Pauline 's Love Spell

Pauline’s Love Spell Logline: Unintended magic intertwines love and enchantment when determined witch Pauline’s final spell during a full moon inadvertently involves a curious fairy, setting off a mystical chain of events.

Genre: Fantasy, Horror

Pauline’s Love Spell – Synopisis:

Under the full moon’s glow, Pauline, a lonely witch, performs one final spell for love. When a curious creature drawn to her magic becomes entangled in the ritual, it sets in motion consequences that will alter her fate forever

Writer, Director and Producer: Maria Johnsen

Cast: Kane Surry, Maria Johnsen

Director of Photography: John Nick Phillips

Production: Golden Way Media Films
Pauline’s Love Spell Location: London

Pauline’s Love Spell: Overcoming Production Challenges

Pauline’s Love Spell faced some challenges. Although I had provided information about the low budget, the original DOP initially agreed to participate. However, after receiving his payment, he did not deliver the footage for post-production and requested additional hourly pay to send the footage! Having already paid the cast and crew, I had to hire a new DOP and actor to complete the project. Not every project is smooth sailing, but the new DOP from the BBC did an excellent job and brought great polish to the final product.

Post-production proved to be exceptionally challenging due to my limited budget, and the cost of visual effects (£4500 per minute) was prohibitively high. To overcome these hurdles, I rolled up my sleeves and actively participated in the VFX work, collaborating with talented VFX artists from various corners of the world who shared the same vision and purpose as me. Together, we formed a formidable team that achieved remarkable results.Certainly, these individuals were compensated for their work. However, in contrast to those who merely indulge in complaints or distractions, they chose to roll up their sleeves and diligently executed their tasks. They poured their hearts and souls into the project, making the most of limited resources, all driven by their profound passion for and devotion to my story.

My VFX team and colorist did everything manually from Matte painting to VFX. We worked on frame by frame. Imagine how much time and work we put on this short film!

Here are the name of my team:

Editor: Idress Ahmed

Color grading and color correction: Yoshinori Fugita

Audio and Sound Engineer: Muhammad Asif

Renzo Albertini: VFX
Hamidreza Bastaki: Matte Painting VFX expert
Maria Johnsen VFX supervisor and VFX expert
Nisar Khan VFX expert
Mohit Kirodiwal

Editor Assistants

Riccardo Giardina
Kumar Gaurav

All these sacrifices, from investing money, dedicating countless hours, and enduring sleepless nights, are made with a single purpose in mind: to provide entertainment for people, allowing them to momentarily escape from their everyday problems and worries. We Indie filmmakers do all these for the love of art and not money. In fact we never break even in short film production ever! Let alone to gain profit.

One operates independently of the studio system go through many challenges, but one thing that remains constant is the unwavering determination, one never gives up. It takes time, but one makes it happen.

Thanks for watching and visiting this page.

Maria Johnsen

Pauline's Love Spell

Pauline's Love Spell Stills Photography

Pauline's Love Spell

Nick and Kane Surry on set.

John Nick Phillips ( director of Photography) is prepraring for shooting the exterior scenes. He is an absolutly wonderful and knowledgable person in sound and filmmaking.He has been working at BBC for 34 years. It was a pleasure to have him in Pauline’s Love Spell. He is so much caring and such a passionate person. He never lost his temper and was polite as I expected from an English gentleman.

Moritz Meyer is our first AC: He is knowledgable in filmmaking. Moritz was a great asset to this project and I intend to have him in my other projects.