The Copy is a three minute satire that was created for an online film contest at iStockphoto.com in 2007. It was the first short film produced by AF Creative. The following is a behind the scenes look, from script to screen…or eh, internet.

“If you watch it, seven days later…”

The theme for the contest was the future of technology. Obviously paying homage to the 2002 film, The Ring, starring Naomi Watts, The Copy gives a slightly different scenario over what happens when you watch a forbidden video. The script was written a few weeks prior to the shoot, and everything was produced and shot over the course of two weekends.

Weekend One: Test Shots and Pre-visualization

The first Saturday, we met on location, did some test shots and filmed a pre-visualization…

Storyboarding and Direction

After meeting on location, we storyboarded the film using freeze frames from the pre-visualization…

Since our office location was only available half of the day, the entire shot order had to be streamlined as efficiently as possilbe…

The actual Copy…

While Justin Rossbacher and myself were storyboarding and planning for principle photography, Won Novalis was working on the DVD video that Brandon’s character would watch. You can watch the stand-alone piece here.

Weekend Two: Principle Photography

The Results

Though we didn’t win the grand prize, it was a good run. The Copy won the popular vote and made it to the final twelve selections in the comedy category. If you haven’t seen The Copy yet, you can watch it here.

Photographs by Jill Nance