Winter Slaap — Making a Black‑and‑White Period Short

The method

Winter Slaap was built around constraint: student funding, remote locations and a deliberate monochrome look. The team prioritised location texture and practical detail over sets — scouting homesteads and a late‑1800s church so production design could be largely discovered, not manufactured. Costumes were heavily distressed to read as lived‑in rather than curated.

Lighting and grading carried the visual strategy. "Deciding to shoot in black and white was one of our very first creative choices," Leandros Braounos, co‑director, says. The crew lit for tonal separation and contrast rather than colour harmony; cameras recorded digitally and the post pipeline focused on emulating 16mm grain and organic mid‑tones instead of sourcing film stock.

"Because we were shooting in black and white, our primary focus had to be on tonal separation and maximising contrast rather than colour harmony."

- Leandros Braounos, co‑director

They leaned into the elements when weather turned. "We had to surrender to the environment, and leaning into that unscripted chaos of the elements is exactly what gave us our most striking and unexpected moments on screen," Braounos says. Logistics forced on‑the‑fly script changes and a minimalist sound design that hyper‑texturises diegetic tones; a period‑aware score anchors scenes using traditional instruments.

Kit (as stated)

• Camera: not stated
• Lenses: not stated
• Aspect ratio: not stated
• Frame rate: not stated
• Days of shoot: not stated