ORB
A short Film by Rob Norman
Awards & Recognition
Golden Short Film Festival - 1st quarter finalist
Berlin Flash FIlm Festival - Super Short Sci-Fi - Category Winner
Daily Short Picks - Film Shortage
Beyond the short - 2020
Retrospective of Jupiter - official selection
Best Poetic Cinema - finalist
Film Credits
Director - Rob Norman
Dancer/Choreographer - Alex Tinney
Cinematographer - Charles Heales
1st AC - Josie Thieme
2nd AC - Robert Stanton
DIT - Alix Milan
Music - Ben Lukas Boysen
Sound Design & Mix - Ben Brannan
Production - Lily Martin, Deborah Blech, Jamie Davies
VFX - Kevin Woo, Andrey Polezhayev, Aimee Westley
ABOUT THE ORB FILM
Concept
A few iPad explorations led to a concept of a geometric entity and an explorer. From here the story unravelled of an unlikely friendship and synergetic trance set in an alien land where a growing threat endangers them both.
Storyboard
Some rough drawings allowed myself, the dancer (Alex Tinney) and DOP (Charles Heales) to collaborate on the moves and sequences.
Whilst there was a lot of improvisation on set, these sketches acted as guideposts and a narrative checklist whilst filming.
Rehearse
A number of rehearsals blocked out our movement. We thought of the film as 3 characters, the Orb, the Dancer and the Camera!
INVENTION
I am a huge believer in capturing as much in camera as possible! The challenge was to create an ultra bright sphere so a bit of invention was required. We custom built a mini and medium orb and after a couple of iterations we had a beautiful battery powered Orb character ready to wield on fishing wire and this thing was BRIGHT!
BTS
We were one of the first Indie productions to utilise the Venice/Rialto combo! Converting the camera into a backpack allowed for full frame 6K filming, but very experimental and hand held. Charles Heales (Cinematographer) could follow the improvisation and shoot long takes offering lots of ideas. An absolute dream to edit!