Genre: Drama Running Time: 13 min 06 sec Camera: Hitachi 8 mm Video Format: NTSC Film: Sony 8mm Budget: $200 Shooting Time: 32 hrs Availability: VHS Content Advisory: Heavy themes, language, mild gore Music by: "The Remington" Cast: Benjamin Karl Talitha Jean Benjamin Priest Robert Jean Megan Ellis Producer: Joseph Cwik Benjamin Karl Director: Joseph Cwik Writer: Joseph Cwik Camera: Joseph Cwik Editor: Benjamin Karl Boom Op: Rik Wambaugh CG Operator: Benjamin Karl Engineer: Robert Jean

Screenshots Blade | The Party  Mike Bitches | The Kiss | Push it

   “The film ’Solace’, as its come to be known by the Exec staff, was an extremely interesting experience for me. It was one of the greatest things to see something you’ve written slowly come to life in front of you. I do remember how the actual thought to shoot ’Solace’ came about. Ben and I had gone out to coffee, and I brought a copy of the original form of ’Solace’ with me. I handed it to him and he read it, then looked to me and said “So when do you want to shoot this?” We didnt actually get around to shooting it until a year later. One thing to note is that the majority of the short is not in the original intended location. The original location was intended to be around a large tree to shadow Mike instead of the patio which can be seen in the short and the screenshots. Ben and I decided to make the location change due to one particular shot we thought would be effective.

   “ ’Solace’ took four nights to shoot. Everyone looks at me weird when I tell them that, and I know you are doing it right now. The problem was that we shot it in November... An ice cold Michigan November. Needless to say, we had many breaks for body heat to be replenished. The first night of shooting was, I believe, the longest night of shooting, which was between six to seven hours, including breaks. It was also the coldest, but for some reason that never affected me that night. Must have been the film geek adrenaline in me. We shot the party sequence that night, and some of the outside stuff. I'm just sorry that Jeff and myself were both edited out of the party sequence. I guess its logical for me, being the camera on this one.

   “The next few nights were fun to shoot, and looking over the cutting room floor, there’s a lot of memories there... namely laughs, which made the entire thing bloody memorable... But they can’t compare to that first night. It was one of the best experiences of my life so far. (Quit laughing.) I am always going to remember ’Solace’ because it was the actual kicker to get me into creating film. I learned a lot over the shooting of this project, and I'm sure the entire staff will agree it was a blast to shoot.”