Everything appears in black and white and a melancholy piano score sets in.
The film noir-esque atmosphere sets in as the male protagonist lights a cigarette in angst as he realizes his sore need for deviance from his monotonous life.
With a square suitcase and an unlit cigarette in hand, he heads out into the streetlamp-illuminated darkness of Eugene in the middle of the night.
His quest for adventure leads him from the Eugene train station where he narrowly misses the late-night train to the outside of a bar where he finds his salvation in an adversary’s Vespa that he steals and rides off into the distance.

Inspired by the French film “Breathless,” Eric Dion’s short film “Old Hell and the Midnight Train” features original music composed and played by Steven O’Brien.
The film brings a sense of 1920’s nostalgia and romantic mystery to downtown Eugene with beautifully chosen city shots that match the mood of the film.
Dion’s movie was one of the three short films shown at last Sunday’s Videomaker’s Forum and Video Slam.
On the second Sunday of every month, the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts Center, located at 110 W. Broadway Street, hosts this event beginning at 4 p.m.
The monthly event has two purposes: to get Eugene residents interested in film and to get them to see things they’ve never seen before.
A way for amateur filmmakers to showcase their works-in-progress and get constructive criticism about their films from a group, the Videomaker’s Forum is geared more toward discussion rather than competition.
In the age of You Tube, where home filmmakers can load their movies straight onto the Internet, Videomaker’s Forum and Slam host James Denier believes that amateurs are oftentimes cheating themselves out of the live discussion experience.
“You get a sense of how people respond [to your work] when you’ve got an actual audience,” Denier said.
However, the Video Slam portion of the event is meant to foster a sense of competition between Eugene’s local amateur cinematographers so that they can better their own work. The Slam is meant to be like a coffee shop poetry slam, but with homemade short films instead of prose.
At the end of every Video Slam a short film will be chosen from among the contestants to win that month’s competition. Then, in either December of that year, or January of the next, there will be a festival that showcases all of the Slam winners’ films, awarding their hard work with a forum to invite family and friends to watch their pieces.
Unfortunately, last Sunday there were no entries in the Video Slam competition and the turnout for the event was relatively low. Denier believes that it may have had something to do with the gorgeous weather that Eugene experienced last weekend – nobody wanted to stay indoors.
Next month’s Videomaker’s Forum and Video Slam will take place on Sunday, May 11 at 4 p.m. Admission is free, and residents in the greater Eugene area who have an interest in film, are looking for a place to showcase their work, enter a competition or gain constructive criticism about their films-in-progress are encouraged to attend the event.
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