Film: ‘Domain’ & ‘Eating Two Doughnuts at Midnight’

Director: Dopflam

Music: Dopflam / Michael Costin

In a new exclusive interview on Blazing Minds ahead of the Southend Film Festival, I got to ask Director-Animator Dopflam a few questions about his films ‘Domain’ & ‘Eating Two Doughnuts at Midnight’.

‘Domain’ will be playing at the Southend Film Festival on 7th June at 11 am as part of the Mostly Made in Southend Shorts Part One.

‘Eating Two Doughnuts at Midnight’ will be playing at the Southend Film Festival on 7th June at 6:30 pm as part of the Mostly Made in Southend Shorts Part Two.

Q. You have 2 animated shorts which has been selected to play at the Southend Film Festival. Can you tell us what we can expect from the films?

Domain will take you into an absurd, surreal world filled with unique and strange creatures. Bound by no normal human logic this world works in its own particular way, giving the audience a view into something absurd and strange.

Eating Two Doughnuts at Midnight takes audiences on an existential, absurd and surreal journey through the concept of infinity. Lou Rums the main character descends into an otherworldly domain as he and the audience are confronted with an existential story and themes.

Q. How did the idea for the film come about and what were your inspirations when designing the film?

Domain came about as I’ve always been interested in creating my own fictional worlds and then getting lost in them. I’ve always loved Fantastic Planet (1973) aka La Planete Sauvage a brilliant film by René Laloux; this film was a big inspiration from its surreal world, strange absurd creatures to its abstract ideas and themes; this all played a foundational role in inspiring the conception of Domain.

Eating Two Doughnuts at Midnight had begun as a long time idea / thought I had during COVID 2020. I would sit very late in the evening after a day of animating and treat myself to a doughnut, sometimes two. It was one time I had two doughnuts sitting on a plate in front of me and I noticed that they perfectly resembled the infinity symbol. This conceptual idea stuck with me for a couple of years until I was inspired to expand this concept into a full short film.

My ideas when designing the world for this film is that I wanted ‘reality’ and the otherworldly ‘domain’ to feel & look completely different. The ‘reality’ side of the world I wanted to be dark, moody, sweaty and kind of mundane opposed to the otherworldly ‘domain’ that’s surreal, strange and otherworldly.

Q. What are some of your influences for the look and style of your animation?

I had been slowly developing my style over the past couple of years until Domain really solidified it. My style came from a love of reading comics books and watching a lot of 2D cartoons growing up. Being inspired by creators like Genndy Tartakovsky, Craig Mccracken, Mike Mignola, Jack Kirby, Salvodor Dali, Cryiak & David Firth.

My inspirations in film are directors like David Lynch, Hideaki Anno, Robert Eggers, Stanley Kubrick, Mamoru Oshii, Denis Villeneuve, John Carpetner, Wes Anderson, Coen Brothers and Guillermo Del Toro.

Q. What were some of your favourite moments whilst making the Film?

The freedom of creativity while creating Domain felt so refreshing and I favoured a lot of the process of the creation of that film. For Eating Two Doughnuts at Midnight my favourite moment whilst making the film was probably during the sequence where the main character; Lou Rums, confronts a black entity with a large circular eye. The entity moves in a continuously flowing state kind of like liquid, so animating those scenes were really fun whilst pushing the character’s shape. Or the quick stop motion sequence with the doughnuts, because we got to eat them all after!

Q. Did you experience any issues when trying to bring your ideas to life?

I think with any production or creation process you will experience issues. I believe that compromising is a big part of bringing ideas and stories to life in film and especially when in the animated forma plus if you’re relying on your own abilities compromise is sometimes needed. Sometimes a sequence will be envisioned in such a way that it may end up not translating or working to the result you wished, so some sort of compromise needs to be made for the betterment of the film.

Q. You work with Michael Costin for the music on both films. What is the process of you working together?

Michael is a delight to work with, reliable, hardworking and very accommodating to a project. Michael and I used to be in a band when we were younger so there was already a foundation there for creative collaboration. Once a film has started to reach the end of its production going into rough edits to final edits, Michael is brought in to start composing music for sequences, scenes or sometimes the whole film. We will discuss the overall ideas of what a scene needs musically and Michael will also implement his own ideas musically into the film too. Michael and I have a really good creative relationship where he can understand exactly what I’m trying to do or what I want from a scene / sequence and repeatedly working with him has only strengthened the creative bond between us.

Q. What do you hope people will take away from the film?

I hope people are foremost entertained whilst hopefully experiencing and seeing something they haven’t before. I hope the films leave the audience with some questions, maybe some about their own existence and possibly get a little introspective with themselves.

Q. Do you have any other projects which you are working on?

I am currently working on my first horror short film which is kind of a re-imagining of a classic horror monster mixed with my love for body horror. Expect some strange and wild body transformations! I am hoping to complete the film over the next couple of months and Michael Costin will be returning to compose a new score for the film too.

Q. If someone is looking to direct their first film, what advice would you give them?

I would suggest first looking at films, tv shows or animations you love and like in a more critical and technical eye. Take in all those things you love from them and understand them, don’t copy them but be inspired by them. And then my advice would be to give it a go! Get creative, make things the more you keep creating the more you’ll learn. Be yourself and try to imbue that into your work.

‘Domain’ will be playing at the Southend Film Festival on 7th June at 11am as part of the Mostly Made in Southend Shorts Part One.

‘Eating Two Doughnuts at Midnight’ will be playing at the Southend Film Festival on 7th June at 6:30pm as part of the Mostly Made in Southend Shorts Part Two.

You can find out more about the festival and purchase tickets for both ‘Domain’ & ‘Eating Two Doughnuts at Midnight’ here:

Philip Rogers

Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!