Putting a dark twist on the "elephant in the room" concept, this week's Hotshot is a segment from director Trevor Cawood's first short film Terminus. Shot and funded with the help of Spy Films and visual effects firm The Embassy, this dark short tells the story of an ordinary man hounded to the edge of sanity by a mysterious figure made of concrete.

"I've done tons of spec stuff before and stuff on my own," explains Cawood. "But this is the first time I've gotten myself organised and done something that had good production values to it. I've got a lot of short film ideas and Terminus is one where I felt the timing was good to do it. I think it's always good to do your own work and to keep on doing your own content. With Terminus, I'd set aside some money from paid jobs so we had a budget to shoot it."

Co-written with his brother Jason, Cawood says the style of the short film was heavily influenced by 1970s Brutalist architecture.

"It's just a style that I liked," he explains. "From a story standpoint the idea for Terminus is about carrying metaphors. The creatures are metaphors for living with things on your mind and anxieties or things like that where you try to function whilst ignoring them. That's sort of what those creatures are and that's what the idea is: people trying to function in their day to day, especially people who work in a daily grind. It's definitely a dark film. There was an alternate ending that didn't get shot which was a little less dark."

Shot on location in Montreal and Vancouver at the end of 2006, the job was three months in post, allowing Cawood to resume his duties as a commercials director.

After re-grouping with his team in early 2007, the film was eventually finished in June and held back from public view to ensure its entry into the Toronto Film Festival in September with an official release last week.

The underground sequences were shot on the cold and extremely dry Montreal Metro in the height of winter and, at one point, Cawood had to cram five separate locations into one night. "I think at the end of the night I was medically dehydrated," he laughs. "It was ridiculous, but you don't think about it because you're running around and you forget everything else."

Despite the relentless schedule, Cawood has fond memories of Terminus, citing the very first day of the shoot as his favourite. "There's a dream sequence in Terminus where he's in a beautiful pasture. There was a dry spell in Vancouver, which is impossible to believe. It hadn't rained in four months so there was no green grass anywhere. We had to go to this farm where this guy grows grass and feed for horses. It was the only place in the whole of Greater Vancouver that had grass where we could actually shoot. It was a beautiful day and such a beautiful location. That really stands out for me."

Click here to view a clip from Terminus.