Film maker and producer Phillip Lopez shows off impressive skills in his new short ‘Fred Astaire With a Stomach Full of Corn Chips and Valium’.
The stage is instantly set in an early morning street in an unknown American city where Lopez’s main character awakes from lying in the middle of the road, looking like he’s been there all night after a heavy binge of whiskey and cigarettes and the films title ‘Fred Astaire With a Stomach Full of Corn Chips and Valium’ adds to this idea. The use of the handheld, first person camera views follows said character through the streets as he retraces his steps through the means of dance to find his clothes lay scattered around the street, along with music from Kevin Morby. The film is compiled of five different shots giving you a first person view of the dancer allowing the audience to feel closer to the movements. It often feels as if the dancer (Nathan Mitchell) is moving as one with the camera as Lopez mentions in the film description…
“I just strongly believe that the camera should move with the dancer, and that needs to be a dance as well, especially when it comes to eye contact to lens.”