A few haunting minutes enchants us in a mystery.
NIGHT DANCING was filmed in Bucharest , Romania and is a mesmerising 6 minute short, written and directed by Barney Cokeliss, aficionado of TV commercials and award winning short films . Night Dancing will be shown at the UK Premiere in the 2018 British Short Film Festival. His 3d stereoscopic film “The Foundling” won the Lumiere Award.
The film was made on a set in Bucharest in one day with expert technical support. A pre eminent colourist in Europe took the raw material from the shoot working with the director and cinematographer and looked at the style and contrasts. An Interest in dance and how dance communicates feeling is prevalent in the short.
But what is the intended story portrayed through the film? It is a mystery. Does the dancing vision exist? Is there a prior relationship between her and the spectator? When he sees her, it is a unique experience for him. She expresses his longing for a relationship and escape from loneliness, something of a modern dilemma. Counselling is also featured as a way of portraying this element of some peoples’ lives.
Barney Cokeliss is fascinated with contemporary dance, loneliness, longing and delusion, combining physical movement and narrative. The story first came to him as an image of a woman dancing alone in the street. When inventing stories he believes that a lot of work can be done by the unconscious mind. Night Dancing embraces a combination of personal experiences . On the delusion aspect Barney Cokeliss has an interest in a Charles Bonnet syndrome related to losing ones sight, and/or seeing things that arn’t there.
The film was shot on an Arri Alexa camera with 2 Cameras on the dancers. Barney used one of the cameras concentrating on a balance between the best way to show dance and the more immersive form of dancer.
Was the film difficult to cast? Barney remarked that the casting brief was very difficult and knowing the right people helped. Jason Thorpe was known to Barney already. Jason is also an interesting mover and a successful comic actor with much humanity in him. Some of the casting was done by text message. Bucharest is a good place to work as the costs are cheaper than other countries. Andrea Ghergel designed and built the street set and harmonised a unified aesthetic to a film better than the location. With a set, one does not need to worry about changes to the weather and the time of day. Because of support from companies involved including ICON films etc Paul Schwabe in Berlin and others, the vast majority of the things needed were provided without charge. Hard costs, ie cash costs, were comparatively low..
Barney studied in Magdalene College Oxford and Princeton in the USA where he took a creative writing course with Peter Carey – his favourite novelist. He mainly works on screenplays – The Sound Sweep (by J G Ballard) and memoir of Steve Barron – story of life in the 80s in wild and crazy world of popstars are amongst his current projects. He likes to see how a story can move and engage people. Barney has a dual nationality passport holder – USA/British, and is mainly London based. The haunting soundtrack for the film was composed by composer Anne Kulonen. Enjoy.
Penny Nair Price