Synopsis

"The world hangs in the balance as the two sides of the universal ying-yang play... The Endless Game."

Director’s Notes

The Endless Game originated as an idea for the Nokia Shorts competition for 2006. The film reduces to a microcosm the age-old battle between “good” and “evil”. It was written by Danny Pegg, who is a member of OTTfilms and a very keen writer. He produces an endless supply of scripts, all of which demonstrate his creative and powerful imagination. Danny has several films currently in pre-production, with two scripts exported to the US. Danny suggests that you look out for The Last Kill.

The crew for the shoot included KC Thiruchelvam on sound, Chris Towndrow as DoP and Charlie Pite as AD, though Charlie did spend much of the day eating his own body weight in hummus.

The two actors were Ed Courtenay and Colin Black, who both showed patience and commitment throughout filming and, likewise, both put in excellent performances.

Due to the limits presented by a 15 second time frame, we decided to produce a second, 30 second edit, which we feel not only gives the film more chance to “breathe” but also accentuates the film, the performances, and the visual effects.

One of the joys of producing The Endless Game was creating the explosion effect, as witnessed through the window. Marc Knapton, our VFX wizard, as a tribute to his fore-fathers, decided to use the tried and tested method of producing a mushroom cloud from an explosion in what is called a “Cloud Tank”. This involved filling an old fish tank with water and dropping a range of solutions, (which consisted of flour, cream, milk and paint) into the water and filming the resulting effect. At this stage in the production, we were joined by the very talented Peter Wallington, who was taking a break from shooting wedding videos.

The contribution made by everyone was immense but a special mention must go to Marc, for the enormous efforts he went to in order to produce the outstanding effects. The combined efforts of the cast and crew is ultimately what made this possible, and they all have my eternal gratitude.