By Donia Mirkatuli
Without a thorough analysis and study of Elijah Nelson Chandler’s background as an artist—the director of the short film Morning After—one cannot fully provide a comprehensive interpretation of this film. Morning After is Chandler’s second short film, written and directed after he graduated from film school. However, Chandler has been crafting stories and making short films since his teenage years. Some of these early works won awards at a film festival held at Chandler’s high school. At the age of seventeen, he wrote and published a science fiction novel. He completed his first film, Vision, during his final year of high school and won an award. This brief background highlights the deep connection between literature and cinema in his works.
While studying at film school, Chandler often worked as a cinematographer in his classmates’ projects. During this period, he gained invaluable experience and honed his visual storytelling skills. While assisting other filmmakers, he not only became familiar with a cinematographer's tasks—such as setting up and positioning filming equipment, choosing the most suitable lenses and camera angles, and fixing technical issues like lighting—but he also learned how to direct actors and collaborate with crew members such as set designers and sound engineers. These extensive experiences fueled Chandler’s passion for filmmaking and strengthened his desire to tell his own stories. Thus, Chandler decided to narrate his stories in the form of short films. After graduating from university, he worked for three years as a cinematographer, director, and editor at Panavision.
Short film directors must first know how to make a film within the constraints of low budgets, limited equipment, and tight schedules. One should not forget that great filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin, Jean Renoir, Alain Resnais, Ken Loach, Wim Wenders, Sohrab Shahid-Saless, and Abbas Kiarostami began their careers with short films. Simply watching films or taking hours of filmmaking classes is not sufficient for a filmmaker. Ultimately, experience is essential for making a short film, and Elijah Chandler is one of those who possess ample experience across different aspects of the craft.
One of the main differences between short films and feature films lies in their scripts. Short films often revolve around a singular idea, and the more captivating the idea, the more successful the film will be. In Morning After, Chandler does not underestimate the importance of the core idea. In addition to creating realistic characters and the appropriate atmosphere, he has also carefully structured the story’s climax and turning points. With this awareness, he aims to tell his story within a twenty-minute timeframe.
Morning After starts with a powerful impact. The film opens with images reminiscent of music videos: dancing in a nightclub, with fast-paced, high-energy editing. Then, we enter the calm of the following morning—a calm before the storm, actually. In these brief moments, the audience has time to reflect on and absorb the details of both the first and second sequences. But once the main character awakens, the crisis begins, and the tension, conflict, and violence persist until the end of the film. An educated but aimless and confused young man must fight against a gang of criminals to save his friend, or blood will be shed. From this moment on, the boy’s agency in the narrative comes to the forefront; instead of enduring or observing, he is forced to confront the danger ahead. The filmmaker concludes this concise plot in a way that maintains momentum, never losing pace. Admittedly, the film’s theme is more suitable for the short film format than a feature-length work, and Chandler skillfully separates the scenes to seamlessly showcase the different segments of the story. Perhaps the film’s most notable feature is its brilliant black-and-white cinematography, a nod to the director’s background as a student. The second quality which stands out is the impressive performance of the actors, who connect deeply with their characters and manage to convey the filmmaker’s vision through their expressions, gazes, and delivery of their lines.
In an interview, Chandler mentioned his fondness for various cinema genres and that his heart resides in different worlds. However, among his favorite films, he has watched Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings more frequently than any others. The former, directed by George Lucas, is an epic space opera, while the latter is an epic fantasy series by Peter Jackson. These adventurous and ambitious films fueled Chandler’s imagination during childhood and sparked his love for cinema.
Elijah Chandler is a co-founder of Night One Productions, where he has worked as a cinematographer, director, writer, and producer. Morning After is an entertaining work that demonstrates Chandler’s adept understanding of the short film format. Watching this film can at least inspire hope for the future of this young filmmaker.
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