The filmmaker built a space station to make this one…helmets off to that!
Synopsis: Captain Oldelaf is an astronaut in a mission around the Earth whose plans are turned upside down by an unexpected cosmic encounter…
Lost in deep space, he will have to deploy all his ingenuity and dig deep in his bag of tricks to come back home to his loved ones.
Director: Jean-Marc Deltorn
Laugh Track: How much time and energy did you spend making the movie?
Jean-Marc: Hard to put a number on this one, but try convincing your wife/husband/partner that building a space station in the living room of your 2 bedroom flat is really a great idea… and living in it for the next two months will be such fun!… Well, that’s about how much energy/commitment that little movie required!
Do you think it was worth all that time/energy?
If living in a space station for 2 month isn’t, what is?… Honestly, some people are paying crazy money for that.
No, honestly. Was it?
Well the thing is… now that we managed to fit it in our living room… it won’t come out!…
What’s the funniest thing that happened on set? And by funniest we mean the most horrible thing.
I guess it’s when out astronaut (almost) died… Twice…
The first time it happened by surprise: We had bought this refurbished Russian MIG helmet from Estonia, made a spacesuit from sub-zero clothing, complete with gloves, snow-boots and all the fittings, and asked Olivier (our Astronaut) to put this on. We switched the 2000 Watts Tungstens on and asked him to pretend to swim in zero-gravity. He did it gracefully… improvising for a while… until he stopped: a “caprice”, we thought.. or another improvisation?… and waited until it passed… but it didn’t… It happens that these high altitude MIG helmets are great pieces of kit: they really do what they’re supposed to: that is hermetically seal the pilot from the outside. Which is great when “the outside” is at 30000 feet, minus 30 degrees, no oxygen, but when it’s mid-July, under high power tungsten lamps… and there’s no oxygen coming in, … well, then you stop swimming!…
The second time, it was unexpected: The astronaut was supposed to cross this empty field. It had snowed the night before, it was all white, immaculate, it would make a perfect picture: And so, he jumped the fence and started walking.. and as he slowly crossed the bare land, us riveted to the video monitor, in awe of such a perfect minimalist framing, something started to move on the left: “Merde!” said the camera operator “there’s something coming in the frame”: indeed… half a dozen cows were running full speed downhill at our – unsuspecting – astronaut. I guess that’s why they train so hard, these guys, they can pilot a jet, build an air filter with an old sock and two safety pins, eat plastic food rations with a smile for months, even years, and boy… can they run fast!…
Convince us why your film should win our top award. Best answer wins the award (joking…or are we?)
You mean if building a space station and having your talent (almost) die on the set (twice) is not enough?
I guess I’d say it’s because Captain Oldelaf, by redefining the meaning of “Mission Impossible”, by being fearless and never giving up, and by riding the old flaming satellite like no-one, definitely put Tom Cruise to shame.
See this film at @ – Click here to buy tickets.
Tags: jean-marc deltorn, oriental theater, saturday films, short film, the night of the falling star