“Noah” directors Patrick Cederberg and Walter Woodman set out to make a movie using a format that they hadn’t seen been used well, which told an honest story about online relationships.
What they ended up with was “Noah,” a short film that follows a young man who destroys his relationship with his girlfriend while pasting together the information available to him online.
Cederberg and Woodman have jointly worked on many projects together, including movies and music, since meeting in 2010. “Noah” is the first short film they’ve produced together.
Watch and Vote For TheWrap’s ShortList Film Festival Finalists HERE
Starring Sam Kantor, Nina Iordanova and Caitlin McConkey-Piri, “Noah” has already won Best Short at TIFF 2013 and was the Grand Prix winner at Clermont-Ferrand 2013. It was produced by KoalaMotion.
TheWrap presented the guys with a quick Q&A on the experience of making the film:
TheWrap: How does it feel to be among the twelve finalist in TheWrap’s ShortList Film Fest?
Patrick Cederberg and Walter Woodman: It feels pretty cool. It’s an awesome way to get short films to a wider audience. The Internet seems like it’s the new home for shorts, so it’s awesome to be a part of an event that celebrates and embraces that.
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How did you come up with the concept for your short?
It was our thesis project in university – we wanted to challenge ourselves to tell a story using a form we hadn’t seen used effectively before. We live our lives online these days but we hadn’t seen anyone discuss that in a way that felt honest to us yet. So why not be the ones to try and do it?
How was your film made and where was it created?
There wasn’t much magic to the production. We made it in our apartment on our laptops, capturing our screens and then adding in the camera motion in post.
Who else worked with you on making the film?
We deliberately kept it a small crew – both because the idea doesn’t really lend itself to large scale production and because we prefer to work in an intimate setting. For us it’s easier to find the heart of something doing it that way. It was primarily Walter, myself, and our roommate Matthew Hornick writing and honing it in, but we had help during the live-action bits from classmates for sound and production design.
Do you plan to expand the short?
We touched on a lot of ideas in the short that we’d like to explore in some form or fashion in the future. How that expansion will work is something we’re keeping close to our chests at the moment. We’re excited moving forward though.
How much did it cost to make the film and how was it funded?
We made it for about $300, from our own pocket, mainly on beer and pizza and getting our actors to and fro. That was a mindset we went into it with. No loans, no extra hands in the pot with financing – we wanted to task ourselves with making the idea work so well that money wouldn’t be an issue.
What would you do with the $5,000, should you win either our industry or audience prize?
It will undoubtedly go into our next projects. $5,000 is like, 15 Noahs or something. We’ve got ideas that are as intimate in scale but given the cost of fully live action productions, any bit helps.
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If you win the industry prize, what will you offer at your pitch meeting with a studio?
We’ve got a few ideas that we’re developing. There’s a feature that’s very off-the-wall in the same way Noah felt when we initially pitched it to our professors. We’d love to see how a studio might react to it.
Watch and Vote For TheWrap’s ShortList Film Festival Finalists HERE