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.]
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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”.
- 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.
- 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 Film Club 