Shift
Black screen. Text reads: Sing to me, o, muse.
Shift is typed in typewriter font
Clock ticks in a library. Scenes rotate between a close-up of the clock, a close-up of books on a table and a close-up of a bookshelf.
A man appears, clicking a pen in and out. Scene switches to a woman, pulling a book off the shelf and replacing it. Scene switches to another man flipping the pages of a book back and forth. Music plays.
It rotates between these three scenes.
The camera follows a line of people reading books in the aisle of a library before fixating on a man at the end of the aisle, sitting and studying at a desk. The others don’t seem aware of the camera.
The man looks up at the scene in front of him, placing his head on his fist.
The camera follows the line of people in the aisle again before fixating on a woman at the other end of the aisle. She has red curly hair and is swaying while she reads a book. The music continues,
The camera flashes back and forth between the woman and man at the end of the aisle.
The screen briefly changes to show the feet of two ballerinas. The scene reverts back to the library, rotating once more through the clock, stack of books and bookshelf scenes.
The screen shows the man reading at the desk waking up and looking at the woman, who appears in front of him. She closes her book and offers him her hand. This scene occurs five times. He takes her hand and stands up.
They ran down the aisles of the library until the screen goes black.
A scene begins. People sit at tables on a stage, each with a typewriter in front of them. Their feet tap. The man sits alone in the middle of the room.
The group acts synchronously, facing their heads one way, then the other. Tapping their feet in time to the music. Typing on their typewriters.
They move their arms at the same time. The man seems to become aware of the uniformity. He looks around the room and continues sitting while the others dance around him. The woman appears and offers her hand again. This time she is wearing a black dress. He takes her hand and the two begin to dance. It is a ballet. The music slows down, becoming calmer.
They dance in sync.
The screen flashes back to the original three rotating scenes, the clock, the stack of books, the shelf, before returning to the ballet.
The two scenes overlay one another.
We return to the man sitting at his desk.
Screen goes black.
Kasey Poracky created “Shift” as part of her Design and and Production master’s thesis in spring 2019.
The narrative short features 14 ballet dancers, including two feature performers, Julia Fleming and Julian Goodwin-Ferris. Goodwin-Ferris’ character is stuck in the rut of studying at the library, feeling unmotivated, but he catches a glimpse of Fleming’s character.
“Shift” won “Best Film” at the Montage Film Festival and the Feedback Film Festival, and was accepted to festivals across the U.S.
Read about the film