A short film in one take: In order to get a promotion at work, a grumpy employee attempts to defeat his competition through a sloppy and overly complicated murder plot.

An example of a film that didn’t work out. You can get away with making a number of mistakes in a film, but not if those mistakes prevent you from getting across what you are trying to say. This was an attempt at a murder mystery in one take, but the end result was sadly incoherent.

This was coursework for an MA at UEL. The brief had been to make a film in one take, without any editing or post production. They called it Slice of Life.

My concept was to film a real-time murder mystery taking place during a party in a flat. The camera would pan between three rooms, where we would witness characters conspiring with each other and begin to understand the motive before seeing the repercussions of the murder plot. To be honest, I don’t think it was such a bad concept.

The problems lay in the execution. It was a rushed production and so actors did not know their lines, equipment had not been tested and the script could have done with some rewriting. The end result includes mumbled lines, misplaced props, equipment noise, camera shakes…overall it’s like a rough draft for what might have been a decent student film.

But still, it’s a good learning opportunity and did receive merit.