SHORT DOCUMENTARY CASE STUDY - STUDIO 2 BLACK BOX STUDIO
Director Alex Shipman used the Black Box studio to film 'Still', an experimental documentary about harassment using real testimonies from women about their experiences in night clubs, visualised through an interpretive dance piece.
'Still' was made by a group of young people aged 17-25 years old, with Silver Knight Entertainment.
Watch the short documentary here:
Director Alex gave this description of the project:
"'Still' was inspired by a particularly bad night out in a club my friends and I had. It opened my mind to how much we put up with, staring, unwanted touch, not taking no for an answer and even spiking. Speaking to my friends, it felt like it was a regular occurrence for most of us, so I wanted to make a film to shared our experiences.
The film was made for charities to use for educational purposes and to help raise awareness about spiking and club culture at the moment. The charity Spike Aware UK do some amazing work - we did a screening of the film with them to help raise awareness and they plan on taking the film into schools to start conversations.
I interviewed women and used real testimonies for the film. I tried to be as conversational as possible when interviewing those involved, with lots of back and forth, me sharing my experience and them sharing theirs. We recorded everything over Zoom, so people could be in a safe place to talk - this meant sound quality wasn’t always great but in the mix we made it sound like it was coming out of club speakers with a lot bass.
We weren’t going to be able to use a real club location as many of them don’t want to be associated with a film about spiking, so we needed a space that was dark enough to emulate a club but didn’t want somewhere too huge as we weren’t going to have a lot of supporting artists. So the Black Box studio was the perfect place. We got the extras moving around enough to emulate the feel of a busy club and I shot with a 4:3 aspect ratio so we didn’t have to fill as much of the frame.
I wanted the visuals to mimic exactly how the women in my testimonies said they felt on a night out. It really pushed me to think of ways of making the dance and visuals feel otherworldly whilst still feeling grounded in some reality - to help create this effect I incorporated archive footage from clubs.
For the dance, I picked elements from the interviews that I wanted to show visually. We did a lot of the blocking on the shoot day itself but our dancer, Olivia van Niekerk, was great to work with. We had a playlist for different vibes and there was a lot of trial and error when it came to the lighting/grabbing sequence but I was really pleased with how it all turned out.
The film was made by myself and small team of young filmmakers - I try to bring students onto all my productions. I run filmmaking courses through my company, Silver Knight Entertainment, and always try to provide paid placements for alumni of our courses. So we had a fantastic group of young people helping to make this. There is a fantastic energy to a set when you have a group of people excited to be there.
I hope the film changes how people perceive clubbing, raving, those kinds of atmospheres. They are such a good night out and I don’t want them to go away because they are unsafe. I believe everyone needs to be kinder to each other on a night out and then we can all have fun."
Behind the Scenes Photos:




Links:
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Credits:
Dancer: Olivia Van NiekerkÂ
Director/DOP/Editor: Alex Shipman
Gaffer: Joseph Herridge-NowellÂ
Camera Assistant/DIT: Tyler Mann
Production Manager: Alison McCloskeyÂ
Production Assistant: Peggy PollardÂ
Stills: Alix Austin
Assistant editor: Saffron Weaver
Special thanks to contributors and SA's Shot at Klatch Studio: Black Box