Shooting The Reaper that Whistles was a fun experience. Other than the film being underexposed I think it's amazing! The idea came about around January of 2020, my friend Darius and I were discussing an idea I thought about "Where a guy is rushing to see his girlfriend and he bumps into a female worker knocking all of her papers and he insults her while beginning to take off running. He gets to the place and the girlfriend breaks up with him suddenly the female worker blows powder in his face and curses him. Darius and Jalen liked it and I wanted Darius to be the Reaper because he's a big and tall guy and I thought he would be intimidating. Darius added some plot points to the story as well. I wanted to shoot it in black and white because I wanted to create more black and white short films and I was debating to shoot on 16mm. The song King of Pain was my favorite song at the time and I wanted it to be the end credit song because it kind of matches in a way...I think. So the pandemic hit and everything was put on pause and shut down so this gave me time to work on the storyboards, I drew the storyboards on the index cards and wrote the script scene on the back. It was so many cards, I know was gonna be moving slowly when I shoot so Jalen and I went to Downtown Norfolk to spot locations and to shoot video storyboards which is where you technically shoot your film but it's a rough cut/test. I chose my locations and edited the video boards and I loved it! It was like Jalen was after Jalen (keep this in mind). So a few months passed and I decided to shoot the film on 16mm because I wanted the short film to be gritty and to gain 16mm experience. The pandemic made me broke, my 2 part time jobs shut down and my 3rd job was slowing down and Firestone messed up my car during the inspection and I had to scrape up money from my bank account and from relatives to fix it back up and it will never be the same #fuckfirestone. However, I manage to save up $100 for the developing and processing, I already had expired 16mm film 400 ft of "Kodak 200T 7293" and I had to hand spool them in the complete darkness in the bathroom. So I had 2 film reels but could only afford one to be developed and scanned. Around the first week of May or June, I truly can't remember but I manage to get Dylan to play the main character and Jalen to be The Reaper since Darius didn't think he could make it but he came along so I just made him take behind the scene; however, I change some things such as the Reaper chasing the main character Jonathan all around the city in his Reaper suit so I like the video boards concept where it Jalen after Jalen so I applied that concept to this. The Reaper turns into Jonathan so it's Reaper Jonathan after Jonathan, it was better so Jalen wouldn't run around the city wearing all black clothing in 70-80 degree weather in plus they had to leave early. We headed to the streets of Downtown Norfolk and started shooting.
I began shooting in the parking garage, to have more light come through and that sequence was a breeze. I knew the film was expired so I shot it at 100 asa(I should've just left the iris open on 2.8 or shot it at 50asa). I shot in different locations from the locations I wanted to shoot at. I even switched it on set to save time. At Jack Browns, I shot Jalen's scenes and then they left so Dylan and I stayed to finish the film and we ran into a black couple who told us to keep up the great work, and they were glad to see us shooting on an old traditional film format. It shows that we are appreciating the history of film and filmmaking and the format. They were nice and they hyped me up to complete the film. So I gave them my business card and Dylan and I left for the last location. I shot the rest on the digital bc I only had 5 feet of film left and I needed that to emulate the digital scenes.
I sent the film to pro8mm and I got an HD scan and used a discount code and everything come up to $80. Two weeks went by and I got the film back and...my mouth dropped because the footage was all underexposed. Like personally I could see the important details but it's underexposed. I wasn't mad nor sad, I started laughing and rolling on the floor because it was hilarious. My first 16mm short film is underexposed because the film is expired, which had me laughing. The whole day I would laugh about it but I knew I could still edit it and tweaked it just a bit to make it watchable for others. I began to edit it by making it black and white and it helped to see details more, I raised the shadows and blacks which made it hella grainy but that's exactly what I want it to be...really really grainy! I cut it, put it together, added sound effects, I added so many sound effects and ambience sounds I didn't think I would need music but I made a little synth score and added it in any way. I added the 4:3 bars to add more flavor to it, I rendered it out and I can't really remember my response or thoughts with the final cut but I knew I was proud. I took the Behind the Scene footage and made a "Making of" so others can see how it was made.
So, to the filmmakers and artists, my message here is to not give up if something doesn't go right or according to plan. When I got the footage back, my mindset wasn't " This is garbage, I can't see anything, forget this!" And get mad and not edit it, no I know I still could make something with it. I didn't give up and the footage was badly underexposed. Just don't give up, if you give up because nothing is right and it's not going to plan and you stay giving up without trying, your breaking and chipping away pieces of your confidence and you will make it harder on yourself. Try, before you give up! -Braxton November 2020
