DARK DAY played to rave reviews at the Crime/Thriller Festival in December 2020.
1. What motivated you to make this film?
A friend (actor, co-writer, co-producer) Sebastien Cipolla wanted to make an actor’s demo reel made up of a few different scenes. One of those scenes was the starting point for this short Dark Day. We didn’t end up making any other of the scenes as we put all our resources and energy together into Dark Day.
2. From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this short?
We shot for one 12 hour day and then took about 7 to 8 months in post production to finish everything. With so much going on it was difficult to find time to edit this, and then on top of that, most everyone involved in the post process was a friend who volunteered their services, so we were very much having to work with everyone else’s work schedule. The good thing was that we didn’t have any set schedule, as the main goal was simply to make a short we could be proud of.
3. How would you describe your short film in two words!?
Infidelity kills
4. What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?
As mentioned above, the most difficult part of this passion project was working with everyone’s jam-packed busy schedules to find time to work on each and every aspect of post production.
5. What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?
Very pleased that we could create such tension and thrills on such a tiny budgeted one day film shoot. Happy that our little experiment is clicking with audiences.
Watch the Audience FEEDBACK Video:
6. How did you come up with the idea for this short film?
Sebastien, the actor (also co-writer, co-producer) had this idea of a bad guy burying someone in his backyard. That was the starting point. We workshopped a story a lot from that point on to come to a 10 page script that we shot in a single day.
7. What film have you seen the most in your life?
Badlands and The Hustler
8. You submitted to the festival via FilmFreeway, what are you feelings of the submission platform from a filmmaker’s perspective?
It works great.
9. What song have you listened to the most times in your life?
Likely something from the Beatles.
10. What is next for you? A new film?
Preparing to shoot my next feature in the spring, it’s a psycho-thriller as well called Glorious Empire: https://deadline.com/2019/05/guy-burnet-nora-arnezeder-set-thriller-glorious-empire-1202611765/
Matthew Toffolo's Summary 