The shortfilm „Reflection“ by Magnús Ingvar Bjarnason has garnered some well deserved attention

Magnús Ingvar Bjarnason is a graduate from Creative Technology at the film school and his graduation film, „Reflection“ was recently chosen to compete at the Nordisk Panorama short-and documentary film festival. We got a chance to ask Magnús about where his interest in films came from, about his short film and the process of making it.

I was an immense video cassette-child and would sit for days on end in front of the television. My favorite cassette was „Moonwalker“ with Michael Jackson and Joe Pesci . The film was Michael Jackson’s music videos and a story line was made between them to connect them into a whole. As anyone should know, Jackson’s music videos were often very surreal and unique and it intrigued me so much that the tape rarely left the VCR and endured being played hundreds of times.
And that is what interests me in film making, how we can experience new and exciting worlds and dimensions that are different from our reality, something that tickles the brain and stays with you after you have watched. Then when I got older the DVDs took over and on them you would often find a feature „behind the scenes“ and then finally you could get a taste of how films were made and I found my self often being more interested in that than the films themselves. When I then got a chance to take a short film course as a child, there was no going back.

The source of each idea is different and Magnús clearly enjoys collaborating with others

In the beginning I only had a concept idea but was lacking the story behind it. As I hav little interest or patience to sit down and write, but do enjoy throwing ideas around, I got in touch with my fellow student, Eyþór Jóvinsson and we worked closely together with the script as well as with my instructor Óskar Þór Axelsson.

It can often be complicated to get from an idea to a production, but it worked well for Magnús

It went surprisingly well, I had a goal from the beginning to design the script so that I needed only a minimum amount of actors, film crew and shoot locations and rather try to make the script more interesting. I got Eyþór to direct as I was stuck behind the camera and luckily we are both very organized and had a good complete overview of the assignment so that the filming came easy.

The film has gotten some well deserved attention and been awarded prizes at film festivals

„Reflection“ won awards 2 national short film festivals, both the „Gullmolinn“ short film festival in Kópavogur and then the Frostbiter horror film festival that was held for the first time in Akranes last year. And then recently it was nominated for a best short film category at the Nordisk Panorama film festival that will be held in Malmo in Sweden next September.

And what is the course now?

After graduation I decided to not get trapped in any work outside the film industry, as I knew that it was what I wanted to do. During the next summer and fall I participated in most of the projects I was offered, most unpaid work, just to gain more experience, knowledge and connections. Thankfully I had some of the student loans left. Today it has been just over a year from the time I graduated and I am working for the production company Tjarnargata as a cameraman and editor, but recently I have also been working on some short films. I have never been much for planning the future, I rather go with the flow. But my dream is still to direct another short film and shooting a full length film, but that dream just might come true sooner than expected