Shot Breakdown | Felix Betyder Lycklig
Posted on 19 Sep 2024 by Ren Brian — 9 min
Felix Betyder Lycklig is a Swedish short film exploring the topic of identity and tells the story of Felix and his struggles with telling his family and peer group that he is transgender. Written by Espen Sjöblom and Julian Yderbo, with Julian also directing.
The film went on to win best picture, best script, best actor (Kevin Karlsson) and audience choice as well as commendations for cinematography in the 2016 Swedish Frame festival.
Watch on YouTube (with English subs)
If my memory serves me well, I think I shot the majority of the film with a 50mm prime lens and occasionally 18mm.
The first shot features Felix (played by Kevin Karlsson) out running on a nature trail with a voice over explaining that he has always struggled when it comes to talking about things.
This shot is intentionally out of focus as to emphasise the feelings of the character, he's ignored, he's unimportant. It also aims to aid in listening closer to the voice over. The scene is shot from far away with Felix getting bigger as he approaches the viewer and passes the camera. As he comes closer and gets bigger in frame, we are forced to notice him.
The next shot is short and similar except now the tree is in focus and we are a lot closer to the action. I did this for the same reason as the opening shot.
A final couple of shots in the forest trail of Felix running down a hill although this time it's all in focus so there's no mistake that this is what Felix looks like. The guy with the red hair. The last thing he mentions before we change scenes is that everytime he tries to talk about his feelings, he is silenced.
We then cut straight to a closeup of a handle of some sort. We quickly learn it's a fridge as Felix's mother (played by Linda Ståhlgren) is preparing breakfast. I kept this montage of butter, ham and other breakfast items all closeup as to aid in the narrative of the mothers hectic busy lifestyle.
In between shots of the breakfast preperation, Felix gets out of the shower and looks into the bathroom mirror. This was a small space to film but I think we managed it well.
Now is the first time we are introduced to a family member of Felix by seeing their face. His little sister (played by Isabelle Great) In this scene, their mothers calls Felix by his female birth name, Saga. There is a bit of motion blur in these scenes as to emphasise the frantic rush to get everything ready for breakfast.
In the meantime, Felix is applying makeup to his face in the bathroom. This shot was especially difficult to film due to the limited space but again I think it turned out fine.
Back in the kitchen and we see Magnus, Felix's father (played by Johan Gustafsson)
The father pays little attention to anything so we focus on the newspaper in a few different shots.
After his mother calls for him, Felix comes and sits down. The father still reading the paper taking no notice of anything whilst the mother asks for the bread and butter. The focus here is on the mother. Felix feels low, he is barely in frame. The father may as well just be a newspaper at this point and the little sister is enjoying her breakfast.
Felix tries to explain that he is male and the mother asks for backup from her husband. This is the first time he puts the paper down and speaks. I chose to get all the family in this shot as it's now become a family discussion, even though the little sister is a little confused by the whole thing. The father states that he loves his kid no matter what although doesn't really seem to listen and sort of brushes it off.
The mother is dominant and was having none of it. In this shot she states that enough is enough. The father is paying attention to her anger so I framed it with him in the shot as she is moaning at Felix.
Similar to the fridge scene we go back into frantic closeup mode as the mother is looking for something, we don't know what though until she pulls it out of the drawer and goes over to Felix who has at this point tried so hard to explain his thoughts and feelings to no avail. This calls back to earlier when he said that everytime he tries to speak, he is silenced.
We look upwards at the mother, towering above the family. She is in charge. Making a joke towards Felix she laughs at herself.
Felix is silenced and completely fed up with the way he is treated. Showing him alone with a dark background for some isolation, we then move away from the kitchen scene.
A lot brighter, although clearly still upset - hence the tape, Felix waits outside a shop for his girlfriend Diana (played by Ella Fuentes) This shot was a static tripod shot until she arrived. I should probably point out that there was hardly any third part lights used on this entire shoot, if at all. Everything was filmed with the lighting available naturally, or from already installed room lighting so to get back outside and shoot was just wonderful. The supermarket text in the bottom left indicates the location, the lines of the building leading towards the busy end of the shot with the cars and Diana walking around the corner draw the eye to her coming, although she is moving anyway. Fun fact about this shot, whilst waiting around for people to be ready, a blind man with a white stick nearly tripped over our microphone cable and walked right onto the set. I shouldn't laugh but it was like something from a comedy sketch. Thankfully everybody was OK and nobody fell.
This next scene of them walking home from the shop was entireley handheld. I wanted it to feel like the viewer is there with them for a moment, perhaps even eavesdropping to their odd conversation and walking home.
Back home and in the dark room, Felix is sitting on his bed. Starting at his feet I panned up to his face where it reveals his girlfriend is wanting to get frisky. Holding on the shot of his face as she kisses his neck and shoulders we see he's not into it because he worries about how his body looks. This is the first hint we get at the writing on his body too.
This shot was difficult to film as I was standing over the actors on a wobbly matress of a bed but somehow, I never fell. In the darkened room we see more clearly the writing on Felix's body. He cannot enjoy the moment as he does not enjoy how his body is.
The words are obviously in Swedish but there are things like "girlfriend", "little girl", "daughter" and so on...
From the bed, to the clock: this shot is quite self explanitory and to be honest I'm not a fan of a timelapse clock to show the passage of time, but it is what it is - and that's what it is. I think Felix was supposed to be just staring at it waiting for time to pass.
It's now night time and we see Felix, Diana and some friends out socialising and chatting. I quite liked having the light limitation in these scenes. It was shot near an old railway train depot thing that had outside lights at night and I really enjoyed how it looked for most of the shots here.
We get a closeup of Diana lighting a cigarette after getting it from her friends (played by Agnes Berg, Emmy Corneliusson and Alexander Sanderman) As I mentioned just now I like the lighting in these shots and I'm pleased with how they turned out.
This next shot shows why the previous one was needed as Jonte (played by co-writer Espen Sjöblom) appears and snatches Diana's cigarette from her. Instantly showing that he's probably not the nicest person to have around.
Jonte goes on about how he thinks Diana should find a real man like himself and not be with Felix because he's not a real man. I loved the way that the beer cans, the table, the skin tones, they're all sort of similar, really selling the nightime look.
This is probably my favourite shot in the whole film. The background bokeh, the mischevious look from Jonte towards Felix and, if I do say so myself, the very slow track over to the left when Jonte stands up to be mean to Felix. And of course the night time lighting. This is also where Felix breaks the fourth wall and just stares down the lens in desperation.
Jonte says some very nasty things to Felix and he gets up and goes home at this point whilst everyone laughs and he goes on to torment and wind up the rest of the group.
Back in his bedroom, Felix is distraught. I suggested a sudden stand up along with a handheld camera movement to go with it whilst he has a breakdown and I think it worked well for the scene. Closeup, personal and quite tense.
After the breakdown scene, Felix goes to his laptop. Finally some encouragement and support from an online group. He feels accepted.
Cutting back to the forest trail, Felix is out for a run in the evening rain this time. It really was very wet and very cold to shoot in.
Cut back to Felix leaving his house where his little sister hugs him after telling him that she doesn't care if he is a boy now and anyway, she has a friend whose hamster is called Felix too. This scene is the one I dislike the most only because the lighting was so low here and we had no other lights to use on set. I did the best with what I could but it's an underexposed grainy mess in my opinion.
This is the ending scene where felix sums up his journey, or the start of it and breaks the fourth wall for a final time and ripping the tape off his mouth to talk to the viewer down the lens.
Overall, Felix Betyder Lycklig was a really fun film to make and I leart a lot in the process, as you do with every shoot. Many thanks to everyone involved and thanks for reading if you got this far!
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