As someone not involved in the world of film, I am always in awe of how much collaboration goes into a single project. So many creative minds fuse to produce a single, cohesive piece of art. On top of the actors and directive team, who act as the face of the project, there’s a whole slew of production staff that share in the creative vision: sound-mixing, composition, cinematography.
Director Josh Trett’s latest project, the short film “Dial,” is one of many such projects. While Trett is both the writer and director, the film is the culmination of the skills of an entire team. From the trailer alone, it’s clear how carefully the sound design, color grading, and music interplay with the story itself. A movie about a young woman named Dani dealing with the loss of her mother, “Dial” is saturated with a sense of dread and anticipation.
I’ve had a unique opportunity to watch “Dial” come to be as a tangentially related outsider. Amber Donovan-Stevens, Slow Burn Horror’s resident artist and a close friend, designed one of the film’s key props, an address book ridden with strange symbols and spooky artwork:
(Screenshot from the trailer. Tell me this art isn’t familiar as being made by the same hand that did the cover art for Your Guide to Eco-horror: Lure of the Surging Green or What is Body Horror?)
With “Dial” premiering on Friday, August 2nd, I want to take a moment to chat with the creators behind the film to learn a little bit more about what their goals were and how that intersected with their unique craft.
Director and Writer: Josh Trett
“With “Dial,” my main aim was to set the story in a version of reality with a focus on the character of Dani. Also, I was trying to avoid any generic pitfalls of excessive lore and exposition. I tried to also avoid any cheap scares in favour of creating a genuinely creepy vibe within the short runtime. In previous films, I had made the mistake of cutting too soon during the creepier scenes. This time, I intentionally stretched out some of those more tense moments, allowing the fear to build and build.”
Josh Trett is a Norwich-based filmmaker, and one half of production company Trett Films. To learn more about Josh, check out the artist profile we created about him a few months back.
Cinematographer: Matty Trett
“I wanted to focus on creating some sense of entrapment for Dani within the cottage. I relied heavily on using a lot of practical lighting, cracking out old lamps to cast shadows to help create an almost claustrophobic atmosphere. This helped the goal of making us feel Dani’s vulnerability. Every shot was framed to help enhance that unsettling feeling of being trapped and alone.”
Matty Trett is a cinematographer and the creative director at Trett Films. He’s worked on a number of short films in the past, and occasionally posts short videos about filmmaking. In his video about color-grading, he notes the way colour and emotion intersect in film. The shadowy, murky tones in “Dial” are certainly well suited to a film shadowed by death. Also, Matty Trett’s IMDB page lists his height, which I thought was a fun little fact.
Re-recording mixer: Andrew Swallow
“The audio for Dial was designed in 5.1 to create an immersive cinematic feel from the room tones and score with a dynamic mix to help keep an ominous and edgy feel throughout.”
Andrew Swallow is a freelance dubbing mixer with over 15 years’ experience in television. From broadcast television to sports to short films, he operates out of his self-run audio studio Hirundine Audio.
Composer: Phil Archer
“Right from the start Josh and Matty had a clear vision for the tone of the music and the role it would play in “Dial.” The film moves through a range of different moods and tones—grounded drama, supernatural horror, grief and redemption—and the score had to guide the audience through the narrative and create a consistent, coherent world for the story.
Because the music needed to transition between these changing emotions (often very quickly!) I used bowed string instruments and human voice as the main instrumentation as they are both incredibly expressive and able to move between different intensities, timbres, and moods extremely quickly and smoothly. Instruments such as the violin and cello can produce sweet lyrical tones as well as raw screeches and howls that make your skin crawl, and so are perfect for these roles. There are sections here where the strings are playing super low notes with lots of bow pressure that come out as unsettling rumbling growls, but then as you ease off the pressure and move higher up the register the same instrument becomes beautifully pure and tender.
Similarly, a vocalist can move from a breathy whisper to a chilling scream while still keeping their sonic identity intact. Percussion and some additional electronic sounds are also mixed in at key points for extra impact, including processed recordings of the ‘dial tones’ of analogue phones to reflect the role the technology plays in the story.”
Phil Archer is a Norwich-based musician and composer with a taste for odd sounds. He has an interest in “circuit-bending and hardware hacking”, or, to a layperson, creating electronic musical instruments from scratch. He is one third of Transept, and played guitar in Anglo-Japanese art-punk band Hyper Kinako. Among his many musical endeavours, the one that most intrigues me is his description of a cover his band did of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” featuring an “extended vuvuzela solo.”
Actress ‘Dani’ and Co-Producer: Olivia Bourne
“For me, for horror to work, the story really has to be rooted in reality, which absolutely is the case in “Dial.” We follow the inner turmoil of my character, Dani, as strange events unfold after the loss of her mum. We don’t really know which parts are exaggerated by Dani’s state of mind and which are really happening, but all the feelings are real.”
Olivia Bourne is a performer and creator based in Norwich. She has prior experience in short films and has also played a role in video game Murderous Muses. She works on a wide range of creative endeavours, both in front of and behind the camera, including a project compiling rehearsal footage for a show that got closed down due to Covid-19.
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“Dial” comes out on Friday, August 2nd at Picturehouse Cinema City, Norwich, UK. While the Picturehouse premier is sold out, you can still find tickets for the Friday, August 23rd at the BFI in London.
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