can create a carnival like atmosphere. Just this year we’ve had films like Longlegs, Terrifier 3 and I Saw the TV Glow that run the gamut of taste, tone or message and each offers something fundamentally engaging to audiences that help us battle our demons.
So is another micro short in your future and if not what is next?
I’ve been asked a lot if another micro short is on the cards, but for now the answer is very much no. I feel very lucky for how The Lure has been received so I think just trying to repeat that would be a mistake. I’m very much focussing on features for the time being as I’ve spent the last few years in shorts to broaden awareness of the type of stories I can tell. It’s easy to get pigeonholed so I’ve spent time developing the colours in my palate and am writing a feature now that I am very excited about. The screenplay has picked up some attention and is a climate change themed body horror with a Stephen King vibe called Erosion. Hopefully, you’ll see or hear more about in the not too distant future.
