'From Within The Woods' Short Film
Last Updated:
October 1, 1998
Production Time:
2 Days
█
This was a two-part short movie, shot in 1996 & 1998, loosely based on The Evil Dead & the Super-8 prototype Within The Woods (although I had only read about Within The Woods at that point). It was shot in some woods near in Durham, in the north of England.
Made up on the spot; it's a short sequence of someone being chased through a forest by an entity. I was the only character, and my very long-suffering school friend Will (who wasn't into The Evil Dead one bit), was the camera & sound man. Using his VHS 8mm camcorder we shot around 24 minutes of raw footage over one day, with various ideas that didn't make the final edit such as my character escaping across the river, and the monster running onto a knife I was holding & dying. Following the shoot, Will edited together the finished film using two VCRs connected together. He produced three slightly different versions, and you can watch all three below; A straightforward edit, a 1.85:1 matted widescreen version and a widescreen black & white strobing version.
Around two years later in 1998, Will & I attempted a re-shoot along the same lines, but with a higher quality Hi8 camcorder, and a little film experience behind us. During the day, Will's camera developed a fault and the shoot was abandoned towards the end, although we still got around 19 minutes of raw footage. It could have been something to do with my attaching Will's camera to a fishing line rig between two trees a hundred-yards apart on a hill, then me letting it go at the top and it sliding down to Will catching it at the bottom to get the fast tracking shot shown in the film. (looking back all those years, that's something to which I still feel guilty about, even though to this day, Will assures me that wasn't the problem. As an aside, I also managed to break Will's old VHS 8mm camcorder I later had on loan, by dropping it).
I bought an ATI All in wonder 128 capture card for my PC in 2000, and was able to capture the VHS 8mm '96 & Hi8 '98 footage, and needle away at the edit myself to my heart's content, using Adobe Premiere. As the editing setup I had wasn't exactly amazing, you may notice a slight frame skip every second on my version. I still have all the raw footage and could re-transfer and make a much higher quality version today, but that would seem like cheating, so it is what it is. Now all these years later, I really prefer Will's original edits to my own re-edit.
Will & myself were school friends, who shared a love of film-making. Will was focused on making dialogue heavy dramas, and my projects tended towards talk-free violent horror. Over a few years we worked in various capacities on each others little film productions, although his productions were technically superior, and he managed to get more people to help out. Will still works in Video production in Newcastle, running his own production company; Anya Media Films, and I exchange emails with him every few years.
From Within The Woods is earliest film myself and Will shot together, which still exists today. There were two earlier projects however; one was test footage shot on personally owned 8mm film camera shot in the same location as From Within The Woods, around 1993. It really consisted of shots of walking and running and such. My 8mm camera was only used for that test footage and a one-shot stop motion animation test I did on my own. The 8mm film cartridges were hard to source, expensive to develop, and the projector was contently jamming & ripping/burning the film, so the setup wasn't used much after this first test reel. The second lost project was a sequence of crude special effects tests shot on 8mm VHS video around the same time at my house. These tests included a bullet hit made from a plastic bag punctured with a scalpel blade & fishing line, a shotgun made from two pipes and a papier-mâché stock, and a throat biting appliance made of painted paper and card, lifted directly from Zombie Flesh Eaters. The footage from this has long since been lost, which is a shame as it was my first ever fore into properly staged and filmed special effects, albeit a crude one. I still have all the raw footage from both From Within The Woods' shoots, and look upon those times very fondly. In May of 2009, I visited the From Within The Woods shooting location and took a good few photos. Although the layout of the forest is still the same, it does look quite different and far more overgrown. If you're interested in any of my fanmade projects, you can contact me via email at , or through the Rob's Nostalgia Projects Facebook page. Check out & 'like' that Facebook page to see the latest in-progress updates to any current projects, and check out my Wants List to see if you can assist me with any future projects or upgrades.
Made up on the spot; it's a short sequence of someone being chased through a forest by an entity. I was the only character, and my very long-suffering school friend Will (who wasn't into The Evil Dead one bit), was the camera & sound man. Using his VHS 8mm camcorder we shot around 24 minutes of raw footage over one day, with various ideas that didn't make the final edit such as my character escaping across the river, and the monster running onto a knife I was holding & dying. Following the shoot, Will edited together the finished film using two VCRs connected together. He produced three slightly different versions, and you can watch all three below; A straightforward edit, a 1.85:1 matted widescreen version and a widescreen black & white strobing version.
Around two years later in 1998, Will & I attempted a re-shoot along the same lines, but with a higher quality Hi8 camcorder, and a little film experience behind us. During the day, Will's camera developed a fault and the shoot was abandoned towards the end, although we still got around 19 minutes of raw footage. It could have been something to do with my attaching Will's camera to a fishing line rig between two trees a hundred-yards apart on a hill, then me letting it go at the top and it sliding down to Will catching it at the bottom to get the fast tracking shot shown in the film. (looking back all those years, that's something to which I still feel guilty about, even though to this day, Will assures me that wasn't the problem. As an aside, I also managed to break Will's old VHS 8mm camcorder I later had on loan, by dropping it).
I bought an ATI All in wonder 128 capture card for my PC in 2000, and was able to capture the VHS 8mm '96 & Hi8 '98 footage, and needle away at the edit myself to my heart's content, using Adobe Premiere. As the editing setup I had wasn't exactly amazing, you may notice a slight frame skip every second on my version. I still have all the raw footage and could re-transfer and make a much higher quality version today, but that would seem like cheating, so it is what it is. Now all these years later, I really prefer Will's original edits to my own re-edit.
From Within The Woods is earliest film myself and Will shot together, which still exists today. There were two earlier projects however; one was test footage shot on personally owned 8mm film camera shot in the same location as From Within The Woods, around 1993. It really consisted of shots of walking and running and such. My 8mm camera was only used for that test footage and a one-shot stop motion animation test I did on my own. The 8mm film cartridges were hard to source, expensive to develop, and the projector was contently jamming & ripping/burning the film, so the setup wasn't used much after this first test reel. The second lost project was a sequence of crude special effects tests shot on 8mm VHS video around the same time at my house. These tests included a bullet hit made from a plastic bag punctured with a scalpel blade & fishing line, a shotgun made from two pipes and a papier-mâché stock, and a throat biting appliance made of painted paper and card, lifted directly from Zombie Flesh Eaters. The footage from this has long since been lost, which is a shame as it was my first ever fore into properly staged and filmed special effects, albeit a crude one. I still have all the raw footage from both From Within The Woods' shoots, and look upon those times very fondly. In May of 2009, I visited the From Within The Woods shooting location and took a good few photos. Although the layout of the forest is still the same, it does look quite different and far more overgrown. If you're interested in any of my fanmade projects, you can contact me via email at , or through the Rob's Nostalgia Projects Facebook page. Check out & 'like' that Facebook page to see the latest in-progress updates to any current projects, and check out my Wants List to see if you can assist me with any future projects or upgrades.