“We Above III” By Kiril Shmidov

Synopsis

Les Orphelins & 5S Content present “We Above III”, a glimpse of a world at the dawn of a pandemic: from the somber desolation of Chernobyl's ruins to Tibet's untouched majestic mountains, Siberia's glacial grounds and Mongolia's snowy desert dunes.

Directors statement

We Above III is about a world at the dawn of a pandemic from Mother Nature’s perspective. From the opening Pripyat proxy for the devastation left in COVID-19’s wake to towering historical monuments embodying mankind’s delusions of grandeur, the forces of Man and Nature are pit against each other into a hopeless conflict.

The film is the third drone short in a series started in 2017. While We Above and We Above II evoked a serene sense of joie-de-vivre expected from an aerial travel diary, We Above III’s narrative was conceived synchronously with the trip itinerary: Chernobyl, Siberia, Russia, Mongolia, Tibet and China. The greatest challenge was in creating a captivating cinematic experience rivalling the current wave of daredevil FPV drone videos. My editor, Alexandre Richard, and I settled on a song I discovered while traveling: Safari Riot’s cover of the Pixies’ Where Is My Mind? - for more reasons than one.

The pandemic brought forth a plethora of uncertainties about our future - as individuals and as a society. Confined to our homes, days morphed into one another. Time became a measure of survival rather than an accelerant for living. Our world grew smaller by the day while an invisible external threat swallowed the space we once inhabited. As time and space folded, our minds grew restless, a state symbolically manifested by upside down, tilted and mirrored shots. The frenetic pace dictated by Where Is My Mind? forces the viewer to ask himself “What am I looking at? Where am I?” and consequently, an overarching question arises: “Where is my mind?”.

As dreary a year as 2020 was, this project proved to be a joy thanks to Gabriel Garceau at 5S, Charles Boileau, William Payette & Florence Julien-Gagnier at Post-Moderne, whose selfless commitment elevated We Above III (no pun intended) beyond expectations.

Credits

A Les Orphelins & 5S Content Production

Directed by Kiril Shmidov
Editor & Sound Designer: Alexandre Richard
Executive Producer: Gabriel Garceau
Post-Production: Post-Moderne
Colorist: Charles Boileau
Onliner: William Payette
VFX: Marc-André Mercier
Music: Safari Riot - Where Is My Mind

Special Thanks:
Samuel Armin, Perla Estaty, Florence Julien-Gagnier, Camille Julien.