As you might have noticed, after quite a long while, my film SpexArn: Back in the Holy Land, which originally premiered in its original form back in December 2009, is finally available to be watched online for free! Let me know what you think about the film, and don’t forget to give my write-up about the production below a read. But before that, just click the video below to start watching the film on Vimeo – which means the film is available in 720p for all you HD nerds! The film can also be seen by going directly to the front page of the website. The film is a little over 25 minutes long and in Swedish, but with English subtitles.
I will update this post as well as the film’s page with links to other websites when the film reaches them.
I find it hard to believe it’s been very close to a year since the original discussions started about making the film. In 2008, I made Spex and the City, a spoof of the TV show with a similar name for the spex show at S:t Petri high school. While I really enjoyed making that film and was happy with the result, in hindsight I could probably see why people thought it to be a bit tricky to understand, as it was mainly built around inside jokes. The film was still popular though, and it was a fun and challenging project to direct during my last year in high school. Quickly though, talks began between me and Anton Persson about continuing with next year’s spex film as well. While I admittedly was a bit reluctant at first – I felt Spex and the City really was my way of saying goodbye to the wonderful years I had in high school – I quite swiftly turned around to the idea of making 2009′s spex film as well. This even though I didn’t go to the school anymore.
The title SpexArn is sort of a play with words – it derives from the epic Swedish films about the knight templar “Arn” (itself a contradiction) and, obviously, the word “spex”. Together they form Spexarn, which in a rough translation means “the spexer”.
Pre-production of the film started right about when I started studying in Lund, about a month or so after Campsite was releasedon July 31st last year. While I wasn’t able to participate in many discussions and meetings before the actual shoot started, it was more fun to this year have a bit more creative freedom in terms of the script of the film. We decided to try and make this film much more of a collaborative effort: while the main spex team was still in focus for the majority of the film, we brought in other students much more into the filmmaking process and into the final film as well. This was a great decision – it was a rare chance to shoot scenes with over 30 extras, all dressed in costume. This proved to be both exciting but also very challenging, and as we had limited time and resources, reshoots were not always an option.
The much bigger cast also led to the film being much more popular during both its production phase and the initial reception when the film was finally shown in December of last year. But before the premiere, the film was in post-production for pretty much exactly a month – making it a very hectic process to put together all the needed pieces to make a watchable film. A lot of material was cut at the end – we started out with a cut closer to 35 minutes! In this new version I’ve reinserted and switched around some of the material which wasn’t used into the film, as well as reworked most of the VFX shots to look more believable.
After the premiere though, the film dropped of the radar slightly. While the DVD was done in late January, production issues led to the film’s DVD and (later cancelled) Blu-ray release being postponed several months. The production issues which led to this are a discussion for another time and place, but we were lucky we were able to release the DVD (which included loads of deleted footage, commentary tracks and even exclusive short films) before all the students finished for summer.
I’m very happy with how the film turned out nevertheless. It was probably the most fun shoot I’ve had so far, and also inmanycases the shoot in which I feel I’ve grown the most as a filmmaker – both artistically and technically. The shoot also led to some great friendships being formed, and many of the people I met during the production are still close friends, and in some cases, crew members for future projects. Anton Persson, the lead of the film, was later in my quite mental nomination video for the FXhome Awards 2010, while Jakob Attin – who helped out a lot during the production – handled sound in the short 3-minute film.
The film still has its flaws though – it still contains quite a lot of inside jokes and some quite random scenes, which might make it a bit confusing to a viewer with no connection to the high school, its teachers or the way the spex show works. I’ve tried to make some of the scenes easier to understand in this new version, but deep down it’s still a film primarily meant for the spex show it was shown with. If there’s one thing related to how the spex is handled at most schools, I feel that it’s been one of my goals to try and involve as many people as possible in the show and put that in focus, instead of mainly
the spex generals, a group which often consists of five or six people. The film still needs to have some leading roles though,
but the collaborative spirit behind the film is everything I could have hoped for when signing on for the project almost a year ago.
I hope you all like how the film turned out in the end, even though it may be a bit confusing from time to time! 
Finally, I’d like to thank everyone involved in making this production the most fun I’ve had so far making a film, and for being along for the ride – it wouldn’t be possible without you! Cheers to Axel Mulder and Philip Hansson for the images!
P.S. It would be fun to try and make another spex film which works even more outside the S:t Petri spex show, as a standalone film. And it could be a spoof based on a series with a more popular and international following. But that is a discussion for another time…in a few weeks. D.S.
