---

Nothing is as it seems when a young woman races to escape from a threatening figure. While only two and a half minutes long, Prowler is a thrilling and surprising adventure. Aside from some less-that-amazing acting, I'm pretty proud of this little film. I'm really pleased with the script I wrote for reasons that I won't mention in the opening paragraph because I don't want to spoil anything! Just watch the video, then come back to the description if you want to learn more.

This film was shot completely silent. All of the sound design and dialogue was recorded and edited in post-production.

P.S. Some Steemit users have had playback issues with my previous uploads, so I'm trying a different codec. Let me know it it works for you.

About Prowler

This movie was shot on Kodak Double X Negative 16mm film with a 1940s Bell & Howell Filmo 70-DR. It was filmed at Ryerson University in Toronto, ON.

For those of you who have never shot anything on 16mm film (probably 99% of you) I want you to understand how difficult it is with this type of camera.

First of all, this isn't digital, we did't have a viewscreen to show us exactly what the shot would look like. We had to use something called a light meter to measure the light level before each shot, then adjust the aperture on the lens accordingly. The slightest mistake could ruin a shot, making it bright and washed-out or so dark that you can't see anything.

Second, while the camera did have a viewfinder, it was not directly connected to the lens by a series of mirrors like what you would find on an SLR camera. The viewfinder had its own lens. It was useful for accurately framing a shot, but it told the camera operator nothing about the focus of the shot. For that, we had to physically measure the distance between the subject and the camera lens for every single shot and adjust the lens so that the subject would be in focus. For the most part, we did a pretty fine job. Honestly, I think this film looks great. We were able to get some truly gorgeous shots. And look at that focus pull in the first shot! You know how hard that is to do on this kind of camera??!!

Now back to the script. I'm quite proud of the reversal of expectations I created. It's hard to pack a good twist into such a short story, but I think I did a decent job. I don't know whether you'll agree with that or not... that's for you to decide.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into the filmography of Seth the student filmmaker.

---

► Watch on DTube
► Watch Source (IPFS)

~Seth