Scott Talbot Examines The Extremes of Love in Post-Apocalyptic Drama

interview and copy written for RED

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A woman flees through a forest as gunshots ring out around her at the start of Scott Talbot’s latest short film, a post-apocalyptic thriller with a twist. Like his previous thrilling short Happy for You which explored the consequences of betrayal, The One That Got Away questions how far you would go for love.

“It’s usually framed positively, but I wanted to ask, can love go too far?” explains the writer-director. “I was taking inspiration from post-apocalyptic films but trying to separate it from the zombie genre. I wanted to create a lawless land that doesn't necessarily explain how the characters got there but acts as a setup for exploring a relationship and behavior.”

Post-apocalyptic world are usually unhinged and this is typically emphasized by shaky camerawork but Talbot was adamant he didn't want any handheld.

“Handheld is one of the first things that producers like you to have on a low-budget film because they think you can move a lot faster. You don't have to move a tripod or a dolly for each setup when you can just have your DP carry an Easyrig or gimbal around. I understand that approach but using it for this story would undermine the creative intent. I wanted the entire film to be on some sort of stabilization; on a tripod, a dolly or a slider, to deliberately go against the grain of the genre.”

Talbot acknowledges a debt to David Fincher who rarely uses handheld and achieves heightened suspense through finely calibrated composition. The 2017 psychological horror It Comes at Night (DP Drew Daniels) was another significant inspiration, he says, “because the filmmakers don't provide a lot of exposition and they tell the story in a very controlled manner.”

Like Fincher, Talbot has been using RED cameras throughout his career starting with the RED ONE then switching to the RED SCARLET-MX, the RED DRAGON 6K and now the RED V-RAPTOR XL 8K. Along this journey he has finessed a workflow that enables him to plan and shoot multiple set-ups on a tight schedule using the additional information in the R3D file to further stabilize, reframe and reposition in editorial.

“RED was the first to really push 4K and then 5K which opened the option of padding around the frame to stabilize or create a move or reposition in post without having to zoom in. RED was very early to provide this opportunity of creating extra space inside of your wider image.

“Now you can do this with pretty much every cine camera but I find that it's way easier to set up in a RED camera. With the R3D file your framing stays in the metadata so you can open it in RED software in post and know exactly what you saw on set. You can create camera moves in post. It's so special, I don't know why more people aren't doing it.

“With other cameras you'll get something like a 4.5K image that doesn't allow you to have a natural one-to-one 4K output. That means, in the end, you're going have to crop down and then rez up. But with 8K you can get the padding and then down-rez and the final image looks incredible. RED is not the only camera that you can do this with but I would say it’s the only company making it a priority in their workflow.”

For The One That Got Away, Talbot and regular DP Ben Meserve recorded 8K on V-RAPTOR XL using Signature Primes framed in 6.6K for every single shot. “This is more frame-padding than I’ve done with any other film. It allows every shot in the film to be stabilized,” he explains.

“For the creative execution I just love what stabilization does to a performance. It gives the actor more freedom room to move. For instance, if they stand up a little earlier in one take and the operator is just half a second late you can still use the take because you have the screen real estate to ensure their head won't pop through frame.

“If you’re in close-up all the time with handheld then your actor tilts their head, even slightly, the emotion or meaning behind that movement is negated by a shaky cam, whereas with a locked-shot, you can tap into the core of the performance. To me, stabilization heightens everything without it feeling unnatural. You're getting this focus on exactly what the character is doing - the tilt of the head, the little eye movement - every detail is captured. In post, working on stabilization, you notice things that you weren't noticing in the offline.”

Working with Meserve, Talbot likes to use 3D animatics to preview every shot. It means that when they arrive on set they know exactly what they’re shooting and where to put the camera. “It really lets me focus on the actors and not worry about the structure of each scene,” he says.

“Of course, if you're shooting Dune you've got 80 people to make sure that the shot that you boarded is going to be the shot that you produce and you can get a much more in-camera final move. But when you're in the woods with only 20 people and the sun is moving you need the tools to adapt.”

The primary location was outside of Portland, Oregon, where they shot for three-and-a-half days. The main house was shot for the first two days. Then they shot the cabin in the woods with the chase scene on the last half day.

“You don’t get the luxury of many takes,” he says. “It might be that the take that the actors are excelling on is not the one with the best camera movement, but with the RED workflow you can find the right pacing of the camera and really dial into it without compromising your image. This allows you to get a very polished look very quickly which on a low budget film is invaluable.”

Aside from a night scene lit by LEDs to mimic fire and another scene lit with a source outside of one of the windows they worked with natural light. This necessitated shooting in blocks so they could work with the sun to maximize the light with the efficiency of moving camera. Aerials shot on a DJI Inspire 3 by cinematographer Andrew Studer and inspired by Netflix science fiction series Dark were blended to match with the RED footage.

Having submitted The One That Got Away to festivals Talbot has already moved onto his next short film project. “With short films you have to hit the ground running,” he says. “My goal was to introduce the antagonist and then tease the ending all in the first 60 seconds. We altered the beginning a little in the edit by taking footage from the ending to heighten the anticipation. It’s still subtle, intimating that she is going to betray her friend, but it's satisfying and I guess we're literally hitting the ground running when this film starts.”

A special thank you to Director Scott Talbot for bringing the RED community behind the scenes of his work on The One That Got Away.