SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN
EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILM
Quarantine Production
Scritto & Diretto: Davide Romeo
Cast: Davide Romeo / Suzanne Debekker
Lingua: Inglese
Durta: 20min
I was on tour with an arena spectacle, a huge musical show, produced in Belgium and sold in Singapore. We stayed in Singapore for three months and played eight times per week, double shows on the weekends and only Wednesday were off.
We were staying at a huge hotel with about 20 levels, I was on floor 13, and right below me was a dear friend of mine, Suzanne Debekker (contemporary dancer of the show), the entire cast was spread out in the entire building and each apartment was exactly the same. My bedroom looked exactly like Suzanne's did, and it was somehow funny that she was sleeping exactly below me. A funny thought came to mind: “what if the two apartments would melt together and when waking up would find myself in the same bed as Susanne's?” It felt like the perfect metaphor for a romantic story. I took pan and paper and started writing Somewhere in Between.
Somewhere in Between is in fact a romantic short film, about a boy and a girl who like each other but have not yet had the courage to make the first move. The film quietly observes they're everyday lives, in their apartment, it shows how they're doing pretty much the same thing, yet, divided by the floor in between, until one night it all changes.
This film is probably the least professional and most spontaneouslyprojects among my short films. We were shooting with barely any equipment at all, just a canon dslr, no sound recorder device either, just the camera microphone.
Once I was back home (switzerland) I looked at the footage and thought it was useless, the sound was terrible and our acting sure not academy award worthy. I was close to letting it go and leave it behind unfinished, but I couldn't, I simply couldn't throw it away like that. I decided to try and make the best I could out of the amateurish footage I had. After long hours of editing I knew I was on to something, after all It wasn't as bad as it had seemed at first!
The sound was still terrible though, something had to be done. I deleted it all: I cut the audio for the entire 20 minutes length of the film and started from scratch: I had never done anything like that before, in fact I had not yet realized what I was getting myself into. I watched the film from start to bottom and noted every little sound effect it required, steps, doors, shoes, chair, drink, glass, food, knife, door again, breath, wind, cars, water, and the list went on and on.
Then I grabbed all props in the world, went into a silent room and began my journey creating each sound one after an other. Slowly I recreated the entire sound for the film, and to my surprise, it worked very well!
Now, the question was how I was going to make new dialogues? That became a difficult task, I sure wouldn't have minded some professional tip on how to record and synchronize a dialogue in a believable way. Two years after the Singapore tour, I had the chance to meet Suzanne again, and was able to record her parts of the dialogues. After may attempts I settled for a decent result.
Our idea was to create some kind of original dream sequence where the two characters would meet in their sleep. Some kind of abstract place, flowing images that would express their desire of being together. Light was key, we started playing with it, all we had was phone lights, but it somehow worked, simply trying things, until we'd find something interesting, something we liked that would lead us to the next idea. The dream sequence became to us the most special component of the film.
Watch Trailer
WRITTEN & DIRECTED DAVIDE ROMEO DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DAVIDE ROMEO, ERNEST SARINO MANDAP CAST DAVIDE ROMEO, SUZANNE de BEKKER Sound Design DAVIDE ROMEO Music by JEREMY LIA