Aas voor de kraaien

HKU graduation film by Tom van Zutphen. When an insecure girl tries to live up to her mother's expectations at her confirmation party, she encounters two outcasts who challenge her to think for herself, while she does everything she can to fit in.

'Aas voor de kraaien' (translated to 'Bait for the Crows') is a short, dark coming-of-age film about not wanting to live up to expectations. This topic really resonated with me, which is why I was very excited to work together with the team on this project.

Since the film takes play a couple decades ago, I did research on the 'fashion' of the time period in the specific region the story talkes about. The specific garments of the time period I was able to lend from the Cultural Centre 'Phoenix Cultuur' in Veghel. These were mostly used for the extra's and 'edel figuranten'.

The most interesting part of the production for me was the white dress that 'Ellie' wears. Throughout the film, it was supposed to get dirtier and dirtier. However, as with a lot of productions, the scenes were not shot in chronological order. This meant I had to make sure we had multiple versions of the same dress. In between takes, the actress would have to change outfits. Together, we would make the dress dirty by sitting and rolling in the ground, which was a lot of fun!