Primer

Primer (2004)

Timing: 1:17 (77 min)

6.77/10
2077

5.994/10
11889

6.7/10
121000

All about film

Video 2

Photo 25

Actors and characters

Release date

2004-10-08

Country

United States

Production

Shane Carruth

Genre

Science Fiction, Drama, Thriller

Budget

$7 000

Revenue

$545 436

Website

http://www.primermovie.com

Director

Shane Carruth

Actors

Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden, Anand Upadhyaya, Carrie Crawford, Jay Butler, John Carruth, Juan Tapia, Ashley Warren, Samantha Thomson
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Shane Carruth

Producer

Shane Carruth

Operator

Troy Dick

Composer

Artist

Audition

Editing

Shane Carruth
All team (2)

• In the scene where Abe-1 incapacitates Abe-2 with laughing gas, the container he is holding in his hand is a rice cooker.
• A significant portion of the money allocated for filming went towards purchasing film stock.
• Shane Carruth became the writer, producer, director, editor, and composer of the project, despite having no prior experience in these areas. Working on the film took him three years, including a year writing the screenplay and working on the side, during which he learned the various nuances of the filmmaking process. The actual filming took only a month, while post-production took almost two years – and all because of problems in editing. According to Carruth, three or four times during this period he barely managed to resist abandoning the entire undertaking.
• In an attempt to reduce costs, Shane Carruth filmed mostly only one take and worked with 16mm film. The footage was then transferred to a digital format, and Carruth handled the editing on his own computer. This led to some problems: editing software couldn't handle the audio, and synchronizing the picture and sound alone took two months. Worse still, Carruth usually shot only one take, so if something was wrong with it, there was nothing to replace it with.
• Over a hundred people auditioned for the roles of the characters played by David Sullivan and Shane Carruth himself (Abe and Aaron, respectively). Sullivan was cast despite having no acting experience, and Carruth simply couldn't find anyone suitable for the role of Aaron.
• Shane Carruth served as the writer, producer, director, editor, and composer of the project, despite having no prior experience in these areas. Working on the film took him three years, including a year spent writing the script and working on the side to learn the various nuances of filmmaking. The actual filming took only a month, while post-production took almost two years – and all because of problems in editing. According to Carruth, three or four times during this period he almost abandoned the entire undertaking.