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Shot.

SHOT is an experimental film that tries to make formal sense out of senseless violence. Footage was found from every police shooting over the last two years for which there is available video. Each piece of footage is taken unedited, and aligned -- synchronised to the moment of the first gunshot.

  • aemilia scott
    Director
    For A Good Time, Best If Used By
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Documentary, Experimental, Social Justice
  • Runtime:
    9 minutes 20 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 1, 2016
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    phone
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Chicago International Film Festival
    Chicago
    United States
    October 18, 2016
    World Premiere
Director Biography - aemilia scott

Aemilia Scott is a filmmaker living in Chicago and LA. She graduated with honors from Columbia University with a degree in History and Photography. Then, she moved to Chicago and performed professionally with Second
City and iO. Aemilia has devoted much of her life to comedy as social commentary. She is a founding member of the critically acclaimed satirical church, Best Church of God. She was a producer and showrunner on BIG NEWS CHICAGO, which created a new comedy show based on the news every week. She recently has directed short pieces for The Onion and Gurl. com. On television, you can see her as an actor on LEGENDS, Chicago Fire, Sirens, and Married. In 2012 she combined her skills in photography, working with actors, and writing, and began a terrifying career as a filmmaker.
Her first lm, BEST IF USED BY, was an official selection of Clermont Ferrand, Aspen Shortsfest, Palm Springs International, Rhode Island International, Seattle International among others. It won a BAFTA honorary mention at Aspen, an Honorary Mention at USA Film Fest Dallas, an Honorable mention at REGARD Quebec, Best Screenplay and Audience Award at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, and BEST SHORT of 2013 by New Filmmakers Los Angeles.
SHOT is Aemilia’s first experimental lm.

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Director Statement

Thank you very much for watching SHOT.
Heretofore in my career I have focused on narrative filmmaking. However, I came to the moving image from video art, and it has always been my secret home, the place I go to make sense of the world before any narrative becomes clear.
It is in that mode that I began to work on SHOT. The violence besieging America is both impossible and vitally necessary for bystanders to understand. These videos are at the same time impossible, awful images, and also absolutely essential to the US’s slow evolution away from violence. I began to collect the footage, looking at it over and over, trying to make sense of it.
In the 19th century, Francis Galton used composite photography to see if he could come to understand a thing by focusing on similarities. Was there an “ideal” thief? Rapist? Murderer? Was there a “typical” Industrialist? Jew?
SHOT uses that now-defunct technique to create a moving composite.
Each piece of footage is laid over one another, unedited, and aligned (synchronized) to the sound of the first gunshot. The end effect is a tidal wave of fear, violence, and outrage.
In the end, SHOT does not explain (ex-plain, the flattening out the highs and lows), but rather amplifies.