Special Report: Canon & Ron Howard debut 'The Rusted' short film
Issue: October 1, 2015

Special Report: Canon & Ron Howard debut 'The Rusted' short film

NEW YORK — Post magazine attended last night’s premiere of the Canon USA/Ron Howard Hollywood short film, The Rusted, based on the winning trailer created for Canon’s Project Imagination: The Trailer  (imagination.usa.canon.com) consumer contest. Howard has supported Canon’s Project Imagination creative experiment since 2011.

The 20-minute film short was shown to a studio audience, while also streaming online, at the AOL studios in New York for its AOL Build program. It was then followed by a live discussion with Howard, the film’s stars Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games) and Jena Malone ( The Hunger Games), along with the film’s writer/director, Kat Candler ( Hellion).

Howard and Hutcherson chose one winning trailer (out of 1,300 submissions) that was created by Mark Mukherjee, a Florida college student, as the inspiration for The Rusted. The film, a psychological thriller written and directed by Candler, focuses on a brother and sister’s attempt to renovate their childhood home into a recording studio, but strange happenings force them to deal with memories from their past. The film was shot on-location in Santa Clarita, CA, on Canon Cinema EOS C500 4K digital cinema cameras. 

 
"I’ve always really loved Canon’s compact primes and zooms, but this is the first time working with the C500, but it’s been great,” says DP Andrew Droz Palerm. “For me, the ease of the camera like this and how it’s relatively inexpensive for the quality of the image you get is exciting, I think, for the stories we all want to tell.” 

According to Candler, “[With] the C500, in particular, I’m able to really have these vibrant, beautiful colors come to life on-screen.”

Project Imagination: The Trailer contest launched in February 2015 and was open for submissions through April 29th.  Based on the concept that anything in life can be a movie, and every movie starts with a trailer, Canon invited all consumers — even those who have never picked up a camera before — to turn everyday photos and video footage into a creative movie trailer with titles, Hollywood-style voiceovers and epic soundtracks. Consumers of all skill levels were encouraged to create and submit trailers of their everyday moments using Canon’s Trailer Editor tool. One trailer was then selected by Ron Howard and Josh Hutcherson as the winner.  

(L-R) Post's Linda Romanello with director Kat Candler