A boy digs up a coffin in the forest in the dead of night, thereby discovering his ever-repeating fate, triggered by his jealous father. Producer and director Andreas Meichsner captures this narrative in “Repetitivum” using seemingly endless loops with ever more details being revealed as the story develops. The short film is his graduation project at the private film school Filmakademie Kelle Berlin, which unfortunately was closed during production. Other key players behind the scenes in this piece were directory of photography Otis Witt, gaffer Florian Peters, 1st AC Lena Krenz, and 2nd AC Janos Geng.
“The location is very dark and mysterious, shot in a foggy forest in Brandenburg, northeast of Berlin. So the lighting for the exterior shots had to be discreet and precise,” explains Andreas Meichsner. For this project, he used the ARRI SkyPanel 360-C, the largest member of this LED series, for the first time. “The S360-C was the perfect light source to imitate mystical moonshine in the woods. It completed a very dramatic lighting situation consisting of the cold moon and the warm car headlights as backlighting,” he concludes. “The strong but also surreal look of the S360-C in our foggy scenery worked even better than we expected and impressed not only me, but the whole team on the set. The S360-C is a brilliant fixture that allows for crews to replicate a moon or other huge light sources with a much easier set up than traditional tools like china balls.” In addition to the tremendous light quality and the size of the LED fixture, the former film student appreciates “the opportunity to react on any kind of color temperature and intensity.” He concludes: “That kind of flexibility was an amazing gift.”
“Repetitivum” was captured with an ARRI ALEXA Mini—“the best and handiest camera on the market,” says Andreas Meichsner. “We aimed for an American, cinematic, unobtrusive look and came as close as possible to our goal.” At the end, a kind of science-fiction movie without typical science-fiction elements was created. When asked if Andreas Meichsner would recommend working with SkyPanel and ALEXA Mini to others, he responded positively: “Definitely. Your movie and ultimately your audience is going to appreciate it.”
“Repetitivum” premiered at the Hofer Filmtage 2019.
