Fever
Tensions are at an all-time high in an apocalyptic, Corona-struck London as one lustful lady flirts her way through passengers on the Tube, determined to pin down some Friday night fun. Sanitisation is the new currency of seduction, and the more you wear, the better. Expect slick sounds, rad rhythm and cult clichés.
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Clemily MartinWriter
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Clemily MartinDirector
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Josh W BarnettProducer
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Clemily MartinKey Cast"The Flirt"
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Guy ClarkKey Cast"The Nice Guy"
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Sam TollerKey Cast"The Alpha"
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Meredith LambertKey Cast"The One"
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Sam RedfearnAssistant Director
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Project Type:Short, Student
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Genres:Silent, Sci-fi, Comedy, Romance
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Runtime:1 minute
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Completion Date:February 14, 2020
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Production Budget:50 USD
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Country of Origin:United Kingdom
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Country of Filming:United Kingdom
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Language:English
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Shooting Format:FujiFilm F-Log
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:Yes
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Student Project:No
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Raindance Film Festival Sixty Sexy Seconds 2020London
United Kingdom
February 18, 2020
Sixty Sexy Seconds
First Place Award -
Lift Off Selection SessionsLondon
United Kingdom
May 31, 2020
Online
Selection
London-based writer and first-time director Clemily Martin holds a degree in foreign literature and writes for the stage and screen in French and English. Her work explores characters harbouring seemingly incongruous emotions or impulses in situations verging on the absurd, with the intention to inject comedic value into darker sentiments and vulnerabilities. She aims for the audience to develop a certain self-awareness in response to the series of contrasting emotions stirred up. Her recent work has focussed on family dysfunction, displacement and mental health.
‘Fever’ is a dark comedy inspired by the fear and paranoia surrounding the topical theme of contagion, blown up to an absurd degree. The idea was to introduce humour into a worrying situation and celebrate the survival of human desire in the face of a mass epidemic.
We challenged ourselves to explore the dynamics of flirting, a form of interaction highly dependent upon dialogue and write a silent film which solely relies on the physicality of gesture and facial expressions to communicate the escalating stages of seduction. The film plays with caricature and the common clichés of seduction by overturning them and incorporating elements associated with hygiene to portray a society where physical attraction isn't necessarily dependent on appearance or gender but rather on levels of sanitisation.
The style and rhythm of the short was intended to mimic the flow and framing of comic books strips, ensuring that a single gesture/expression in each close-up shot carries enough weight to express a character’s intention and functions as an individual element of narrative development. The rapid rhythm also seeks to reflect the raciness of thoughts and responses in the midst of attraction. Focussing on how to successfully convey a character’s intent in the most concise way under limited time is a skill I developed here and which I feel will greatly benefit my future projects.