OUT OF BODY
Over the course of a muggy summer day in New England, Cam (Jaeden Martell) and his friend Ryan (Tomás Fattorusso) meander from place to place, getting high and avoiding the aftermath of a recent family tragedy. OUT OF BODY is a meditation on disassociation and a portrait of youth on the verge of addiction in late 2000's America.
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Miles DixonWriter/ DirectorRansack, Devils in the Afternoon, Lanes
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Shoichi MurpheyProducerThe Isdal Man, Dirty Finger Nails, Ransack
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Jaeden MartellKey CastY2K, It, Low Tide
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Tómas FattorussoKey CastDirty Finger Nails, Ransack
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Matthew EricsonSoundStress Positions, Notice to Quit, Reality
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Miles DixonDOP/ Editor
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Andrew FrancisColorGoldie, Hereditary, Looper
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C-thruMusicThe Otherworld
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Ben SchultzTitle Design and Poster
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Project Type:Short
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Genres:Drama, Experimental
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Runtime:26 minutes 26 seconds
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Production Budget:10,000 USD
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Country of Origin:United States, United States
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Country of Filming:United States, United States
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
Miles Dixon is a writer, director, producer, and former photojournalist. His short film RANSACK won the Best Short Narrative Film award at the New Hampshire Film Festival in 2022. He created LANES, a web series about the daily hustle of several Brooklynites which developed a cult following on YouTube.
OUT OF BODY came out of wanting to make a film with Jaeden Martell and Tomás Fattorusso, who are close friends in real life. I had the bones of a script that took place over the course of a single day and dealt with two young friends on the verge of addiction. I told them my concept and how I wanted to develop it with them and mold it to their actual dynamic and personalities. I knew that I wanted the short to be more focused on exploring the characters need to disassociate than in telling a complete story.
They agreed and that summer we went to upstate New York for a long weekend to get comfortable together and hash out the script. We landed on the premise of the entire short revolving around a recent tragedy in the main characters life that is implied but never addressed directly. This simple device would give us a lot of freedom to explore the themes of disassociation and alienation, as well as engage the viewer like a detective gathering information and trying to put together the whole picture.
After our first day of shooting in Vermont I realized that the script wasn’t going to work and I threw the majority of it out, opting to come up with new scenes together every night, influenced by what we had shot that day. Working this way, rather than staying fastened to a script, was incredibly liberating and made the entire process a discovery. It allowed us to film from a more metaphysical place, where we were trying to respond to the real environments and allow for moments to simply ‘happen’.