Film and TV craft tweets from March

Every lunchtime we tweet about the making of films and TV shows, with tasty videos and links…

Here’s a rundown of our March tweets;

• A look at the career of Billy Bitzer, silent master DW Griffith’s DoP… http://t.co/vrS7SX28Ti Mar 22, 2014
• Hear DoP Rob Hardy talk about embracing the muddy when shooting @cnoakley’s Physics… http://t.co/vBGN3DWcwU Mar 21, 2014
• Catch up with all our February #filmmaking & #screenwriting tweets… http://t.co/E1XJRpwQi2 #scriptchat Mar 20, 2014
• A profile of #CitizenKane’s deep focus pioneer, DoP Gregg Toland… http://t.co/YanOB4HhbB Mar 20, 2014
• .@InTheDocHouse profile documentary cinematographer Roger Chapman… http://t.co/nwh2oOEPTi Mar 19, 2014
• Cuaron’s DoP Emanuel Lubeszki talks cinematography in the digital age… http://t.co/AZ3t1e9u2P Mar 18, 2014
• Roger Deakins, the don of DoPs, gives his advice to his contemporaries… http://t.co/g0wEWZaTZL #filmmaking Mar 17, 2014
• Listen to our @britflicks podcast guest turn, and get the lowdown on @mrdavidluke’s epic Western short film… http://t.co/UAneFDSiF1 Mar 17, 2014
• Here’s a collection of our lunchtime film & TV craft tweets from February… http://t.co/xM4PZYDowO #filmmaking #scriptchat Mar 17, 2014
• Next week we’re tweeting about DoPs, including Roger Deakins, Peter Suschitzky, Roger Chapman, Rob Hardy and more… Mar 16, 2014
• WWII Week ends with the story of the making of #Casablanca… http://t.co/a9CS8GpUyn Mar 16, 2014
• I sing the praises of @FingercuffJIM & his filmmaking prowess as part of this @britflicks podcast… http://t.co/bnXMMhVx4n Mar 14, 2014
• Read about how #DancingInTheAshes told a WWII story in shortform… http://t.co/HEOJIQUFSN Mar 14, 2014
• The true story behind WWII character-study #TheCounterfeiters… http://t.co/hyReBbqprS Mar 13, 2014
• How Nazi Germany was goosestepped into the 1960s for the TV adaptation of #Fatherland… http://t.co/HXPAmT2ZWB Mar 12, 2014
• Spielberg talks about #SchindlersList background at length… http://t.co/ymVwpqfwwW #filmmaking Mar 11, 2014
• We tell @britflicks how @jonreidedwards got his dark period comedy made, and made well… http://t.co/TNTplTQrcC Mar 11, 2014
• The locations of #MarathonMan in NYC, then and now… http://t.co/6sWCP53si9 Mar 10, 2014
• Read our February ‘making of’ film & TV tweets… FYI fans of @MakingOfs http://t.co/4ynuAuiC9r Mar 10, 2014
• Next week we’re tweeting about WWII… Marathon Man, Schindler’s List, Fatherland, Counterfeiters, Casablanca and others… #scriptchat Mar 09, 2014
• Watching #TheBluesBrothers. The live-action version. Wish the whole thing could be done in Lego… http://t.co/JCVtu64UNq via @TheAVClub Mar 07, 2014
• A look at the design & building of the glorious stage puppets for #TheWarHorse via @TEDTalks… http://t.co/5aPFdhEQTe Mar 07, 2014
• Hear me say nice things in my best ‘Mr Bean’ voice about the films of @ollygood in this @britflicks podcast… http://t.co/OjwKzp77e3 Mar 06, 2014
• The true story from WW1’s trenches that inspired #JoyeuxNoel… via @telegraph http://t.co/a6sgnd48Wh Mar 06, 2014
• The first-rate #vfx from @pixomondo for little-seen German biopic #TheRedBaron… http://t.co/8KngGEnt6p Mar 05, 2014
• A look at the making of the first ever #Oscars’ Best Picture, 1927’s WW1 epic #Wings… http://t.co/njdC73XGJC Mar 04, 2014
• We throw out some love to our buddies @TPFilmClub, in this @britflicks podcast… http://t.co/kjUevzSmkc Mar 04, 2014
• Throwing out some @jonreidwards love in our guest turn on the @britflicks podcast w/ @Leytonrocks http://t.co/bnXMMhVx4n Mar 03, 2014
• A look back at the dense WW1 cautionary tale, Renoir’s masterful #LaGrandeIllusion… http://t.co/bUG0JEg2DI Mar 03, 2014
• Next week we’re tweeting about WW1. You’ve probably heard of it… Wings, Grande Illusion, Paths of Glory and others… #scriptchat Mar 02, 2014
• Catch our making-of tweets from last month; everything from #Roundhay to #Robocop… http://t.co/8uPOFbTPcJ Mar 01, 2014 

S4 Film Club Vol. 13 // TWO DANCERS and REPULSION

Our February showcased director/co-writer James Gardner’s contemplative, bittersweet drama “Two Dancers”.

James’s three feature choices were Polanski’s expressionistic thriller “Repulsion”, Kieslowski’s cutting social drama “Three Colours: Red” and Coppola’s heady, jet-lagged love story “Lost In Translation”.  It proved a two horse race between Polanski and Coppola, with “Repulsion” emerging victorious.  What this enclosed horror shares with “Two Dancers” was a lead character trapped, and forced to some extent to take extreme measure, but in the context of time also served to kick the doors in of England’s then-current Ealing Comedy output & has stood the test of time as such…

James was joined by co-writer Simon Lord, and in our Q&A we learned the following five lessons from the making of their film…

1) According to James, all the best stories come from a simple question.  In this case it stemmed from his own fears of marriage & the inability to dance.  This led to the question “What if I were forced to dance and had to take lessons for my wedding?”  The film stemmed for this…

2) As such, the story’s original POV came from male lead Daniel, the groom getting lessons.  To avoid the soap-y tone linked to a story about a marital dysfunctional relationship, the script shifted towards Sofia, the dance teacher.  She proved a more interesting character in a more interesting world.

3) The pair wrote from January to August 2012.  The collaboration between the two slowed the development process down, as the script was redrafted and honed.

4) Their timeline was dictated by the casting of their lead role.  Sofia, played by Dienka Rozendom, was written as a beautiful dancer, who had to be European and had to be able to act.  An initial search of casting agencies didn’t deliver on dancers, but model agencies proved more fruitful.  When James flew to Amsterdam, met Dienka and offered her the role, the film’s train had left the station.

5) With a shooting draft of fifteen pages, the film’s dialogue scenes & choreographed dance sequences gave rise to a slower pace once in the cutting room.

James is now an MA Directing student at the National Film & Television School.  His official site is here.

Simon is developing a number of writing projects, from shorts to features.  His official site is here and you can follow him on Twitter here.

February tweets

Every day… well, most days, I tweet links to interview, articles and videos about filmmaking craft.  Here’s a collection of all our links from February…

• Here’s a lovely example of a Mitchell & Kenyon street scene… http://t.co/ps2KXbNtqw Feb 22, 2014
• Read the story of Mitchell & Kenyon, Northern England’s 1910s actuality film pioneers… http://t.co/echhzYjHtp Feb 22, 2014
• A look at the sound & music of 1910-13 South Pole expedition doco #TheGreatWhiteSilence http://t.co/jnYrYVIzXz Feb 21, 2014
• A rare, lovely close-up of Max Shreck’s #Nosferatu make-up… http://t.co/V2yTYcr6jO Feb 20, 2014
• Watch how expressionist classic #Caligari has been restored for a new generation… http://t.co/fx0uBxxlQr Feb 19, 2014
• The first film incarnation of L Frank Baum’s Oz from 1910… http://t.co/MympYGZQ92 Feb 18, 2014
• Here’s the mystery around Louis Le Prince, maker of Roundhay, and his disappearance… http://t.co/YbsN4AytCt Feb 17, 2014
• Get the lowdown on the first film ever made, all 52 frames of it… http://t.co/d7c0PJ1JW8 Feb 17, 2014
• Next week we’re tweeting all about seminal silent film; Oz, Caligari, Roundhay, Mitchell & Kenyon and a mental idea to film the South Pole. Feb 16, 2014
• Anyone seen #Robocop yet? I’m still making do with interviews… here’s Jose Padilha talking it up… http://t.co/IkfNWS2Crn Feb 16, 2014
• A BTS look at #12YearsASlave, with a range of their HoDs… http://t.co/rrDFLQuAEK #filmmaking Feb 15, 2014
• Watching #Her, I find myself wondering how much time they spent working out what the eye lines would be… Feb 14, 2014
• A lovely look at the #design & #vfx of #Robocop. No, not this one. That one. FYI @fingercuffjamie… http://t.co/tSDq8i1LAQ Feb 13, 2014
• Space, the final frontier… in widescreen… #startrek #tng #vfx http://t.co/tMqXunqiPJ Feb 12, 2014
• Oscar-nommed writers talk screenplay craft… http://t.co/CzIFWYTkRW #scriptchat Feb 11, 2014
• How the world of #Gravity was designed, from the top down if you will… #fnar http://t.co/wN4eDCCHaf Feb 11, 2014
• Call for submissions, shorts longer than 15 mins made by London-based filmmakers. Please PM us details? RT Feb 09, 2014
• Outtake from #TheMaster. RIP PSH… http://t.co/a0uqWjtYT6 Feb 07, 2014
• Nice #vfx Oscar winners supercut, 1977 to present. #InnerSpace was a surprise, kids of the 80s! http://t.co/LNr0imvuGp Feb 07, 2014
• The #Transformers films. Profitable turds. Here’s a transformation-only supercut that’s a better watch… http://t.co/eViICP44wz Feb 07, 2014
• I was middling on the story but #Her’s production design was something to behold… http://t.co/858mW7yuZm Feb 06, 2014

S4 Film Club, Vol. 12 // THIS WAY OUT and THE LADYKILLERS

The first S4 of 2014 saw a change in the night’s proceedings.  The entire night was still centred on one short film, which we watch the kick off the night before welcoming the filmmakers for a Q&A.  To round off the proceedings, we now also watch a feature each month.  This is decided on by our audience, who vote from a choice of three that are selected by our director as films that were seminal or inspirational to them.

Firstly, as always, we’ll look at the lessons learned from making “This Way Out” in conversation with writer/director Staten Cousins-Roe, actor/producer Poppy Roe and producer Giles Alderson… but be warned, SPOILERS BELOW.

[Watch a trailer for the film here.]

1. MAKE YOUR SUBJECT MATTER DIGESTIBLE; The world of the film, which sees a legal euthanasia clinic struggling to stay in business, was inspired by Staten’s initial idea of a contract killer taking advantage of new business grants from the Government.  The topic of euthanasia came up in his brainstorming process with lead actors Poppy and Katie Brayben.  As was demonstrated aptly by Terry Pratchett’s affecting, sombre documentary on the topic, most films made on the topic were inherently heavy & complex.  Staten made the choice to shift his film’s focus, with the express idea of making the issue more digestible.
2. KEEP THE AUDIENCE ON THEIR TOES; The route in to this story was via an unreliable narrator in the form of lead character of Minnie.  To make her capable of misdirection and first-person opinion, Staten quickly settled on a mockumentary format that allowed for talking head-style interviews with his lead characters.
3. RESEARCH FOR YOUR PLOT; In writing his first draft script, Staten’s material was a lot darker.  Minnie and her assistant Maude were initially incarnated as more of a serial killing duo.  After some intensive research into assisted suicide and clinics such as Dignitas, the story became something that allowed for more of a focus on the legislation that actually exists, giving Minnie and Maude’s story a structure to work with.
4. DON’T LOSE SIGHT OF THE EMOTIONAL ANGLE; The script’s plot was driven by the threat against Minnie’s business, but the script was instilled with a story-based punch for Minnie in the form of the mother of one of her victims, who provided an honest & unexpected emotional opposition for her.
5. GIVE YOURSELF TARGETS; Producer Giles came on board and scheduled a start date which gave the production team a target to aim for.  Working towards a September 2012 shoot, they raised the budget via crowdfunding and set about scheduling a low-budget shoot.  The majority of the film was shot in Staten’s own flat but, to avoid the budgetary limitations of a short film, they scheduled one of their 4 shooting days on location.  Travelling to Beachy Head in East Sussex, itself one of the country’s most notorious suicide spots, they applied for permits but had to “creatively” represent the film’s subject matter to avoid the risk of appearing to condone suicide.
6. USE ALL THE TOOLS AT YOUR DISPOSAL; Costume designer Mia Gray was compelled to tell the story through costume.  She designed Minnie and Maude’s clothes to evolve throughout the film; Maude’s attire became more like Minnie’s, and both are telling shades of black, white and gray.  Their jewellery and accessories were designed around ‘clocks’ and ‘time’, marking them as harbingers of death.  As well as this, the teenager who turns out to be under the legal age of assisted suicide & threatens to be Minnie’s downfall was dressed in red and yellow, both of which are “nature’s warning colours”.
7. EDIT AS YOU GO; The film’s first assembly was put together by Staten and Poppy, who taught themselves the basics of editing in order to complete the work.  They lost two scenes that were shot as part of their shooting draft, and the 23 page script became a 23 minute film before being handed over to editor Esther Gimenez.  She tightened the film up by a further 4 minutes which, in collaboration with Staten and Poppy, representing their on-going & evolving process of writing, cutting, writing, cutting.
8. THINK COMMERCIALLY; not wanting to rule their film out of the chance to be picked for broadcast, at the urging on a distributor they slimmed the film down by a further two minutes, with a 17 minute cut fitting perfectly into a half-hour commercial slot.  It’s a length that also served the film well on its festival run, which has seen it play internationally and win a number of awards…

Following our screening of “This Way Out”, we watched our audience-selected feature, “The Ladykillers”.  Introduced by Staten, he felt this Ealing Comedy was seminal for him & a range of contemporary comedy filmmakers thanks to it’s modern feel and dark edge.

The next S4 is on February 25th, where we’ll be watching writer/director James Gardner’s “Two Dancers” and watching a feature of your choice.  Click here to join the Facebook event and click here to vote…

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S4:11 // “Mr Torquay’s Holiday”

Our last screening of 2013 was a chance to see a Film London short, fresh from an inaugural screening where the film took home the Jury Special Mention.  We welcomed writer/director Aaron Trinder to talk us over his intimate story told on a large canvas.

His film tells the story of Mr Torquay, a man divorced from life & shut in his own home, reliant on online computer games to keep in touch with the outside world.  As an apocalyptic event unfolds on his own doorstep, Mr Torquay is given the chance to overcome his demons once and for all.  Is it one he will take?  Below are nine lessons learned from the making of this short film.  For more details of the film, click here.

1. WRITE WHAT YOU CAN SHOOT.  His second film as writer/director, Trinder here focused on making a short of achievable scale.  His writing kept to a small cast & simple locations, which by definition led to a story that centred on an isolated lead character.  This was influenced by his own writing experience, itself one that was lonesome and intensive.
2. DON’T OVERBURDEN YOUR STORY.  His first draft script was a story more deeply layered, one instilled with dream sequences & animal imagery, with a greater degree of ambiguity to the story.  Taking a Pinter-influenced approach, Trinder chose to simplify his script’s chacterisation and focus on actions, not psychology.
3. DO KEEP RE-DRAFTING.  His drafting process would have stopped much earlier were it not for his successful Film London application.  Three months of workshops & writing exercises meant his 15th draft was his shooting draft; otherwise, he would have shot his 7th draft.
4. REMEMBER THAT CASTING AFFECTS CHARACTERISATION.  As the script’s only speaking character, the casting of Mr Torquay was essential to get right.  Written as lonely and loveable, not creepy, Trinder met younger actors for the role & had Rhodri Meilir in mind from one of his earliest storyboards.
5. WORK WITHIN YOUR LIMITS.  Film London contributed £1800 towards the short’s budget, which Trinder sharply set aside to ensure his shoot could be paid for with this amount.  Money was saved when sourcing the film’s five locations; the interior locations belonging to Trinder himself, his friends or his crew.  In the case of Mr Torquay’s sparsely-furnished room, his AD’s newly-moved-into accomodation served as a room populated by clutter & boxes to reflect Mr Torquay’s personality.  A large-scale exterior shot, to sell the film’s apocalypse, involved dressing Doncaster Gardens, Haringey & filling out the shot with digital elements.  Trinder, as a seasoned vfx animator, could produce this work himself.
6. FOSTER GOOD WORKING RELATIONSHIPS.  Trinder shot for 2.5 days, with a day of pick-ups that turned out to be essential.  With his shoot funded by his Film London money, his paid crew did a sterling job captured his scene’s master shots.  Once cut together, it was all too apparent that the scenes lacked the texture and attention-to-detail close-ups and cutaways give.  Plying his leading man with curry, he spent a day shooting Meilir’s “hands and eyes” to cut into his footage.
7. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF FRESH EYES.  Post-production was paid for by a Kickstarter fundraise and the filmmaker’s own funds.  His 9 page shooting draft was cut together by an editor, who constructed an 18 minute assembly.  Trinder completed the final cut, trimming four minutes & losing an entire character in the process.
8. DON’T GET TOO CLOSE TO YOUR MATERIAL.  A truncated Film London timescale meant that, when his funding was accepted in February, he shot in May & had to deliver mid-July.  The film then screening at the BFI in September.  This relatively short process, compared to an extended production schedule, saved him from fatigue and made the film feel more “real” from the start.
9. KEEP RELATIONSHIPS GOING.  Taking a hands off approach to the film’s distribution, Trinder can manage the film’s festival life but is now firmly in the Film London loop, having forged personal relationships with the agency’s staff & receiving funding notifications and other relevant opportunities.

Our next screening is January 28th, showing director Staten Cousins-Roe’s dark mockumentary “This Way Out” PLUS a feature film of your choosing.  Join the Facebook event here.

S4:10 // “Physics”

At a Genesis Cinema bedecked with early Halloween decorations, we showed the not-at-all scary “Physics”, ably supported by Amanda’s Boyle’s wordless short “Skirt”.

Here’s a brief article about the making of “Skirt”, but our Q&A with “Physics” writer/director Claire Oakley, producer Emily Morgan and DP Rob Hardy taught us the following eleven things…

1. The film’s genesis was a number of different sources.  Claire’s personal situation, at a time when her own mother was ill, gave the film its emotional core.  The setting of her story was inspired by two different locations.  On a day trip to the town of Jaywick, notable as Britain’s most deprived town, Claire finally overcame her fear of getting out the car.  Once there, she say a ten year old girl sitting, bored, on the steps of her house.  This became her lead character, the melancholy, pensive Rona.
2. On a similar trip, whilst walking through a Suffolk nature reserve, she stumbled on the incongruous sight of the UK’s only hydroelectric nuclear power station in Sizewell.  This impactful location gave Rob a great framing device when planning the film’s shots.  The thematic thread of faith and science was there from the start, inspired by Brian Cox‘s accessible science, giving Claire her Maguffin of ‘the God Particle’ and combining it with the power station for an “energy” theme running throughout…
3. Their recce taught all a valuable lesson when Claire, enacting the film’s opening shot of Rona’s beating the power station’s fence with a metal rod, found herself surrounded by ten carloads of security guards dubbed “the nuclear police”.  For their shoot, they kept their distance, and having studied the security patrols’ route, timed their shots between them.
4. The script was developed over the course of a year, through 25 drafts which saw a number of changes & only the two key locations remain the same.  A number of cuts were budgetary; all seemed sad that their ice cream van man was lost when the price tag of the van proved prohibitive!!
5. Emily raised the £12,000 budget with a combination of crowdfunding, plus contributions from Film London, Working Title and Tomboy Films.  Film London assigned Claire a mentor, experienced development producer Cynthia De Souza, who supervised the project at script stage.
6. Casting director Olivia Scott-Webb saw 60 child actors when looking for their two leads to play Rona and Sandi.  Wanting to avoid a “stage school” energy, Jodie Bastow and Maisie Hopkins were chosen for their resemblance of their characters on the page & their easy energy with each other.
7. Their four day shoot in April 2012 saw Jaywick play host for two days, in which bored local kids pelted the crew with eggs and Ribena cartons & agree to turn off their loud music in exchange for cold hard cash.  Their shot list allowed them to find an alternative part of the town, and quickly!
8. Rob embraced the singular qualities of the RED camera’s “sludgy brown look”, one that is normally graded out of films & one that they embraced.  This, along with a set of 1980s anamorphic lenses, allowed the filmmakers to embrace an off-kilter energy to their visual look that mirrored the film’s narrative world.
9. The ramshackle house in which Rona’s uncle Les lives was a found location, the rural home of an eccentric artist.  It was used as is, and the crew actually had to remove some of his clutter (example: a life-size Barbie doll) to allow for the crew as well as to maintain the avuncular energy of Matt King’s Les becoming anything more “creepy”.
10. The film showcases a visual effects shot that is key to the storytelling.  This shot comped a still of the Sizewell power station into the background of Jaywick, which in reality it is a three hour drive away.  This one image serves to cement the idea that the power station looms large over the town.
11. Emily savvily put some money from their budget to one side, reserved for distribution.  Working towards Film London’s premiere screening at the London Film Festival, winning the “Best of Boroughs” aware there, since then the film has played at the London Short Film Festival and the East End Film Festival, plus in Toronto, Bermuda and Nashville.

The next S4 screening is November 26th; join the Facebook event here.  Click to follow at www.facebook.com/s4london and www.twitter.com/s4london to stay in the loop of our monthly screenings and Q&As…

S4:9 // “To Meet It With Awe”

September’s S4 welcomed the filmmakers behind a Western revenge story, one that is personal whilst remaining epic, “To Meet It With Awe”.

Writer/director David Luke Rees and writer Madelaine Isaac talked us through their writing process in taking their a favourite genre of theirs, the Western, and building a story around their antagonist.  We learned how they shot in Norway, taking advantage of vistas & climate to give their film a unique energy, and how their length shoot catered to a chance to “write” a version of their film in the cutting that would take the viewer on a journey with their characters.

You can watch the film’s trailer here…

Here’s ten things to learn from the making of “To Meet It With Awe”…

1. The film’s story was designed to remain static, taking the simple approach of a journey across the undeveloped US west which would allow for character development without burdening the film with too much plot or event.
2. The script started with the antagonist, the outlaw Clay, who Rees and Isaac imagined as an aging rock star, one who constantly talks of his past glories.  Injured throughout the story, as a wounded animal he presented more potential danger to the film’s protagonist, Eva.
3. When casting their two lead roles, one of which had his face covered for the entire film, the audition process was vital.  As the film’s character were developed “off script”, with the bare bones contained within their 20 page shooting draft, Rees worked with the actors to build the characters together from the ground up.  Samantha Dakin was cast early, and submitted a monologue for Eva which played much more gently & less angry than most other actress’s spin on the character.  Henry Douthwaite, playing Clay, was cast late; his voice was key to the energy of Clay.  Rehearsals with both revolved around what each scene needed to achieve, but Rees avoided over-directed the cast he had chosen to deliver within that to avoid losing their “spark”.
4. The initial plan was to shoot in the US but, in the course of attempting to raise funds for the film, Rees found that as a first-time filmmaker this fund raise was a challenge.  To keep the budget down, they chose to film in Norway with a bare-bones crew of four, who all worked in multiple roles on the film.
5. In aiming for a sense of realism, the location’s including a Western village built by a Norwegian cowboy reenactment group, who advised the crew on technical details & costume considerations.  A knock on the door of NRK’s costuming warehouse allowed them free access to period costume.  Muted colours were key, and it was essential that Eva’s colour scheme matched not only the landscape but her horse!
6. Clay’s full head helmet was made by a local ironsmith, from scratch with no measurements of who to fit it to given that Henry hadn’t been cast yet.  It fitted the actor perfectly, but then presented the problem of how to capture sound from inside the iron mask.
7. Rees’s shooting involved a lot of takes, ranging from 12 to as many as 60.  Key to getting such numbers of repeat performances from his cast and crew was inducted them as real creative collaborators, ensuring that everyone knew what he was aiming for as director & could work towards this together.
8. The challenge of making such a big film led to Rees’s mantra that you must “believe your own bullshit”, not least when the challenge ahead of you feels insurmountable.  Having a lead with his face covered meant he was constantly injured walking into objects during takes, overbalanced when drinking from a local river during a take and, on one occasion, survived the small panic when the keys to his cast-iron handcuffs were lost.  Then found again.
9. Rees shot for the edit, taking about 16 hours of footage into the cutting room.  The film was built with notes from his crew, and tweaked film after each screening, but to avoid watering down the film with too many ideas, Rees focused on cutting his own version.  It took eight months to take the film to a locked picture edit.  This process included a mantra adopted by David Fincher, that technology is a potent filmmaking tool, which allowed Rees to focus on mixing one takes’ pictures with another’s sound to get the perfect performance.
10. Not least because of it’s length, “To Meet It With Awe” was never designed to be a festival film, not least because of the length, but instead to work as a calling card for Rees’s efforts to move into features.  It’s scope opened the door to many meetings with producers in the time since…

Next month we are showing “Physics” on October 29th, and will welcome writer/director Claire Oakley and producer Emily  Morgan for a Q&A.  Check out the trailer for the film here…

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with our upcoming screenings and to see film craft articles & videos every day.

S4:8 // “This Is Vanity”

In August, S4 welcomed showed two films themed around subverting expectations of a story, kicking off with Timothy Smith’s 2005 short “Attack”, which you can watch here.  We then showed “This Is Vanity”, and welcomed director Oliver Goodrum and actor Richard Crehan to talk about the making of this affecting social drama.

“This Is Vanity” is currently featured on Short of the Week.  Watch the film here before reading our blog below.

Coming off the back of his music video for Casually Sunshine’s “Consequences of the Kill“, Goodrum found himself researching similarly toned stories at the time.  He found he had a strong reaction in reading the real-life story of a mother who took her life, and the life of her daughter, after a sustained period of torment on their housing estate.  This is the story that became the basis of “This Is Vanity”.

With an ongoing attraction held by the idea of examining the nature/nurture dynamic in humans, and what would lead one person to commit such an act, Goodrum’s jumping off point took advantage of around 70% of the facts.  With the case having come to court in 2008, it was well documented that a gang of teenagers essentially laid siege to a house over a ten year period.  To this, it was the titular motif of religion that Goodrum and co-writer Alexander Craig added, with the religious element motivated by an interest from both in how church and society mesh.  Given that the facts were laid out in the court records of the case, the police story and that of gang leader Michael was storylined using index cards.  The structure was informed by the story’s news article genesis, with the “headline” giving the impression of one eventuality, and the story that follows reversing that expectation…

It took a lot of work to get the script to “draft one”, but not many changes came in the script after then.  With a first draft ready by August 2011, the following twelve months were spent fundraising, researching and casting.  Around a third of the budget was raised with a combination of an IndieGoGo fundraise and money put up by Goodrum’s commercial reps Friend London.  The remained two thirds were put up by the filmmakers.  In the months before pre-production, Goodrum joined Sophie Farquhar, the actress cast to play the daughter who suffers with a learning disability, to attend a number of therapy classes for disabled and autistic adults.  The challenge in how to personify Tyler’s disability was one that Farquhar met head on, one achieved through extensive improv with Goodrum that was then improved upon throughout the shoot, to build a full & feasible identity for Tyler.

Building to an August 2012 shoot, it was Richard Crehan’s casting as the gang leader Michael that came last before production started.  Within the script, despite Michael being the only gang member given a first name, he had no fixed dialogue.  In these initial stages, it was the story being told & Oli’s vision of it that appeal to Crehan.  He was sold by Goodrum’s IndieGoGo pitch video, and when he couldn’t make the dates fixed for their audition submitted his own monologue via YouTube, an excerpt from Robin Soanes’ “A State Affair”.  Goodrum cast him on the strength of this.  Immediately, the two started to work together and built the character of Michael, fleshing out his backstory and motivations, conscious event at this stage that Goodrum planned to make a second film, This Is Iniquity”, that would focus on Michael’s life after “This Is Vanity”.

With an abandoned air force base secured as the film’s location, which offered the houses, offices and alleys needed to shoot the film, two weeks was spent making the broken-down location look inhabited.  Once on set, with scenes scripted that included deeper familial relationships for both Tyler and Michael, as well as a look at two aging inhabitants of the aging housing estate, once shooting started in became apparent that the simplest route the best to take.  In a multistrand story, and in a shoot with a lot of practical considerations, the emphasis was kept on shooting fast and keeping the focus on the main characters.  As a case in point, the first scene was the “happy slap” attack on Tyler that was as simple as grabbing an iPhone and hitting record.  A scene was written showing Angela leaving daughter Tyler for a night spent alone, enjoying herself, in a fleeting escape from their current problems.

The improv-centric prep from both Crehan and Sophie Farquhar paid dividends, certainly in scenes together.  As Michael’s persecution of Tyler increases, they agreed to not hold back on the scenes where escalation was key.  As events spiral, and Tyler is held down & her hair cut off, both actors were entirely committed to the rough-and-tumble needed to make this interaction feel truthful and feasible.

Some more practical shoot elements came at the head of the film, and the car explosion that could only be filmed in one take.  With only two minutes available from the ignition of car in which to capture all the footage needed, Goodrum shot a close-up on the burning vehicle then sprinted inside where Crehan, having been hiding in a rear-facing bathroom, was looking down over the burning vehicle.  Other stuntwork, that Crehan asserts his Doncaster upbringing was suitable prep for, was the three takes needed to get the Molotov cocktail burning down the front door of Angela’s home.  Despite all this, it was the six solid smacks around the head that Crehan recieved from Dominic Mafham that was close to being too much in the name of realism…

With a 23 page script shot in 6 days, Goodrum entered the cutting room with over an hour of footage.  The finished film is remarkably faithful to his shooting draft, with only two scenes cut.  Showing remarkable technical flair, the film’s most memorable and visceral sequence was Angela’s final descent into an enveloping delirium.  Attempts were made on set to shoot the priest appearing to her in a vision but, again in line with keeping the shoot as simple as possible, his lines were captured on set & in hushed tones, to be used later as a voiceover.  Instead, the sequence cleverly uses the short ends from Goodrum’s film magazines to allow for flashes of overexposed flares and red hues, connoting Angela’s instability with a clever in-camera technique.

With a first cut locked by November, the film started to make its way into the world.  Despite being based on a true story, given that no names or locations were specified, the choice was made to not attempt to secure rights to tell the story or seek familial permission.  Given that the film shows Angela as human, and sympathetically so, the filmmakers felt that their representation of her was a fair and balanced interpretation of a complicated true life story.  With the film submitted to a number of festivals, their notable success at US festivals surprised Goodrum, seeing as his story was English-set and imbued with a gritty realism synonymous with European cinema.  A turning point was the short being featured as Short of the Week, which led to more festivals (and the realisation that a presence online doesn’t harm a film at festivals, given that over 60% of Oscar-eligible festivals accepts shorts already shown online).

With the success of “This Is Vanity”, and the current version of the film shown complete with a teaser for the second installment, “This Is Iniquity”, it now falls to Goodrum to find a creative way to continue the stories that can be told in the world he has created.

S4:7 // “Cleaning Up”

Aiming for the head, July’s S4 showcased “Cleaning Up”, the hitman comedy thriller from filmmakers the Guerrier Brothers.  Director Tom and writer Simon joined for a Q&A about the making of this award-winning short, itself now available to buy online with a bundle of behind the scenes material…

Remarkably, the film marks the first fiction collaboration between Tom and Simon, who had previously worked together on DVD documentaries for Big Finish.  Simon had written audio dramas for the company since 2002, with a long career writing sketch comedy material.  Tom’s focused research on film festival successes led them towards a film that mixed comedy and thriller elements, and would be “something people will remember”.  It was two action mainstays, Bond and Bourne, that brought the brothers together now.  Stemming from their boyhood conversation of what action sequences not yet done which would make “their” Bond film, it was the idea of a bicycle chase that launched “Cleaning Up”.  A spy became a hitman & the hybrid tone of “Cleaning Up” was manifest.

With the hitman character of Mr Jackson in place, Simon was inspired by the fight scene on a free-with-a-DVD-player copy of “End of Days“, that saw Arnie’s ass handed to him in a fight scene with an unlikely foe played by Miriam Margolyes.  From here the character of Mrs Pellman was born, and dynamic between the two was in place.  For Jackson, a hitman who knows all the exits and remains supremely confident in most situations, it was an overtly predatory woman that was a great way to wrong-foot him.  As writing began, it was a suggestion from script editor Joe Lidster that gave the film its’ key dramatic impetus.  Originally, Jackson didn’t hesitate to kill everyone during the film’s opening hit, including a young girl (which Tom professed to be “stolen” from “Once Upon A Time In the West”).  At Lidster’s suggestion, killing her left him with nowhere to go dramatically, so she was left alive and “Cleaning Up’s” arc was in place.

Big Finish were initially approached to co-finance the shoot based on their script, but offered a token amount in the first instance.  Work continued on the script and over the course of one year and forty drafts of the script.  Keeping one eye on combined a meanginful character story with “cool” action, Jackson was taken from a very responsive character to one a bit stiller and out-of-sorts.  Complimentary efforts were made to ground the film in reality, with Pellman’s B&B design plus her namechecking of Lemsip and love of Custard Creams, further disquieting Jackson.  With a year’s worth of redrafting, the choice was made to self-fund the film’s shoot, and casting began with Louise Jameson as Mrs Pellman.  Lidster again was key when casting Mark Gatiss, who he approached “merry” at a Doctor Who party, and who Jameson called the following day ensure he would appear in the film.  It took six months before it was possible to find three days when both were free, and in July 2011 the shoot was set for mid-December.  Simon & Tom spent the time working on other shorts in production in a range of roles, to ensure they forged links with the talent who would eventually make up their own crew.

With the shoot approaching and locations confirmed, the brothers lost their entire crew to rare, pre-Christmas paid work, and spent their last five days of pre-production making many late-night calls to ensure the film would go ahead.  An extreme example was production designer Katy Tuxford, who joined a tech recce with thirty minutes notice & constructed Mrs Pellman’s B&B in a single day.  With a short in-costume rehearsal the day before shooting, with minimal direction needed thanks to the script’s exhaustive development process, shooting could begin.

Here Tom’s directorial style again took inspiration from Bond (the razor-sharp blocking of “Casino Royale’s” opening sequence) and Bourne (the films, notably shot hand-held, switch to steadicam when Bourne fights and is confidently in his element).  The three-day shoot took advantage of the early sunsets, shooting the night sequences around 7pm.  With one day at the office location in Battersea and two days at the B&B location in Tooting, the film was in the can & Big Finish again re-entered the picture.

Showing a first cut to executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery, he signed on before they had even finished their drinks, committing the funds needed to complete the film’s post-production including their colour grade and sound work.  Thanks to his history with Big Finish, Simon knew that Jason would be a hands-off producer, trusting the brothers to get on with their work.  Taking advantage of Big Finish’s technical expertise and now with a completed film, the second six months of 2012 was taken up with film festival submissions and screenings, which led to the film winning awards at the Aesthetica and Shortcutz film festivals.

After a lengthy production process, the brothers moved on to work on a Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge short, “Revealing Diary” (Simon’s account of making it can be found here), simply in order to complete their next collaboration together quickly.  It was blunt advice from producer Nik Powell that ‘funny is money’ which led to their making “The Plotters” and “Wizard“, before forging ahead with work on the feature version of “Cleaning Up”.  The short is now available to buy via the Big Finish website, where you can helpd raise development funds for the first stage of writing the feature version of this cracking short.

In August S4 is showing Oliver Goodrum’s stunning drama “This Is Vanity”, at the Genesis Cinema on August 27th.  Entry, as always, is free.  You can watch the trailer here and follow Script Shoot Slice Screen on Facebook and Twitter for updates on our monthly short film screenings and Q&As, or join our mailing list for screening notifications right into your inbox.

Pictures by Jeremiah Quinn;

S4:6 // “Dancing in the Ashes”

June’s S4 was a real change of pace, showing a markedly mature film from a filmmaker at the start of his career. “Dancing in the Ashes” was written and directed by Nicholas Rowland, and won the Royal Television Society’s Best Fiction Student Film award as well as Best Student Short Film at this year’s London Short Film Festival.

Joining Nick at the Q&A was DP Chris Park-Kennaby, camera operator Joe Park-Kennaby and lead actress Sarah Winter. Made under the banner of the Arts University Bournemouth, Nick’s script was loosely inspired by the true story of a young Hungarian girl who, like a number of Jewish musicians and dancers, were forced to perform at dinner parties for their concentration camp captors. Taking this powerful image, with enough inherent moving drama that it was well suited to the short film form, Rowland pitched the film to his AUB tutors who promptly greenlit it with the modest budget of £6000. Embarking on a week-long research trip to Poland in November 2011, Rowland had the impulse cemented that he may not be “qualified” to tell a larger story, so from the script’s earliest stages he kept the focus on the mother daughter/story. It was this that informed the writing, as opposed to any attempt to stretch the budget and tell a larger Holocaust story.

The script originally featured a younger main character, with Edina’s age reflecting the young teenaged ballet dancer that influenced the story. The choice was made, thanks to combination of the challenge in finding a child actor who can dance to the level the story required & labour laws inherent in shooting with minors, to find an older actress. Winter was cast with just forty-eight hours until shooting started. Having arranged a Saturday casting ahead of a Tuesday shoot, she was running forty-five minutes late, but wowed Rowland upon audition. Winter herself leapt at the role, foremost because of the eloquent script but similarly as it afforded her the chance to use her ballet training, sadly cut short due to an injury. A hasty script rewrite made Edina a stronger character, and her mother weaker, with a chance at a more equal dynamic given Edina’s older age. The script’s dialogue was originally intended to be in German and Hungarian, but the choice to open up the story’s drama to as many people as possible led to English being spoken. German remained in the story, cementing the “us and them” dynamic of the camp’s inhabitants. This proved excellent motivation for Winter, who professed that “being yelled at in German really can be scary”. In casting the Nazi soldiers, Rowland sought to avoid the usual caricatures, and demonstrate that in reality camp guards were very desensitised to what was going on around them. In audition, those actors cast as Nazis proved hard to read, bringing a “muddied” energy to their characters. With the film cast, and one brief rehearsal before shooting, Winter’s own personal prep also include reading a range of Holocaust survivor stories and personal letters. With two short days to get into “ballet shape”, it was decided that a less polished approach to the dancing would serve the story better, should Edina not be in peak shape.

Winter spent the shoot in a self-imposed “bubble of sadness”, reading Holocaust accounts between takes and with her iPod playing scores from films such as “Sarah’s Key” and “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”. Production encompassed two set builds, of Edina’s flat and the train that transports her to the camp, itself achieved using the old-fashioned approach of “a branch, on a wheel, with a light”. Here is an example of the fact that this is a world that was built with sound, with the train’s arrival at the camp marked by a blast of sound as the doors are flung open. The two location shoots started the concentration camp, itself an abandoned RAF base less than an hour from Bournemouth, proved a malleable location. Overgrown vines were cleared from buildings, bars built over windows and fences constructed. The volume of people required to make the camp feel as inhabited as a working camp would be were achieved thanks to the participation of a local WWII re-enactment group. Other challenges were of a more logistical nature, with camera placement limited thanks to a fire brigade training exercise right next to their shoot. The location of the titular dance was a challenge to confirm thanks to the numerous Nazi banners that decorate the film’s closing scene. The ballet sequence was kept technically simple; Edina was far from a professional ballerina & her dancing style wasn’t flashy to cement the notion of a “dying swan”. With film stock limited to six rolls of 16mm film (the Red camera quickly discounted thanks to AUB’s requirement that they shoot on film), the need to shoot in a focused way became all too apparent. At one point, a small amount of film scratching hints at the end of their current film magazine.

Moving into post-production in mid-March 2012, the film was cut together very quickly. Partially this was due to the smaller amount of footage shot; where tweaking was required, it proved as challenge without coverage to cut to. Visual effects shots came from AUB student James Cheetham, who comped in the university’s own chimney stack in a dubious cameo alongside smoke from a local power station that billowed from the chimney & digital ash that rained down on Edina. Some of the narrow parameters in shooting were solved in post; Juli, the small girl that Edina sees on the train, is later separated from her mother. Without close-ups the beat plays a little soft in the story, but the editorial choice to see Juli’s mother bolt to save her daughter from the gas chamber play out twice (once in silence, once in stark sounds) cemented the emotion of their own story. The key closing dance sequence, choreographed on set in relation the steadicam used to film it, came together in one day, quicker than Rowland and editor Sam Khoie expected, thanks in part to his choice for the music cue, Ludovico Einaudi’s “Earth Prelude”.

With the film completed, and first screening at the BFI on 6^th July 2012, there was a lull of a few months before their festival presence began to build. Since then the film has taken home RTS and LSFF awards, and led to Rowland’s place on the NFTS’s MA Directed course. Chris and Joe Park-Kennaby are running their own commercial production business based in Bournemouth. Sarah Winter is appeared in the upcoming BBC drama commermorating 50 years of Doctor Who, “An Adventure in Space and Time”, playing the electronic musician behind the “Doctor Who” theme music Delia Derbyshire.

July’s S4 is showing “Cleaning Up”, written by Simon Guerrier and directed by Thomas Guerrier, starring Mark Gatiss. See the trailer here.

You can listen to the film’s ballet music cue, Ludovico Einaudi’s “Earth Prelude’, here.

There is a range of behind-the-scenes pics at the “Dancing in the Ashes” site here.

Listen to Sarah Winter’s music choices from “Sarah’s Key” here and “The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas” here.

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