Project Detail

Automaton

Synopsis

Karl uses a form of electronic telepathy to spy on his ex-lover, Sarah. Her apartment block is remote, badly lit and in a state of redevelopment. Karl ensconces himself outside in the shadows and uses a radio device to scan the cerebral bandwidth of those in the block until he painfully tunes into Sarah's mind. When he finds her with Paul he uses his electronic puppetry to force her to kill this new lover.

Unable to live with murder, Sarah commits suicide whilst Karl, with the telepathic link still intact, experiences a digital first person perspective of what it is to die.

Automaton is a contemporary re-imagining of Classic Horror, which digitally plots the path of a marked and maddened Peeping Tom.

Details

Year
2007
Type of project
Shorts
Running time
10 mins
Format
35mm
Director
William Sinclair
Producer
Carol Murphy
Editor
Andy Hague
Screenwriter
William Sinclair
Director of Photography
Fredrik Callinggard
Production Designer
Caroline Storey, Alison Adams
Sound
Thomas Joyce, Paul Cameron
Composer
Dead Next Door

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

The Picture Press

3rd Floor
60 Berwick Street
London W1F 8SU
UK

T +44 (0)20 7287 1664

info@thepicturepress.co.uk

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Tell it to the Fishes Tell it to the Fishes

Director: William Sinclair

Year: 2007

The tide is slowly coming in and Finn, a worthless low-rent hood, has been dropped on an isolated beach, his feet set in concrete. Finn's misery is compounded when Jack, a hard and edgy minor gangster responsible for his predicament, lands a few yards away, feet also set in concrete.

A man in a hospital chair sings surrounded by patients and hospital staff Stuck!

Director: Matt Nicholas

Year: 2026

Dr. Atkins, the hospital’s expert in removing “foreign objects”, finds himself in a bind when he forgets to get a present for his big wedding anniversary. When the perfect gift presents itself inside a patient, will he be willing to risk it all for love?

Emma emerges from her baptism. Born in Fire

Director: David Skynner

Year: 2026

A 50-year-old widow, Emma, has lost everything since her husband, Sam, was killed and her final refuge, a holiday lodge in Cornwall is due to be repossessed too. She is harried by debt collectors, seeing things, agoraphobic, and convinced she is losing her mind. Desperate, she calls for help from any God listening, and in a dark wood, something hears her. Her dead husband is haunting her and appears and talks to her in the dead of night. Emma’s starts to experience dreams of a magical wood and strange figures of butterflies and men made from twigs start to appear in and around the lodge. Sam is advising that she must let go of the old, in order let a new life in, but this terrifies Emma. Emma starts to see moments from her future; each bleaker than the last and fears for her own survival. With eviction imminent, Emma agrees she must surrender, whatever that might mean. A creature made from forest appears and helps her to escape. She follows it into the magical wood from her dreams and is baptised in a beautiful river. When she emerges, she is reborn and ready for her new life.