Blankets, wardrobes and a lot of patience.

Some viewers write in to say the film made them call their parents. We think that is the best review a short can get. We watched the rough cut on a laptop in a noisy café, and it still held the whole table’s attention.

Quiet enough

There is no dialogue for most of the running time, and it never needs any. The pictures carry the story on their own. The best moments were accidents: a dog crossing the frame, a bus arriving early, a laugh nobody planned.

Most of the props came from a charity shop around the corner, and most of them went back afterwards. Our editors disagreed about the ending. Half of us loved it and half of us wanted five more minutes, which is usually a good sign.

• Record at night
• Hang blankets behind the mic
• Always record ten seconds of silence

If you only watch one thing on Frameline this week, make it this. Then send it to someone who has never heard of the creator. There is a quiet joke running through the whole piece. Once you notice it, you will want to go back to the beginning.

Look closely at the background of the second half. Most of what makes the scene work happens behind the main action. The edit was built around the music rather than the other way round, which gives the whole piece a steady, walking rhythm.

The room is always part of the recording.

Nell Okafor, sound

Weather decided the schedule. Three days of rain became the best part of the film once the crew stopped fighting it. On the day, the crew had one battery left and a train to catch. They filmed the ending in a single take and ran for the platform.

The creator shot this in the gaps between a day job and a long commute, a few minutes at a time over most of a year. Much of the light comes from shop windows and street lamps. The creator carried a small reflector and used it twice.

We watched this three times before deciding to feature it, and it got better every time. The pacing is patient without ever feeling slow. Behind the scenes, the set was held together with tape, string and a surprising number of clothes pegs.

A local choir recorded the closing song in a church hall on a Tuesday night, between two rehearsals of their own. The final version is shorter than the first cut by almost half. Every trim made the story clearer.

Colour was kept deliberately muted until the last minute, which makes the final shot land even harder. The creator kept a notebook of every shot, with times, weather and what went wrong. It reads like a diary of the whole summer.

The creator told us the edit took longer than the shoot. Every cut was argued over, and it shows in how little is wasted. We like how little the film explains. It trusts you to notice things, and it rewards you when you do.

Sound does a lot of the work here. Turn it up, or better, put on headphones and let the room noise pull you in. The opening shot lasts almost a minute. It sounds long on paper, but by the end you will wish it had kept going.

If you are new to filmmaking, watch this one with the sound off first, then again with it on. You will learn a lot. There were three versions of the ending. The one you see was the smallest and quietest of them.

When we asked what they would change, the answer was nothing, and after a few more viewings we agree. Every frame could be a postcard, but the film never stops to admire itself. It keeps moving, and so do you.