CS Interview: Conrad Faraj on 1917 one-shot challenge winner, Wedding Runner
While Sam Mendesā epic one-shot war dramaĀ 1917Ā is enjoying rave reviews from critics and audiences alike, the co-writer/director teamed up with Universal Pictures for a challenge in which filmmakers would craft a two-minute one-shot short that would tell a complete and important story as well as showing its technical skills. After dozens of submissions from around the country, Mendes chose āWedding Runnerā from Ohio-born filmmaker Conrad Faraj, which can be viewed in the player below, and ComingSoon.net got the opportunity to talk with him on crafting the short and beating out other challengers.
RELATED:Ā 1917 Final Trailer Starring George MacKay & Dean-Charles Chapman
With many different entries of various genres being submitted, Faraj describes the fact that Mendes chose his short as āsurrealā and that while he loves that he beat out his competition, the real joy from these events is āthe challenge.ā
āYou just want to compete, you just want to be considered,ā Faraj said. āLittle did I honestly realize that I would actually get chosen. In fact, I was seeing all of my other competitors, I was seeing all of these other amazing films and I said, āThereās just no way this is going to happen.ā So when I heard Mendes had chosen my film, it was just like this incredible feeling, I felt very overwhelmed.ā
The challenge did have a few rules for filmmakers, including keeping it to two main characters, a two-minute runtime and featuring a plot that delivers an urgent message in an original idea, and while looking atĀ 1917Ā as āthis emotional drama, action piece,ā Faraj had to reflect on what he wanted to explore with the film. The short follows a man whoās pushed by his friend to crash a wedding and reveal his feelings, with the twist revealing he is professing his love for the groom.
āI wanted to do something that I thought would be different thanĀ 1917,ā Faraj said. āSo me and my team kind of brainstormed different ideas and then we kind of started sharing stories. I heard one particular story of a friend of mine whose husband left her on the altar for this other man. I thought that would be a great thing to do as our short, that we could make it really quirky, we could make it sort of comedic and play with those kind of crazy modern themes. I want it to stand out and I feel like I wanted to play with peopleās expectations because I think thatās the brilliance of short filmmaking is you have such a limited amount of time to tell a story and I wanted my particular film to go a little bit beyond.ā
In getting the church to allow them to film the short in their chapel and being on a deadline for the challenge, the team only had four tries to get it right and that getting the church on board was one of the biggest challenges for the production.
āWe spent like an entire week trying to get a church anywhere in Cleveland, which is where we shot the film and every single person kept telling us no,ā Faraj said. āOriginally, the movie was going to be set in a coffee shop and then from the coffee shop the guy was going to run to the church, but we couldnāt just get a logistics of the locations. Then, finally, one particular church said āYes, we have between this time and this time, can you do it?ā I said yes, I can absolutely do it and then we spent about maybe two-and-a-half to three hours just rehearsing and rehearsing and choreographing. We kept timing everything, so I was actually chasing behind the camera team with a timer and if the first bit of dialogue went over 35 seconds, we had to restart. Then, we had three colored smoke grenades for the film, so that means we only had three actual takes, so we did one take as a rehearsal and then we did our actual three takes. The first one was okay, but we went over the time by two seconds, and then the second one the smoke grenade went off and the camera kind of fell off the Steadicam and there was this awful take. So we only had one final take to get it all right and thankfully we did.ā
RELATED:Ā CS Interview: Jerry Bruckeimer on Gemini Man
Having finally dipped his toe into the one-shot effort of filmmaking, Faraj definitely envisions utilizing the technique again in future endeavors, calling it āa great exerciseā and that āit makes you a better director, because you have to be just so conscious about every single movement of the camera, the actors of the lighting of the soundā and that āevery director should at least try to do once in their lifetime.ā With many films using the impressive technique over the years, he finds his favorite example being from FranƧois Truffautās 1959 classicĀ The 400 Blows.
āThe one that always comes to mind for me is the final shot, which I think is just one of the most beautiful shots in cinema, where the main character is just kind of slowly jogging through the beach and heās just feeling so alone and the camera keeps sweeping through that beach until he kind of lands in the water and heās just lefter there in this kind of vast image,ā Faraj said. āHeās just looking lost, so I always thought that was one of the most amazing one shots Iāve ever seen.ā
While the technique is typically reserved for brief action sequences or experimental dramas, Faraj would love to see the science fiction genre explore the possibility of one-shot efforts, as it would be both āinterestingā and āchallenging,ā as the genre itself is already a challenge and adding the technique would push filmmakers a little further.
1917 Official Photos
-
1917_tsr1sheet_rgb1
-
1917
-
1917 (2019)
-
1917 (2019)
-
1917
-
1917 (2019)
-
1917 (2019)
-
1917 (2019)
-
1917 (2019)
-
1917 (2019)
-
1917
-
1917
-
1917