DIRECTED BY Jess Kay and Dann Emmons
WRITTEN Jess Kay
PRODUCED by Jess Kay, Dann Emmons, RAGHAV MUKERJI, AND CHARLOTTE HARDICK
When Esme's mum dies, her world falls apart. She struggles to navigate her day to day life until she gets an idea, fuelled by their mutual love of space, which may lead to the relief she longs for.
Starring Amira Macey-Michael (Star of Oscar Nominated Aardman Animation / Netfix’s "Robin Robin”.)
ABOUT THE FILM
Out of Orbit won Best Micro-Budget Short & Best Production Design at our festival in 2022. It was also in the Judges Selection at Lift Off London where it also won Best Art Direction. It was an Official Selection at the Manchester Film Festival and Nottingham Film Festival. Jess and Dann won Best Directors at Unrestricted View Film Festival and Visability Film Festival, and Best Drama Directors at the London Director Awards. Additionally the film won Best Cinematography & Best Editing at Feel The Reel 2022.
It recently was released online via Omeleto.
ABOUT THE FILMmaker
Dann is a London-based Director working in Narrative and Commercial projects. Dann learned his craft in the camera department, as DoP and operator, working on the floor on episodics, features and commercials before moving into the Director’s chair. Naturally, he has an eye for visuals, and his experience gives him a unique perspective when it comes to the complexities of shoots and the demands of productions. To date he’s directed numerous commercials and promos as well as several award-winning short films.
Jess is a writer/director/maker who loves to tell stories. She began her creative storytelling career working in theatre and the outdoor arts, creating puppets and devising stories for numerous theatrical productions. This background in theatrical and large scale spectacles is now hugely influential within her filmmaking style. Jess always strives for visually beautiful work, with a keen eye for the importance of little details and a huge love for hand-made crafts. Out of Orbit is her first short film, following on from her award-winning music video "Drift" which followed a similar artistic style.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH DANN & JESS
Welcome to our Short of the Week series. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your filmmaking background?
We have both come into filmmaking through different pathways and first met making a short music video together which had a similar style to Out Of Orbit with a young boy and a puppeteer Jellyfish. Jess brings the arts and crafts to our team as she began her career predominantly in Theatre working as a puppet and prop maker and still works in that role often today. Dann brings the production knowledge and visuals to the table as he has a more traditional filmmaking background as a DOP who worked his way up to shooting smaller budget TV series, Commercials and Feature Films before jumping across to Directing.
Tell us about the genesis of Out of Orbit and how the project came about?
The project began with Jess as she had been toying with the story for a long time. The film is inspired by her own experience loosing her dad at a young age and some form of the story has been floating around with her for a while before she approached Dann with the initial treatment. After reading it and speaking to Jess, Dann was inspired by the ideas and visuals Jess had in mind and they quickly developed the film into a fully fleshed out script together before embarking on co-directing the film.
What were some of the main obstacles you experienced when making of Out of Orbit and how did you overcome them?
As always our main obstacle was a lack of funding or money. We actually made the film for just under £1000 which was a stretch to say the least but by pulling in favours from our wonderful friends, family and networks we were able to assemble a team and a collection of great locations to set the film in. Then came about casting our Child star. We started by approaching a local drama college and was put in touch with a kids acting agency. After interviewing a few of the kids I think we were both taken by Amira straight away so the decision became very easy. Aside from that, production went pretty smoothly all in all and we managed to sneak it all in just before the first COVID lockdowns started kicking in!
How was it working with a child actor in your leading role?
We both have a history of working with kids as teachers and filmmakers so the idea of working with a child actor wasn't too daunting for either of us. We also knew how incredibly mature and talented Amira was so that certainly put our mind at ease. I guess the main distinctions in working with a child actor is the amount of hours and breaks you have to give which can slow a day down, so we had to account for that. Beyond that Amira really was a joy to work with, this was her first film and she picked up so much so quickly it was amazing to watch. By the end she was pointing out props that were in the wrong place and giving herself marks on the ground.
Can us through your production design process since it's such a major centerpiece feature of your film.
Jess background in Theatre and production design was really the key ingredient in the film and she created the space rocket you see in the film all by herself from scratch in her mums living room (much to her mums dismay). It took Jess a few months to piece the whole thing together and she worked feverishly through pre-production to get it finished in time with all the moving parts that Amira could interact with which was really important to us. The main considerations with the rocket were to make sure it always felt like something a child could make themselves and not have it too polished. We also built it in a way in which you could remove any of the walls independently to allow the camera to get inside and shoot from multiple angles.
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences.
It's been a learning curve navigating the festival market but we've had a really great run so far with multiple awards being picked up which we've been so grateful for. There's also nothing like seeing the film with a live audience in the cinema, that has always been the highlight for both of us during that time, particularly as we rejoiced in hearing some sniffling and tears at the end. During the initial Festival push we had held a lot of details back from the applications as we didn't want to show all our cards (mainly the rocket) and found we had a lot less success than we anticipated. However, we changed up our strategy and decided to make the rocket the centrepiece of our marketing campaign, which made an incredibly tangible difference! After the festival circuit was coming to an end we didn't want to just pop it on our own youtube channels and hope people might watch it so we reached out to popular shorts channel 'Omeleto' who thankfully loved the film and are programming it on their youtube channel now. The response has been really positive so far!
What advice or hacks would you give to other short filmmakers?
Work with kids, they're great! But honestly just surround yourself with lovely, talented people who you like working with and don't look back. You don't need tonnes of money or resources but you do need friends, so keep them close!
What do you think is the biggest challenge short filmmakers face trying to break into the industry?
I think the festival circuit is a really tricky minefield to navigate (and expensive too) so make sure you treat this part of the process like a business and try not to get too emotional about it. If you're not having much success, try changing up your marketing or asking for feedback. Do your research into festivals too so you're not spending money on festivals that would have never taken your film in the first place... and keep going - it's a long process but if you've got a good film with a solid story you'll find an audience for it!
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
The biggest influence on our film is probably the work of Michel Gondry. We both bonded over our love of 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and 'Science of Sleep' which are incredible films so go watch those!