Logline
While caring for her elderly father, who suffers from dementia and spends his days watching static on TV, Becca fends off pressure to place him in assisted living and finds a deeper meaning to his strange pastime.
Synopsis
Tinhead explores Becca’s dependency on her father’s dependency on her, how defining her life in those terms has left her living in the past, unable to move on, and whether she’s happy with that existence.
Becca cares for her elderly father, Tim, who suffers from dementia and spends his days transfixed by a TV that he keeps tuned to static. Becca’s brother tries to convince her to place Tim in assisted living, which she resists, insisting that both her and Tim’s life is better with him at home. After returning from a tour of the assisted living facility, Becca finds Tim seems to have taken a turn for the worse. He pushes her to join him in staring into the static, and she must decide whether to continue humoring him.
Project Details
- Live-action Narrative Short
- Drama
- 15 Minutes
- English
- USA
- Digital
- Aspect Ratio 2.20:1
Production Notes
Story development for Tinhead began in the fall of 2018 under the guidance of film consultant and Dodge College professor Thomas Ethan Harris, and continued through the spring of 2019 under the guidance of film and TV director and Dodge College professor Rachel Goldberg.
In January 2019, the key creative team began to coalesce as producer Rongdanyang “Sunny” Xiang and cinematographer Sarah Reddy both came on board. The script was scene-locked in March, after which pre-production began in earnest and carried on through the summer of 2019.
Production took place over 7 days between September 19 and 29, 2019. Locations included Riverside Studios in Riverside, CA, house locations in Orange and Coto de Caza, CA, and a green screen stage in North Hollywood.
The film benefitted from a luxurious post-production schedule with editing taking place throughout October and November of 2019, finishing in early December. Visual effects, sound design, and color grading took place starting in December and continuing into March 2020.