Terminus short film

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Terminus

September 8th 2008 01:13

Terminus (Latin for “boundary stone”) is a fantastic, dark and nightmarish comedy about the self-destructive nature of the human mind and the dangers of urban isolation. The synopsis is described as "A colossus made of concrete pilings follows a lonely man (Rob Carpenter) throughout the city of Montreal as he goes about his daily life on the subway, at the doctor’s office, and elsewhere. All the while, a strong, foreboding sense of mental anxiety builds as the man is ultimately driven to extreme ends resulting in tragedy."

Terminus (2007) is an eight-minute film directed by Trevor Cawood and co-written with his brother Jason that deals with "demons" and inexplicable torment, with the movie ending as a cycle starts again. It’s a vicious circle brilliantly realised and executed. I can’t wait to see what Trevor Cawood will make as his first feature.

Terminus Les Quinn, Rob Carpenter and colossus

Trevor Cawood is a Canadian filmmaker and recipient of many visual effects distinctions including 2 Emmy nominations. He grew up forming an interest in “brutalist” design and architecture, an influence which is prevalent throughout his short film.

Cawood explains: “I’m quite fascinated by how the mind adapts and evolves through stress. Both my need for stress, and my need to get rid of stress have played a large role in the shaping of my character. The characters in Terminus are metaphors for anxiety… they are our own personal demons that we pretend are not there.”

The look of Terminus is very striking; a seamless integration of lo-fi and hi-fi visualization techniques. Cawood works by day as a commercial director (he made the stunning Citroen robot runner ad) so it took ten months to complete Terminus. With a crew of seven, a very modest budget and location time constraints Cawood has achieved a sensational result, technically impressive and atmospherically resonant.

“A lot of time was spent trying match the look of 1970’s Super-8 film. The film itself was shot on DV, but we spent a lot of time in Shake trying to make it not look digital … Trent Opaloch, our DP, is the guy [in the film] with the luggage conveyor following him. I like it when the actual final product ends up the same as what you had in mind when conceptualizing it. That scene is very close to my original idea.”

Here’s the film:

Terminus

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