'The Frying Pan' is an 18-minute film I directed in summer of 2001.  You can see the towers in the background at times.

      This film needs explaining prior to viewing because of the strange nature of the project that it was a part of.  The mother project was called 'Annulation' which was suppose to hit the film festivals when it was complete.  There were 5 shorts that were to be created through 'Annulation'.  The rules of 'Annulation' were as follows.  Each director will have a producer attached to them but director and producer will not meet or even speak on the phone until the morning of the first days shooting.  Therefore the director will not know the location, how many actors or what age, sex, race they are, or anything else about the arrangements that the producer put together until the first morning.  The director does know that he has to put some object into the piece like perhaps a red shoe, but won't know exactly what until the first day of shooting.  The object turned out to be an egg.  One other thing that needed to be worked in was the use of the term "Amerikuz dot com".  It could be painted on a wall or spoken, etc..  Again that was something that was told to all the directors on their first day.  Each piece was to be shot over the course of one weekend and only footage shot on those two days could be used.  On the first day the director would be given a certain number of actors to work with. He has to really use them and not just as extras.  He can edit them out later if he so desires but must give them real roles on the day.  On the Sunday, the director is given other actors that have to be worked in as well.  All this ads up to making it absolutely impossible to pre-plan anything for the first day and just as difficult to figure out what to shoot the second day.  It is a very scary way to make a film.  I had brought a big bag full of props and didn't use anything.  I gathered everyone together on the Saturday morning that my shoot started on and asked for ideas.   I told everyone involved that I wanted to hear from them but that no one should get upset if I don't use their idea exactly as they present it.  We spent the first hour coming up with an idea that would involve using a little girl throughout most of it but several hours into shooting we lost the girl due to the need for a nap and other kid stuff.  Now what do we do?  I had a very good friend there for moral support who made a suggestion about how I could still use what we shot and not waste half the day on an idea that was no longer going to work.  He got a special thanks in the credits.  I call my piece 'The Frying Pan' because of the popular saying about 'out of the frying pan and into the fire' as well as the fact that we had to use an egg.  By the way, Annulation was never completed and so of course it never made it to the festival circuit.  As far as I know, mine is one of two shorts out of five to be completed.   

Given all this info you can now view my part of 'Annulation', 'The Frying Pan'. 

Enjoy, Stian

P.S.  The resolution is low because this was uploaded so so many years ago.  I'll try to find a better copy to upload one of these days.