N98 - Sodium Rider (short film)

"N98 - Sodium Rider" is my first short film and is still in production. I wrote the script in early 2022 and shot it within 2 weeks in august that year. I had no budget whatsoever, relying on barter and goodwill, composing a team of friends to both shoot and act. My total direct costs so far have been around 300 euro.

"The world is no longer quiet... how do you escape the pressure"

The link below leads to an unnoficial trailer for N98 that I created in early 2023 in order to apply for a grant (that I didn't end up receiving). At the time, I did not have access to all of our footage yet, nevertheless it showcases the rough idea of what the short film will feel like. I am waiting to publish our official once the film is fully complete.

Production:

Conecpt development

I had thoughts of filming a short film as far back as 2019 when I first moved to Czech Republic to study college. My ideas back then were to create a short film surrounding youth culture and the new alternative, shoot it very punk and have a really good soundtrack (I planned to just use copyrighted songs without permission). My plans for releasing such a film were to do it equally punk, have DIY screenings at random locations in the city, always called on shortly beforehand, helping the film gain some sort of a cult status due to its alternative and underground nature.

Throughout Covid 19, the idea of a film idea was always at the back of my mind. I had generally always seen the world around me and my role within it as kind of cinematic. I started my record label Blowout Records during Covid and slowly built up connections with various artists and I also started working for a college TV studio as a sound tech - which would play an important role in later helping me secure the neccessary equipment.

In early 2022 I was due to finish my bachelors degree in college and was planning ahead, finding ways to promote Blowout Records and our artist's work. I returned to the idea of a short film that would contain our artist's music as the soundtrack. During this time I was also already struggling with taking on too much work and being very impatient. I had also gone through a breakup during the previous summer which left me feeling very free but also very lost. I remember my sleep schedule gradually shifting until I lived more of my life at night than during the day. I would often just ride public transport at night because that sense of movement had a calming effect on me and I would use this time to think. I would even take trains to Prague and back to Brno when any work related or other opportunity arose.

I therefore spent a good while searching for a fitting theme to shoot my short film and present both our label's artist's music and alternative culture while travelling on busses and trains at night. On one particularly long journey from Prague to Brno, I was almost home on the night N98 bus at around 3am, watching rows and rows of sodium lights pass by while listening to music, when I realised that this lifestyle I was living would in itself make a good theme for such a short film.

I imagined the main characters would travel around the night city on busses, listening to music (allowing for our artists music to be used), while meeting up and searching for some sort of meaning and balance in their lives. A sort of semi documentary taking place in an almost surreal and retro environmnet, a "night planet". I immediately saw a parallel and inspiration with Wong Kar Wai's 1995 film "Fallen Angels". I loved the colours and the atmosphere of the film along with its use of wide angle lenses, something I had kept in mind during writing the script.

Chosing the locations for the film was quite easy thereafter, I just focused on the places I ahd legitimately travelled through frequently and tied them in to how the public transport worked at night. It was also very furtunate that many of these locations were very retro and of strong character. I had been fascinated by the 90s and anything retro for quite some time, feeling a sense of false nostalgia for a simpler time. I therefore conscioulsy chose to shoot at the most retro places I could find along these travel routes that I felt would be lost soon due to development; a feeling that turned out to be right in more cases than I had anticipated (with most of the locations now demolished or modrnised). Another influence that I wanted to incorporate was my ongoing project of documenting local stores. I wanted to shoot certain scenes in these stores due to their aesthethic visual character.

Part of the plot for the film was to be a realisation of how unsustainable this fast paced and stressfull life is for the individual and the arrival of the characters at some sort of crisis that would help them realise this. I imagined that something "bad" would happen to them, resulting in the staying up all night and thus bringing the entire film into the daytime or the reality of the "day planet". I wanted the characters to decide to travel as far away from the city as possible to an area of nature and direct contrast, yet retaining some form of isolated and sinister feeling. Once again I simply searched my own life for inspiration - I had been exploring an abandoned Soviet military area in the north of Czech Republic for years. This area had been a legitimate source of escape throughout my life, (even after my breakup since I literally lived right next to it during Covid). It was a place where nothing mattered, where I was free and far away from everything and everyone. Another parallel and inspiration arose from this, this time with Andrei Tarkovsk's 1979 film "Stalker". The military area was something of a literal "zone" where I myself searched for the meanign of my own life and happiness. I therefore chose locations in the military area to shoot part of the film's daytime scenes.

Filming

Filming took place in early to mid August in 2022. By that time I had written a rudimentary script, organised a group of friends to help me act and shoot, secured a simple 2 camera setup (one static, one stabilised dynamic) and some sound recording equipment. I hadn't set any money aside for a budget, mainly because I didnt have any and also because I felt like it wasn't necessary. I saw the equipment, the people and the ideas were all there in reach and felt like the only thing needed was to just to do it.

Filming got underway but turned out to be very stressfull. I had largely overestimated our capabilities as actors and shooting times, resulting in us dropping most of the dialogue in an attemt to shorted times on location. I already knew that I wanted a narrator and decided that I would rely more on the narration and general environment for storytelling rather than dialogue.

We had secured filming locations through the Brno city transport company (DPMB) which gave us permission to shoot authentically in the night busses and also through Čajovna Utopia, a very well known literally underground tea house in the city centre. Despite all setbacks we actaully managed to stick to the bare bones of the original idea and captured all of the scnes and locations we had in mind (to this day I admire us for being able to do it). We were all extremely sleep deprived as the summer nights proved quite short for filming and instead of sleeping during the day we spent most of it planning changes to the script and what was to be shot during the upcoming night. Not paying my actors and having no backups meant that I was also limited timewise by my crew - I couldnt just keep extenting shooting for weeks on end since they had other responsibilities.

After shooting the day scenes in the military area in the north, the majority of filming was over. I kept one camera for about another week, just going around and filming filler shots. Later in 2024 once I had gained access to some creative optical filters, I shot a few extra promotional and filler shots using my iPhone 11 pro.

Post-production

I had no budget whatsoever to shoot this project, relying on barter and goodwill to compose a team of friends to both shoot and act. I sourced some equipment from our college TV studio and the rest from my friend Viktor Vizár (cameraman). My total direct costs so far have only been around €300 but compensated by possibly thousands of hours of my own unpaid time and work.

After shooting the majority of the film scenes in August 2022, production has been constantly slow and delayed multiple times as a result of a lack of time and financial resources. This is no surprise as I had to complete every aspect of this film myself in my "free time" with practically no external support or knowledge. The way I put it, if a dedicated team of people had helped me out, we could have done it in a few months. Me having to learn and carry out the work of all those dedicated people myself, bit by bit, means that the process has extended into the scope of years. It is unfortunate that multiple attempts to receive support to produce this film, especially in its early stages, have reached dead ends, further delaying the production process.

As it stands now (January 2025), all the scenes have been shot, all material has been synchronised and sorted, all promotional photography has been shot and a marketing plan has been made. I have also become proficient in DaVinci Resolve editing software as well as other graphic programs and photography, benefiting the outlook on quality of the film and its accompanying material.

Now I need to finish editing the film itself, create our final set of promotional graphics and content (including our official trailer) and define the details of our release plan. After that the film can be released and viewed by audiences.

Themes

N98 is centered around the theme of youth and work life balance. I have personally struggled greatly with the overwhelming feeling that can be summarised into the quote of "Last year was your deadline to finish your lifetimes worth of work... you are already late". From different discussions I have realised that a lot of Gen Z share similar feelings, a situation exacerbated by technological change, information overload and ever accellarating progress. The film is about how this "grindset" has devastating effects on the life of an individual, how hope can be lost and gained and how the individuals mind become s detathced from their environment. Having the main story tied together with the N98 night bus line in Brno also adresses a sense of displacement and constant chaotic movement.

"Last year was your deadline to finish your lifetimes' worth of work... you are already late"

The environment of the film is a theme in itself. The majority of the film was shot at night and I chose the locations carefully to reflect a great conrast between what the characters experience. I wanted to portray the characters struggle with this "modern ultra-fast paced world" in the most retro and run down environments. I did this to add visual character to the film, as well as point out that the world has changed a lot on one hand and not at all on the other. Adressing the question of "what do we bring from the old world into this new one". That we as humans often feel how distant we are from certain things, where in reality they are still very present and real, both in a good and bad way. My location choice was also very strategic - I knew the amjority of locations wouldnt last very long and will soon be either modernised or demolished. I wanted the film to capture a sort of historic "window" that would soon literally become "a different planet", highlighting the disconnect and absurdity/discomfort felt by young people today.