F i o n n . H a n
W r i t e r ╳ C o m p o s e r ╳ D e s i g n e r
Short Film: Samuel
Is there any real threats for far-right-wing people to defend ?
【Samuel】
▪ Director : Ramon Zagoto
▪ Composer : Hua Chun Fan
▪ Production : Good Kids Productions
Samuel, a Brazilian immigrant who tries to live a normal life away from his home country. However, his presence in Budapest seems to bother a Hungarian family who has great faith in traditional values.
Cinema version
2020. summer
SAMUEL (28) steps out of a restaurant’s door for a cigarette. KINGA (24) also comes out a few seconds later. She asks him a lighter then they start a fun conversation. Another waiter opens the door and calls Samuel before he can finish his cigarette. He gets in again. Kinga stays outside smoking.
On the other side of the street, ÁKOS (21) is watching them. Ákos and Kinga make eye-contact. She looks uncomfortable. (script by Ramon Zagoto)
SAMUEL SOUZA (28)
Samuel is a brazilian immigrant living in Budapest since 5 years. He works in a cafe in the city center and lives with his family in a simple flat in the outskirts of Budapest.
Samuel is a humble guy, smiley, peaceful and laid-back. One of his passions is the practice of capoeira, a key element in his life that keeps him connected to his culture and also helps him to stay mentally strong to overcome the constant problems of the life of an immigrant in Europe such as racism and xenophobia. (text by Ramon Zagoto)
ÁKOS FARKAS (21)
Ákos is a law masters' student who's pursuing a career in the politics. Very intelligent guy with a strong right-wing political orientation.
He belongs to a catholic middle-class family in Budapest. Absolutely attached to christian and family values, Ákos, not rarely, demonstrates a sexist behavior especially against his sister, Kinga. (text by Ramon Zagoto)
KINGA FARKAS (24)
Kinga is Ákos' sister. She hasn't finished her bachelor yet and works with Samuel at the cafe sporadically.
Free-spirit and liberal girl, she has huge conflicts of ideas with his brother. Her lifestyle causes some friction in the relationship with her parents. (text by Ramon Zagoto)
Music Concept
First of all, many thanks to Ramon for touching upon such meaningful theme - addressing the latent crisis in the European societies. In this case, the Highwaymen's Army in Hungary is an important reference of character design. Without scoring this short, I'll never have chance to know such far. So, in order to illustrate this 'hidden, obscure but existing hostility', I used lots of metal sounds (e.g., steel plate) and percussions within the soundscape.
I hope to make the suspence atmosphere permeating the whole narrative, either it's the arguing scenes or the unspoken tension. I was so grateful to be part of the project, whose end result really shows the nice sound mixing efforts and the power of silence (i.e., the timing of credit music came out).
Studio version
2019. summer
Compared to the final Cinema version which is relatively soft, this version has more expressive audio performance on music texture and wider frequency spectrum of sound design. For example, the scene that Ákos measures his strength (muscles) in front of the mirror has powerful punches in the low end (5:20-6:25) which was removed in the Cinema version.