Industry spotlight - Our 2020 Short Short Film Competition Winner!

By David Yorke

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Best ‘Short’ Short

WINNER ‘CLOUDS’

Directed by David Yorke, Produced by Phil Beastall

Clouds is my most personal film yet and to say the film has been in the making for a long time would be a massive understatement.

I had the initial idea 12 years ago and I tried to get it made several times over the many years, but without a budget, I couldn’t get the support I needed to make the version I wanted.

I shelved the idea and over the next decade I concentrated on making other short films. This was very useful as I became a better writer and director and I built a list of strong contacts along the way.

I lost my mother to cancer in 2010 and it affected me a great deal. After some time, I started to think about Clouds once again and I decided I wanted to make this film to honour her. So, after a script rewrite and many other failed attempts trying to get it made, I enlisted the help of my long-time collaborator Phil Beastall, who not only agreed to shoot the film but also produce it.

As we had no budget, Phil pulled in all his favours and we managed to secure an amazing cast and crew and also shoot at multiple locations for free, including a school, a bus and several houses.

We shot the film over two days in July 2017. As it was also a heavy visual effects film, we faced many problems, and the project came to halt. We had many issues in post-production which I won’t go into, but to sum up, we had to restart the project multiple times. It was a frustrating time but it was really important to me to complete the journey.

Which brings me to 2020. The actors may be older but the film I wanted to make is now finally finished.

I hope you enjoy the film and it makes you feel something but more than anything I hope it brings you and your loved ones closer together.

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