BEHIND THE SCENES

Shane Abbess - Writer/Director
What an experience this film was to make. Originally produced for Tropfest 2001, this film touched audiences on both ends of the love/hate spectrum. The original edit of this picture came in at 12 minutes and within that timeframe we had a cohesive, slightly clever and somewhat bold short film. But due to the 7 minute restriction of Tropfest, we had to cut 5 minutes out and that proved no easy feat to say the least. We had to reshoot scenes (hence the 'Red' cutaway scenes with Tim Dalby and Brian) that replaced longer, more elaborate segways between the major containment yard scenes and had to trim 3 minutes off the start (which told us the subplot of the whole film) and replace it with an 8 second voice-over in the Main title sequence.
I think because of this, the film feels slightly disjointed and looks to cram too much into a seven-minute timeframe. But that said, I still feel the essence of the story comes through and we still get a lot of the intended humour and basic plot of the film. This was a 2 day shoot, located at a Containment yard in Revesby for the majority of the film and the sporting field complex at Lucas Heights for the opening scenes. We enlisted the talent of Phil Taylor and his Steadycam which proved essential, especially during the 'bulletcam' sequences. We also over saturated the colours to give the film a slightly more videogame/comicbook feel. As per usual, we went 6 hours over schedule whilst filming at the container yard but broke new ground when we finished 9 minutes AHEAD of schedule the following day. Our composer, Brian Cachia, shone in the role as our lead character and was backed up with bravado by a very 'Hollywood' cliché ensemble of action heroes.
This film was heavily storyboarded as there are many visual effects throughout the film. Some of the best ones go by unnoticed including Scott adding the baby blue 'sky' to many of our shots. We spent a rigorous 5 weeks in post and finished the film 12 hours before the Tropfest deadline. This was a huge team collaboration and marked the first time that the current Redline team would work together as a whole from Pre to Post on a film. A huge learning curve for all of us but I'm more than happy with the end result. If I could change one thing though, it would be how explicit I shot the final shooting scene where we kill most of our characters. I feel the excessively violent nature of this scene was a major drawback for the film at many festivals, especially with older crowds who had warmed to the humour of the story in the first half. But again, we live and learn, which is what short film-making is all about.


Matt Hylton Todd - Actor/Writer
What a great idea and a pleasure to be part of. The Story went through many morphs to finally get to the final draft, which then had to be further revised once shooting had concluded to meet the 7 minute deadline of Tropfest.
This was a very professional and enjoyable film to be a part of. The DOP (Phil Taylor) was awesome, the location unreal and the cast and crew outstanding.
This film has small pockets of everything that I love in movies and the finished product makes the budget look as if it should have been 10 times what was spent. I'd love to see more and probably will sometime in the future. It's amazing what you can screen in Under Eight minutes.


Carly Benedet - Producer
Undereight to date would have to be one of our biggest short films, production wise. It was a great and challenging experience for me in that the crew, equipment and facilities we were utilising were all to a much grander scale. The organising and coordination was more intense which lead to a productive and gratifying film. For a 2 day shoot with the majority of our shots having to be completed in Day 1 due to location restrictions, at the beginning seemed impossible. Phil Taylor excelled himself to the n'th degree as he operated steadi-cam for both days, keeping his vibrance and enthusiasm at 100% the entire shoot. Even when we ran out of tape stock and had to do a mad rush from Revesby into the City on a busy Saturday afternoon all was extremely well handled. Truly an amazing feat, resulting in a very remarkable and astounding film. The experience was long but one of much satisfaction and joy that all of our abilities, cast and crew, could be pulled together to make something that had big script, big action, big camera movement which led us to higher production values that we pulled off extremely well.


Brian Cachia - Score Composition
Themes themes themes, I had so many different ideas for this film that it turned into a linear path of one theme after another. The film had almost lost its direction due to its restriction in length, with so many different feeling scenes, it was difficult to make the film flow musically but with a few days work on transitions it all seemed to come together. I basically followed the characters through their journey. The piece I enjoy the most the string section when our confused actor (me) comes out arguing with the director. I feel the harmonies used here are really effective. But my acting career pretty much halted right there, one of the hardest tasks is writing to your face on the screen aaaahhhhh!!!


Scott James Smith - FX and titles
Where do I start?
The opening titles required some simple 3D tricks in After Effects to allow each name to glide up off the road, past the camera. The actual Undereight title was Aliens inspired, with each letter revealing itself individually. There was a lot of ramping (time distortion) in this film to help emphasise and amplify certain physical movements. This is evident in such sections as where Matt beats up the make-up guy, Matt's rapid head-turn at the beginning when Reggie first starts talking about the script, Brian's commando roll, many parts in the stand-off with the Blitzkrieg Bothers, and a heap of tweaking with all the gun shots (there were quite a few). Blood was a big star in this one. I used particle animation and various composited Photoshop layers to get the blood spurting just right. I created a complex combination of flares, Photoshop objects, and camera shake to get the gun shots punchy. Again a fair bit of stabilisation to help keep the effected scenes coherent.


Sean O'Reilly - Sound Design/Location/Dialog/FX/Final Mix
This was another interesting challenge. The main location was only a couple of miles away from an airport which had ultralights going up and down all day. This meant that the subdued background was difficult to achieve. This destroyed a number of takes and we were forever waiting for a quiet moment to roll. Sound for this film was recorded using a Sennheisser 416 shotgun direct to DAT. Thankfully due to Shane's precise and crafty editing we were able to get around the planes and the location sound turned out well. The containers provided for interesting FX which I recorded for future use.
This was the last film I mixed in Premiere but it turned out well in the end.


Reggie Matson - Actor
UnderEight originally went for about 20 minutes and I thought it was very clever & quirky. But the film had to be cut back to 7-8 minutes for film festivals which I feel leaves it half finished, it's a shame to know this as there were some really important comical scenes that, too this day, lay on the cutting room floor.

'INSIDE FILM' - Magazine Review
As Undereight steadies the camera on itself, it lightheartedly grapples with form, script, crew and miscellaneous issues that most film students, short filmmakers, and interested bystanders will quickly recognize.
A series of flashbacks and self reflexive moments eventually clarify the initially puzzling narrative, winning over the audience by allowing it access to the in jokes and 'stitching', present in even the most seemless of films. Along the way, cast members openly question their motivation, the script, the director, the budget, and even the crew (who are occasionally in frame).
Thankfully, Undereight is more than just another post-modern gymnastic exercise , with enough blood and gore, gun play, and special effects peppered throughout to satisfy those who can't keep up with the story, and to appease cynics tired of predictable smart-alec shorts.
Decidedly facetious, the film is reminiscent of video games, genre theory, and the humour of if magazine cartoonist Sofjan Hughes. Things are bound to get interesting if Redline gets a hold of a feature budget.