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It all began when I wanted to make a video for a contest.
The prize was some cosmetics.
I really didn't give a damn.
But it did have a beautiful topic: the end of the world.
It might seem trivial, but during the course of our lives we all happen to feel as if our own world is ending.
I even had a nice idea.
Ok, nothing too fancy, but certainly more challenging than recycling an old makeup tutorial and renaming it.
It would've started with a boy waking up.
Late, of course, because he was a comic book artist, but also because I wouldn't have gotten up any earlier
in order to record the short.
I wanted to get my brother to play the role, but he's shy of acting.
It's a shame because he's hot. I would've gotten so many views.
In the end, it would've been up to me.
So there's this girl that wakes up extremely groggy, late.
And she does what illustrators generally do at midday: she boots up her computer before she does her brain.
There must be acrylics and canvases in the shot, the type of artsy things that make it clear she's an illustrator.
My room.
It saves money on the set design.
This way I would've been acting as myself and, perhaps, the result would've sucked a lot less.
Suddently the girl realises that it's time for food.
She turns to the stairs and yells, "Andre? Andrea?", a call which falls on deaf ears.
Finally, she gets fed up and heads downstairs to wake her brother up.
I had managed to get him to act in a microscopic part at the end.
Brother's room: chaos.
Brushes, rulers, Magic cards everywhere, but no brother to be found.
She tries to call him on the mobile phone but hears the ringtone smothered under a pile of clothes.
And so she goes down, calls every number she knows, all of them are idle.
She even tries with the mother, which is vaguely hinted at by the superimposed word "Mamma".
Pure cinematographic art.
It is at this point that she notices a basket and starts looking around herself, alarmed.
Rapid sequence of baskets, pillows and games, all unmistakably feline in nature, all miserably empty.
"Nichi? Vania? Sasha?"
This is where the real performance begins, where I was supposed to act upset and go out in the garden,
trying to look for the dogs without finding either.
Silence.
I would've added long, poetic shots filmed at a distance so as to not show my face and poor acting skills.
Empty streets. Artificial silence obtained by erasing the sound of squeaky tires and barking dogs.
The bare-socked girl arrives at the train station. Equally deserted.
This is where an avantgarde scene would've fit in perfectly, such as the girl standing still in the same spot
while the sun sets throughout a number of clips, indicating the fact that she remains in a stupor for hours,
waiting for a vision.
Maybe she stares at the tracks, but if there aren't any trains, what's the point?
Cut. Bedroom.
The girl puts her room upside-down looking for a wooden panel and begins to paint.
That is to say, me striking random lines on a board I had prepared.
A bust, some hands, a pretty face smiling.
The girl steps back, a timid smile upon her lips. The painting reciprocates.
And then she collapses. Basically, I would've had to go from a forced smile to bitter tears and then fall down,
desperate, because I realise that I'm alone.
But let's come to the end.
She's sitting there, whimpering, when: a hand on the shoulder.
She raises her eyes and the boy from the canvas is in front of her.
She throws her arms around his neck, squeezes him tightly, eats, cries even more, whispering "Andrea!"
because it has to be clear that he's her brother, right?
Momentary ecstasy.
Their eyes meet.
This is where, if only they could act, their thoughts would be apparent: "what now that we're alone?"
At the same time, in true American movie fashion, they turn to the now empty canvas.
They share a conspiratorial smile.
Then there should've been credits, interspersed with them painting cats and dogs, parents and random people
whose pictures were on the internet, all of whom reappear.
Then, they accidentally print a picture of Freddie Mercury or some other dead person which should come back.
The expression on her face says "why not try and paint him?".
Black. Credits. Oscar.
That's what my short should've been like.
But then those *** called my brother to work on the only day when Mela was available to film.
No luck.
Too bad, because I would've ended the video with a really cool phrase.
"Really cool phrase"
Thanks to my little brother, to Mela's spirit, to my PC that managed to survive, to Cindy for the contests.
But, most of all, thank you for giving a meaning to 3 days of madness and feverish editing.
- Subtitles by TheUnchainedMind -