WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY Sophia Capasso
PRODUCED TUTTI TUTTI Productions
This short film is about the cracks we don't see splitting in the rollercoaster of modern life and how two experiences of one night can be drastically dissimilar. Blinkers touches on the complexity of mental health and female friendships.
For best viewing watch with headphones, as the sound is binaural, cranking the volume up won’t hurt either!”
ABOUT THE FILM
Blinkers was an Official Selection at our 2022 festival where is was nominated for Best Editing & Best Score.
ABOUT THE FILMmaker
Sophia Capasso is a British/Italian writer and director from Suffolk.
Her directorial film debut L’Immigrato was based on her Italian heritage and follows three young brothers in south Italy during WW2. The short won The Hollywood First-Time Filmmakers Showcase 2020 and received an honourable mention at Ischia Film Festival 2020 amid other festival runs.
This was followed by her critically acclaimed one-woman show VOiD which premiered at the Vaults in January 2020, where it received four star reviews. Described as ‘an empowering and gut-wrenching drama’ the play was praised for its ‘confrontation of the criminal justice system’ and exploration of ‘psychological terror that leaves hearts racing to the rhythm of her words.’
Blinkers is her second short film.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH SOPHIA
Welcome to our Short of the Week series. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your filmmaking background?
Thank you! Sure. Um, I came into the industry at eighteen as an actor. I love people and human interaction which is what I think draws me to film making.
As a person I am hugely sentimental and I love bringing people together. I found being an actor can be quite lonely and often you have all these ideas and stories you want to tell but perhaps don’t feel like you can. So after a few years I decided to take what basic knowledge I had of sets and the process and make my first film, an Italian language short set and shot in south Italy.
I’ve been lucky to get collaborate with people who are open and passionate and have let me learn from them on the fly! I’ve also have a background in fine art and I see the film process in a similar way to building an elaborate painting.
Tell us about the genesis of Blinkers and how the project came about?
The two characters in Blinkers have been living rent free in my head for at least five years. I know them very well and they’ve appeared in my writing in various guises.
The voice over you hear in the film is a section of intertwined dialogue initially written for a play. When the two characters speak intertwined there is a semblance of sense but when you isolate either’s dialogue you also get a sensical monologue that reveals their individual truths. I eventually shelved the play and I left Lil and Con in an old folder on my desktop for a couple of years.
During the pandemic I had wanted to make a different film ('Que Sera’, which we are now finally in post for, yay!) but the restrictions at the time, and a serious lack of money, meant it wasn’t possible. I was having a look through old work, found the play and realised that these characters could possibly finally have a life of their own in short form! I re-worked the script and convinced a micro crew (by which I mean DOP Jan, we were the crew) to agree to shoot the piece…
Blinkers is quite meticulously edited featuring a lot of split screen elements that have to be timed just perfectly to work. How did you go about planning to execute such an ambitious short?
Initially I imagined more split screen than is in the final cut. We shot under the guise of a 4:4 aspect ratio but London is so present as a third character we changed to 16:9 and therefore scaled back the amount of split screen. We instead used split screen to mark moments of parallels between the girls, highlighting their connection.
For me the most important element in building Blinkers was the sound scape/ audio track. I’d decided early on that we would not be picking up audio on set, so the entire sound world would have to be build in post. I wanted it to be stylised, to mislead the audience and to give the film pace. I curated a playlist of how the film sounded and felt in my mind which I shared with the cast and crew.
Because there is no exact scripted visual we decided to edit to the music. I split the voice over dialogue into chapters and gave each chapter a look book of stills from the rushes alongside a list of feelings/ emotions. I gave this odd document to our incredible composer BYFYN.
BYFYN created the most awesome track. Which went to our glorious editor Fio along with the odd document and she built the first assembly. Because the film is literally a journey from A to B there was a clear structure for the edit; from home to the bus stop, on the bus, prom Piccadilly circus to the club/ bridge.
What were some of the main obstacles you experienced when making of Blinkers and how did you overcome them?
It was December 2020. So the bitter cold and the pandemic were our main obstacles. Sophie who plays Lil was an absolute champion in only a slip dress at times and DOP Jan still hasn’t forgiven me for the frost bite on his fingers!
We had a really small crew, Jan and I, which at first was daunting but actually allowed us to shoot in central London and on TFL without being detected (although carrying the kit from Piccadilly Circus to Millennium Bridge was gruelling). Shooting on to go prevented overthinking and gave us really surprising and intimate footage.
The pandemic meant we had more hoops to jump though with regards to insurance, risk assessments, covid protocols and permits. But again it worked in our favour in many ways as London was empty! So locations like Millennium Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, etc were unusually deserted, almost as if they were locked off for us!
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences.
I struggle in some ways to know where to place it because Blinkers not a traditional drama/ narrative short and its not necessarily experimental either!
I spoke to people with more experience than me to gain a better idea of festivals suited to our film. We had a really good festival run and audiences reacted to the piece, which was a massive relief!
But I have to say that I am genuinely so delighted to have it as part of Kino’s ‘short of the week’ programme because it means people can see it whenever, wherever and ultimately that’s reason we tell storied right, to share them?
What do you think is the biggest challenge short filmmakers face trying to break into the industry?
An obvious hurdle is always going to be budget. Then once you’ve made the film it’s hard to know how to get your film in front of the ‘right people’.
But I think if you are confident enough in your piece to be vulnerable, ask for advice/ help you can eventually get past these things. Ultimately the work speaks for itself!
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
Cinema Paradiso. I could watch it every day.