Solipsist - Drama Inspiration

Not all that long ago, I watched a short film called Solipsist by Andrew Huang. The film was advertised on the NoFilmSchool blog, which rated it very well. The film is a highly artistic, non-narrative piece - not normally my cup of tea, but I'm nevertheless glad I watched it!

Much of the film takes place in front of infinite black space, shot on a green screen. The high number of effects is impressive, but all the more so when hearing that 99% of them were practical, and very little CGI was actually used. A series of moments take place in which people are connected by various means, a theme explored throughout the short. This includes chains of fabric connecting two back-to-back dancers as they sway as a single unit and eventually consuming them, a man's face collapsing into a pit of multi-coloured sand and falling into another person, explosions of sand grains in vibrant colour and a series of fabric sea creatures gradually connecting together.

The slow pace made for a confusing watch, but as things progressed a meaning eventually emerged, and the strangely disparate elements seemed a little more relevant to each other. Solipsis is an impressive piece of work, the scope of which we can only hope to emulate in some way in our own project.