In this gorgeous sci fi short film Hyperlight, two astronauts wake up in deep space and have to discover the reason behind their mission’s failure. Via Short of the Week:
Sci-fi is really hard. Ok, filmmaking in general is hard, and usually when making this point about individual genres, it is Comedy that the “well, actually…” crowd points to as being profoundly difficult. But I’ve always felt this way about sci-fi. You may have heard the line somewhere along your life’s path that “constraints inspire creativity”. It is wisdom I subscribe to, but that motto suggests challenges for sci-fi. There is a profound freedom to the genre, in its ability to throw off the limits of current reality. This is precisely the form’s allure, and yet that makes it easy for creators to go adrift.
Filmmakers must impose their own artificial limits when working in sci-fi, and within short film, that usually means coloring within the lines of old concepts. Today’s film pick, Hyperlight, is no different. The backstory of the film, provided via the film’s website, imagines a relatively near future where mankind has only just solved the challenge of faster-than-light travel. When mysterious contact is made from a distant star system, humans take their first tentative steps to the stars—things, suffice to say, don’t go as planned.