Directed by robot chocolate (gabriela plačková, robert hloz)
produced by alexandra kara moravčíková
Tired of her husband’s noisy and messy eating, a wife starts a stop-motion battle and packs her bags. CRUMBS was made entirely in-camera for Straight 8's 2020 competition on one cartridge of super 8mm film with no post-production. Find out more about their unique filmmaking process in our interview below.
Want to make a super 8mm film? Straight 8 is open for entries now to anyone. Use discount code 10KINOCLUB10 for 10% off entry.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT
Tell us a bit about yourself and your filmmaking background.
Hi, I am Robert and I am commercial and feature film director and I love when a movie can transport me to a different reality. Somehow when I was really young I promised to myself than I want to bring the joy I had from films to other people too and sticked. My (now already) wife Gabriela is a stopmotion animator and my partner in crime on Crumbs and was our first artistic child.
Tell us about the genesis of Crumbs? Did you have the concept in mind before deciding to join the Straight 8 competition or was Straight 8 the catalyst for the concept?
NO! We totally just heard about the idea and went crazy about how far can we push the medium. The question was how can we use the limitations to create something the would be impossible to do without the constraints?
Had you ever previously shot on film before? If so, can you tell us about that?
I shot a short scifi movie Transient Consciousness on a film stock. But that was a bigger crew so I didnt even touch the camera, this one was so much hands-on. Still I know very little about the whole exposure stuff so I totaly trusted our DoP Ondrej Nedved who did a great job navigating us through all the obstacles. It was his first 8mm experience as well, but he is a prodigy of stopmotion so I knew we were in good hands.
What was the biggest challenge in making Crumbs?
We were afraid of how all the special effects and flying knives on quite complicated rigs gonna work, but that turned out to be a great fun and collaborative effort that worked amazing. And vice versa we have been so sure we have the sound sync sorted out and boy, that was micromanagement nightmare. We had no idea if it is gonna be all in sync till the premiere.
How long did the stop motion process take?
I think we squeezed about one week of work into a three days of real time.
What was the biggest challenge with in-camera editing?
Never to forget to push the trigger both on the analog and the digital camera during thousands of frames. We used two cameras for syncing of the sound and with the amount of technical detail with very DIY conditions there were times of panic and leap of faith when you just hope you listened your muscle memory and automatically pushed all the right buttons even if you don't actually remember it. It is a true miracle and I still can't believe that the movie is in sync till the end:))
How did you handle creating the sound design for the film without watching your footage?
We made a custom camera rig for the analog and digital camera so both could sit next to the other with almost the same field of view. And then recorded frame by frame the same frames simultaneously. So we had a digital copy of the film available for the sound design. But still with a lot of analog-related complications, there were many moments of uncertainty if the cameras are actually in sync.
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences.
The movie started to life its own life after the premiere and the Straight8 team helped a lot with that. Originaly, we didnt think the movie could be interesting to anybody outside the competition as the conditions were so specific, but we got a feedback from all around the world that floored us.
Words of wisdom. What advice would you give to other filmmakers?
When someone tells you that your plan can't possibly work, you know you are on the right track.
What are you working on now?
I am finishing my first feature movie, Restore Point, a scifi set in central Europe which is a kind of a this thing that few years ago everybody knew was an impossible dream. And now the teaser coming out in a month. I am writing this from a final sound mix session. It is an incredible experience. Imagine a world where you have the perfect insurance, so when you die prematurely, let's say a car hits you or someone shoots you, you wake up revived and continue as nothing has happened. Restore Point shows you how the society reacts and if the humanity actually deserves second chances.
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
People who dont like the original Top Gun or Tom Cruise should see Top Gun 2, seriously.