James Card is an award winning short-film director who eventually gave into the burning desire to make a feature film and produced his brilliantly engaging, improvisation-based feature ‘Finally Nearly Getting There’. Inspired by the mumblecore subgenre of American independent film, ‘Finally Nearly Getting There’ takes us on an all-too-typical British meander through the countryside to a wedding in what was supposed to be a couple’s road trip. The conversation and atmosphere between our two forced-together protagonists develops from a deliciously British awkward start into a more complex and nuanced understanding of themselves and their futures. By writing his feature as a road trip movie, James was able to both keep his budget down and work intimately with his actors on the emotional beats he knew he wanted to hit through his script, and even though it wasn’t quite as easy as he intended, the whole film comes together with satisfying finesse. It is an incredibly relatable and enjoyable film which takes the audience down each road and into every uncomfortable moment.

“I wanted to put my own spin on it, to make a very British version of a U.S. mumblecore film, and to feature 100% improvised dialogue.”

Where did the inspiration come from to develop your first feature-length film?

I’d been wanting to build on my short-film making experience for years, trying to come up with an idea for my feature debut. All I knew was the style of film I wanted to make. I’m a huge fan of the American indie cinema style, an emphasis on character and dialogue over plot with a low-budget aesthetic. Even more so, the mumblecore movement made popular by filmmakers like Joe Swanberg, the Duplass Brothers, Lyn Shelton that concentrate on very naturalistic acting and largely improvised dialogue. I’ve always loved that style of cinema, but I felt like it wasn’t really a model of filmmaking that was done in the UK. I wanted to put my own spin on it, to make a very British version of a U.S. mumblecore film, and to feature 100% improvised dialogue. 

I knew that I’d have to make it on a tiny budget since I wouldn’t have a script, as such, to use to raise funding. So I decided that a road trip film might be a good starting point as I could just put two actors in a car and drive through the British countryside, using the natural beauty of the UK exteriors as our production design and lighting. It seemed to me that the interior of a car would be a very controllable environment, keeping things simple, safe, and cheap. It would turn out that setting a film largely inside a car wasn’t easy at all, trying to make room for actors, director, camera crew, and sound crew, and nor would making a road movie be cheap, since we would have to transport the entire cast and crew across the country… but you live and learn! 

Planning to shoot with no pre-written dialogue meant I would need two actors that already had great chemistry and who I could trust to bring out the story and character elements I had devised. I turned to my good friends Roisin Rae and Brooks Livermore, who I have been working with on various projects for more than 15 years. I decided to bring them on early, to get them involved in the writing process, by developing the characters together and finding the driving force for our story as a trio. We spent about 6 months writing the story outline and from that, I wrote a scene-by-scene breakdown that would eventually be our shooting script. 

Was the jump from making short films to a feature daunting?

It’s going to sound odd, but I actually found it a little easier. I think mostly because, over the course of four or five years, I’d directed six or seven shorts and each one had gotten more ambitious in some way than the last. The crews had got larger, the budgets had got bigger, and the equipment that we got to utilise had got more and more impressive with better cameras, better lighting and in one instance having an entire set built! They’d been quite high-concept and I really wanted to scale things down. This feature was a lot more stripped down. We had a tiny crew, a very small cast, and because of the manner in which we were shooting, very little kit. We felt like a little travelling gang, just sat in our hero car making our very modest film in the simplest way possible. It felt smaller than some of those shorts, which also made it a lot more fun, and took some of the pressure off. 

As a fellow fan of mumblecore, I really feel you have achieved something special in giving it a brilliant British edge. How did you approach the initial planning stages to make it work for your vision?

“Like most films made in this style, a lot of it is determined by budget restraints but I think there’s something very visually specific about them too.”

Thank you – that’s a really lovely thing to hear. I usually tell people it’s a mumblecore film and they look back at me blankly, so it’s delightful to chat to someone who appreciates the genre. Like most films made in this style, a lot of it is determined by budget restraints but I think there’s something very visually specific about them too. I call them very “street level” films – no huge, sweeping cinematic shots with the camera on a jib or crane. It’s all very eye-level and intimate. That’s not to say there’s no wide shots – I couldn’t resist the opportunity to show off a few of our fantastic locations – but in planning the visual feel of the film, I knew I wanted to keep it all fairly tight and personal. When you’re asking your actors to keep their performances very small and real, you need the camera right in there to catch it. Although, completely contradicting myself here, it’s amazing what subtleties of performance the camera can capture even from a distance. 

The Britishness of the film and how it sets itself apart from the more familiar American movies of this style is in many ways down to the humour, and the awkwardness of that faux politeness we do so well in this country. Our lead characters, Dan and Alice, clearly have issues with each other right from the start, but they do that very English passive aggressive thing of getting a dig in at each other from behind a smile. I knew I wanted that, and fed that into the story as we were creating the outline. Visually, of course, I planned to make use of exteriors as much as possible. We’re used to the visual language of US set road movies and for me, as familiar as they are, there’s still something quite exotic about their locations. I planned to show off as much of the beauty of the UK it’s green fields, it’s rivers and it’s coastline  and transfer a very familiar genre in to a less familiar setting. 

As you have no written dialogue, can you tell us more about how you planned the storyline and the scenes?

It’s really not a lot different than writing a regular screenplay, with the exception that you’re kind of skipping what a sensible person would say is the most important element, the dialogue. When I do write a full screenplay, and I imagine this is the same for anyone, I start by mapping out a rough idea of plot and characters, maybe a few key scenes, and then I expand those ideas with some character backstory and then break down the beats of the story into a scene by scene outline. Once you have that, that’s the moment that most people will begin to turn that into a full screenplay, writing the dialogue and actions. For Finally Nearly, I just ignored that final stage, instead handing out copies of the scene by scene breakdown to our cast and crew. It included the emotional beats that I wanted to hit, and maybe the thoughts that our characters might have been having in that moment, but then it would be up to the cast to live those moments. That outline would be the script that the crew would work from when planning location and shots, just like a regular screenplay. 

How did this translate into the production and the shoot?

“I would let the takes run for sometimes six or seven minutes to see where the improv took us, and then steer the cast back on track between takes if need be.”

Since the dialogue was improvised, I realised that we needed to shoot the film in sequence as much as possible. We knew the in point of each scene and the out point we were trying to get to with the improv, but if we shot it too out of order, it’d be impossible for our characters to refer to events or conversations in earlier scenes, and their relationship wouldn’t grow in a believable way. It also meant that Roisin and Brooks could relax into those characters and their situation more and more as the story progressed, which was perfect. Being a road movie also made shooting in sequence a lot easier. We weren’t ever going to be returning to any locations at different points in the plot, so no need to shoot out of sequence based on location.  

It was a multi-camera shoot, too, it had to be. With the cast improvising the dialogue, every take was different to the previous one, so it would have been impossible to match up alternate takes in the edit. I would let the takes run for sometimes six or seven minutes to see where the improv took us, and then steer the cast back on track between takes if need be. Maybe highlighting a particular moment that they devised which I felt worked, and asking them to push that element further, while dropping other lines that didn’t serve the narrative. We shot everything with at least 2 cameras, sometimes 3, which allowed us to have multiple angles of the same dialogue to work from. It also made that space in the car even tighter! In many ways, the post-production period was then when we really wrote the film. Editing together multiple alternate versions of a scene into something that told our story in the best, most efficient way possible. We had so much good stuff, that I think the first cut of the film was about two and a half hours. I still weep at the loss of a lot of scenes and moments, but I felt the film had to keep under 90 minutes to keep buzzing along at an interesting and entertaining pace. 

That moment at the waterfalls feels so integral to the film and the growing relationship between Dan & Alice. Why did you write this into the story outline?

The picnic at the falls comes at a time in the story when Dan and Alice are just starting to drop their guard with each other a little, and it was important to literally and figuratively put the breaks on their journey for a quieter moment between them. This is a scene where Alice shows her vulnerability and a side of her personality we haven’t yet seen. Although we also see that from Dan, too, in a later scene I thought it was important to see Alice’s earlier. Up until this point in the story, you could argue that Alice has actually been quite antagonistic, and we see Dan’s frustration with her grow. It’s a fun dynamic between them for a while, but we essentially need both of our characters to be likeable if we’re going to ask an audience to spend such a concentrated amount of time with them. Placing this scene into the story, learning why the spot is so important to Alice, suddenly we understand why she has been so insistent on making the journey, and with plenty of time to spend there. It’s funny, but it’s also quite moving.

The delightful awkwardness between Dan & Alice never entirely disappears even as they warm up to each other. How did you keep that in their performances the whole way through?

This was actually one of the hardest things to achieve. Brooks and Roisin had known each other for years before we shot the film, and the three of us had worked so often together. They have an existing chemistry, and existing shorthand with each other, and they would naturally fall in to that fun friendship. I do think that having to improvise the dialogue helped them not fully relax into the scenes – they never quite knew what they were going to get from each other. For my part, I would often remind them that they don’t have to say as much as they instinctively wanted to. A lot of actors think that, if you’re asking them to improvise, it means they have to come up with lots of dialogue and constantly talk – but often the opposite is true. 

In truth the real success of their performances comes down to Roisin and Brooks themselves. They’re good actors, REALLY good. My job as a director is to cast well and find actors that I can trust to understand their characters and really live in the moment. A gentle reminder from me here and there, a little nudge in a certain direction, and then just sit back and let them do what they’re good at. It honestly was an absolute pleasure getting to see Roisin and Brooks inhabit those roles, they often took me by surprise, and it was wonderful. 

Liam adds the perfect element of annoyance, frustration and pace to the film right when we needed it. How did Chris come in and work with the well-established pace you had set with Brooks and Roisin?

I love Chris! He’s fantastic. So much of what he improvised sadly ended up being trimmed out of the edit because he just gave us so much! In my mind there’s a wonderful companion piece to this film that follows Liam’s journey from start to finish and features Dan and Alice as side characters. That would be fun. I do think Chris was a little worried about coming in and trying to find the tone and energy of the piece at a point when we had already completed half the shoot. I just told him to go in hard and to try not to let Roisin or Brooks get a word in. I didn’t tell them that, but I wanted him to try and put them on the back foot, to make them feel uncomfortable and to actually make them feel like they were catching up with him in his film. Chris definitely took that on board and absolutely ran with it! He dominates those scenes, which I think was really necessary an hour into a film that has essentially just been a two-hander by that point. Chris is also a very experienced screenwriter and definitely understood his place in the narrative.

I can only imagine the daunting prospect of your edit. Did the film change or evolve during this process from your initial ideas, and if so how?

We definitely could have had a film with twice the running time, and the edit was absolutely brutal. The film changed a lot even as we were shooting it. Improvisations would go in an unexpected direction, and if we thought it was better that way, we would go with it. But it definitely changed and developed a lot during the edit. There are minor things, like rearranging the order of some dialogue so that what had been the start of a conversation actually became the end point, and vice versa, but that’s really the same as you would do had a script been written and you were going through edits and rewrites. We just did that after having shot the footage, rather than before. 

We lost a lot of secondary characters, too, which still pains me. There are now really only 3 on-screen speaking roles, but we shot with several other characters too – including brilliant performances from actors playing the partners of Alice and Dan. As the edit progressed we realised that, as wonderful as they were, their scenes weren’t contributing to the story in the way that I had imagined they would when developing the outline. That was through no fault of their performances and improvisations, they both had some of my favourite moments, but I began to realise we just didn’t need them to tell our story, and those elements just slowed down the narrative really kicking in. Similarly, without wanting to give too much away, there is a destination that Alice and Dan are headed to in the film that was supposed to be the location for the final scenes. We shot them with a large number of small roles and background artists. But again in the edit, we began to realise that the focus of the narrative in those scenes was actually not really on our lead characters, and as such added nothing to the story we were telling. It was a terrifying decision to remove all those scenes from the end of the film, but they were nothing more than an unnecessary epilogue, and ultimately it was the right decision.  

I think one of the biggest changes that took me by surprise was the focus of Dan and Alice’s relationship and inner journeys. I’d originally envisaged a more traditional romantic element, and how the story would show them slowly falling for each other. But as the improvisations progressed and the edit came together, that angle seemed more and more cliché. It became more apparent that this, instead, was a story about two people, both struggling to find their own personal happiness, helping each other find new confidence, new direction, and leaving them feeling much more hopeful about the possibilities in front of them. I always intended an open-ending, where the audience will hopefully decide for themselves what they think is next for Dan and Alice, but the point at which we end, the place they find themselves geographically and emotionally, is very different than I’d imagined. 

What do you hope for the film?

More than anything, I hope the film finds an audience. It was a labour of love, for sure, but I think everyone that worked on it did an incredible job, and their work deserves to be seen. I’d like it to find an audience that – like me – hugely enjoy this style of film. To achieve a small indie cinema release, even just for one week, would seem an unachievable goal… but making this film often felt like an unachievable goal in itself, so who knows?!

Heartbreak and the ways in which we deal with it is a rich and well-trodden path, so it is always a treat when we come across a freshly delivered perspective, as shines through in comedy short ‘Pigeon’. Directed by Kiki Allgeier, founder of creative production company Go Parachute, the US-based filmmaker was looking for a new challenge and immediately felt a connection with the script written by acquaintance Elizabeth Hamilton. ‘Pigeon’, set at that time of year when we are told we must be full of glee, follows our protagonist Liz, deftly played by Larisa Oleynik, who is ploughing through the all-too-relatable slog of a heartbreak until she unwittingly finds solace and connection with a wounded pigeon. The writing by Hamilton is snappy and acerbically funny, and Allgeier masterfully guides us through a comedic portrayal of the ebbs and flows of the life of a woman in her forties, dealing with heartbreak, an absent father and the general challenges of adult life. 

I come from documentary so the respect and importance of working with  someone’s story is deeply ingrained in me.

I love the exploration of the loss and heartbreak in ‘Pigeon’. Where did the idea come from?

The film is a true story about our writer, Liz Hamilton. The experience she had with the pigeon named Liz moved her to write this film with all its parts; the humour, darkness, and raw humanness of it. When I read her script, I knew I had to make this film and we did.

How did you go about convincing Liz that you were the right person to direct the film?

Liz and I went to dinner and told her what I saw in her script. From the start, our ideas about ‘Pigeon’s’ meaning and tone were very in tune with each other. I used to live In NYC and this movie is a very New York story. In my mind, there is no way to make this film unless you are or were a true New Yorker, this was a very big part of my pitch too. The roll out of events that transpire in ‘Pigeon’, truly could only happen in that city. I mean, where else would a wild bird hospital be open that late, the night before Christmas Eve? I also created a visual treatment of how I would bring the film to life, and our film looks very much like it.

As this project was so personal to Liz, what was the collaborative working relationship like with you two throughout the project?

It was very close. I come from documentary so the respect and importance of working with someone’s story is deeply ingrained in me. This was no different, so having Liz by my side was crucial to the process.

How did you move into the production and how long was the process?

I believe that when a creation is ready to be realized, all things align – and they align quickly. The most important piece of this puzzle was finding the right actress to play Liz. One of my trusted collaborators suggested the idea of working with our mutual friend Larisa Olyenik. After speaking with her there was no doubt that she was who should play Liz. Once she agreed to come on board, things took off and we were shooting in less than a month. The film Gods were good to us and the rest of our puzzle fell into place. For post production, I have a team of creatives and friends that I’ve worked with for many years. We speak the same language of film and together the edit, music composition, and color grading emerged very organically.

From when I came on board to our premiere, the whole process of creating this film was a year. For Liz, this has been a much longer since this story is hers. Synthesizing it into a script and then trusting me and my team to come on and make it with her took years.

Larisa is just superb and perfectly embodies the tragedy, humour and lighthearted tone – how did you work with her to bring out this performance?

Honestly, I didn’t have to do much having an actress like Larisa in this role. We talked a lot before we shot about how the humor of this entire film was locked in it being real. Life is funny even when it’s sad and horrible. If we let it be real, then the rest would unfold. And Larisa is as real as it gets.

Did the film change at all during the shooting or post production form Liz’s initial script?

We made a few small changes from Liz’s initial script. Only one scene really became its own thing while shooting, but for the most part, everything there was there from the beginning.

The score, opening and closing sequences have a retro vibe to them which fits with the comedy – what was behind this decision?

My brilliant friend and editor Sean Leonard has a true talent for finding the right song to convey a message without hitting it too hard on the head. He puts an extensive amount of effort into this step, and we listened to a lot of tracks until we both couldn’t live without Keely Smith’s version of ‘I Wish You Love’. In my everyday life, I tend to have a retro vibe in a contemporary world. I also work with key people that share this sensibility, namely Sean and also our Costume Designer Vanessa Gonzales. I think that retro but contemporary style comes through in Pigeon’s costumes, and in New York itself. When shot right, New York is classic, existing right now in this moment, and also of another time. It’s threaded through, and the music really completes it and makes it whole.

What do you hope for your film?

I hope our film plays in as many festivals as possible. I hope that all the creative minds and gifted humans that participated are recognized for their great work. I hope that from this, we can all continue on to work together again and again because of our collective success in making a film that is meaningful, darkly funny, and real.

Mark Nelson’s ‘A Place About 50 Miles West Of Nowhere’ is a beautiful experimental exploration of life in New York City through an abstract expressionist and surreal lens. The film is gorgeously layered with images from the city, allegory and poetic observations and musings narrated by actress and producer Andromeda Godrey.

Alongside being a delight for the senses, ‘A Place About 50 Miles West Of Nowhere’ includes sections of ethereal and expressive dance which work in conjunction with the film’s delicately crafted score and reflect the musings and analysis of the film itself. These are strategically balanced and layered within the images we see on screen and add a wholly unique element to the production.

Ahead of the film’s premiere on the 30th of March at Fabrica Gallery Brighton I spoke to Annie Waller who choreographed the movements for dancer Georgia Poole. Annie, founder and director of community dance initiative Latitude Dance brought her background in contemporary dance, focussed on African and Caribbean People’s Dance, and worked with classically trained Georgia to create the mesmerising choreography featured in the film.

Can you talk us through the initial stages of preparation after you were approached by Mark to collaborate with him on the film.

Annie Waller: Georgia and I sat down together and listened to the music he had created. For me, music is a really important starting point for choreographing a piece and something from which I draw a lot of inspiration. We then looked through a book of images Mark had put together from a previous trip to New York and he talked me through the starting points for him, based in abstract expressionism. Mark then spoke about his inspirations which started to build a picture for his vision for the film and what it was that he wanted from the choreography. He followed up by then sending me some images which I shared with Georgia for our rehearsals so the images, music and Mark’s influences all drew together for inspiration.

What were some of the specific images and pieces of music you worked from?

AW: We were working towards building a three part piece. Mark wanted the first section to be working around internalising grief and loss and what that meant to me and how I would portray that in the movement. There weren’t as many images for that piece but the music brought a clearer picture. The melancholia and the sadness really came out the more we listened to it. There were a few climactic moments but overall it was very gentle. When musing on the choreography I was able to draw upon a lot of internalised movement which is how I feel when I’ve lost someone and is reflected in my movement.

When moving into the second part, Mark showed me some of his images from the 911 monument in New York. The Angel was such a strong and classic image for us to use as a starting point which Georgia was able to create beautiful lines around this.

The final piece is based on Greenwich Village and has a very different vibe from those before. Jazz is so prevalent in that part of New York and we wanted to work on a piece with a nod to African movement. Whilst I studied African Dance for 3 years at University we realise we are not African dancers, so I built the movement from a more surrealist point which I hope is echoing the idea of the film and the abstract expressionism. It is not what it seems but more an abstraction of that type of movement. The imagery we were focussed on and watching parts of the film that Mark had already created really helped with putting the movement together. Mark was keen for us to improvise quite a lot in our rehearsals which Georgia has been brilliant with. I have come with the starting points of the music, the imagery and some motifs which Georgia has taken in each piece and has been able to run with.

Georgia, you come from a very different and more classical school of dance, how does it feel working on a more abstract piece?

Georgia Poole: I much prefer it, I’m professionally trained in ballet and have followed that structure my whole life where you dance to fit each step, and this choreography is so different. I’m always better under pressure so I find improvisation easier than following a step by step routine. I think if Annie had choreographed 8 or 16 counts as a phrase or if I’m taught a choreography with 5,6,7,8 I’m able to do it, but it might be a bit harder and I won’t connect with it as much. Whereas if I’m given a stimulus and a starting point, images, or a collaboration such as that with Annie it flows. As I performed the last piece, I had four or five images in my head, almost like tick boxes, that I knew I wanted to get in there to portray the theme and the intent but then I was able to improvise around that. It also helps to be in a relaxed headspace and to just enjoy the movement, I’m not thinking about it so much I’m just enjoying what comes naturally in between each one of those tick boxes. Sometimes when I’m dancing I can really focus in on the music and play with it but sometimes this doesn’t come at all and I had to listen to this particular piece of music a couple of times. It is quite sporadic and as a dancer we are used to a melody we can hang on to but working with this Jazz has been different but very freeing. It’s a matter of constantly listening to what the music is doing and having the imagery in my head that Annie wants to portray and just hoping that it all falls together.

It looks incredible, how much rehearsing and planning do you two go through in preparation?

AW: Before today we’ve had about five hours which has been over two separate occasions, once with only Georgia and I and then the next time with Mark. Before the first rehearsal with Georgia, I spent half a day collating the images and I like to make boards with the feelings of each piece which filtered through to our first rehearsal. We know each other really well, which helps the process as I know what Georgia can do and it has been lovely to work with each other this way

Has this been an interesting project for both of you to work on?

AW: Absolutely, we both love choreography and I know even though Georgia is performing in this she loves that side of things which has been such a useful tool for me when we’ve gone through the rehearsal process because I can rely on her to push me to try a different way. Furthermore, our bodies are different so her body can be pushed in a different way to mine which has resulted in we’ve created together. It’s just been a really interesting process from start to finish.

This is such a collaborative project with different artists from distinct mediums which is the beauty of The Imaginary Project. It enables so much different work, with so many different people from different disciplines. In the film, there are so many juxtapositions of material that you can really take what you want from it. This reflects back to the choreography, some parts are more on the nose, they’re more obvious. However, some of it is definitely up for interpretation from whoever’s watching it, which is the beauty of art.

Films, among so much more, encourage debate. They are a vehicle for expressing ideas, beliefs and spark something deep within us. These are the aspects which filmmaker Mark Nelson wanted to explore in his latest project ‘A Place About 50 Miles West Of Nowhere’. Mark has taken his background in photography, years of buddhist belief and learning and a close study of abstract expressionist and surrealist movements to create a piece of work which will have every audience member considering what it means to them. Mark, founder of The Imaginary Project, has a passion for stepping outside of the proverbial box and invites us to a new way of experiencing art, photography, music, film and the written word all of which are given their own platform in his film. 

‘A Place About 50 Miles West Of Nowhere’ is a symphony of images, narration and exploratory themes set in the uniquely vibrant and diverse city of New York which Mark has combined using his own unique approach to video editing. It is a truly moving piece of work in which Mark urges us to consider allegory, the overlapping flow and accord of images and a fabulously unique soundtrack and decide for ourselves what we want to get out of it. 

‘A Place About 50 Miles West of Nowhere’ is premiering at Fabrica Gallery Brighton on the 31st of March ahead of its selection for Brighton Rocks International Film Festival in June 2023.

The so-called ‘Place About 50 Miles West Of Nowhere’ may be found at the heart of abstraction. It is here that our hidden seeds of emotion await their turn to appear, bathed in darkness or light”

You are an artist, a photographer, and now a filmmaker. What made you want to get into the world of film?

It’s not unusual for photographers to go into the film industry or create films. I loved and I still love being a photographer because, unlike films, it’s instant. Sometimes I just don’t have the patience to stand around and wait for things to change or wait for actors or whatever the situation is. As a filmmaker, you have to have much more patience. A photographer is looking for something that is of the moment, it’s now, it’s in a split second, and that’s the best photography. It was a difficult transference of getting that style into making a film. You’re on location as a photographer would be but filming something rather than shooting in 250th of a second, so it’s the same approach but different.

Where did the inspiration come from for the film? 

I’m a Buddhist, so I look at ways of creating art that are reflective of what I’ve learnt as a Buddhist over the last 20 years. I try to express how I feel about certain things and how I can discover them through art. For example, there are deep teachings that go back two and a half thousand years which explain why we feel as we do and triggers which can totally change how we are feeling. A simple example for myself – our dog died recently, a little pug, and if I’m walking through the park and see a pug somehow I’m not okay and I don’t know why. So, it’s that sort of thing that I’m trying to stir within this film. 

Why is the film based in New York? Why was that an exploration for you?

It’s a very good question because you could actually almost do this in your back garden within the realms of abstraction and surrealism and it’s a new journey for me as I’ve never embraced those genres as a photographer. I have worked in New York on and off for 20 or 30 years and I know the city really well. I wanted to approach the idea of the film using the inspiration from the mid 1900s movement of the likes of Jackson Pollock’s abstraction, Salvador Dali’s surrealism and Mark Rothko. The film is very much inspired by their works, but also by the concurrent photographic movement from Europe which I studied a lot before we started shooting. I went to New York, not knowing what I was going to shoot, but having the confidence that I had done my homework and understanding my own style and work as a photographer and approaching making it a moving photograph.

It’s an interesting and diverse approach to filmmaking, how much footage did you have before putting the film all together?

I had 20 to 30 years worth of stills now of New York which I used to inspire myself but also the quality and the idea of how you can approach images. Just because you’ve got an image doesn’t mean to say that it doesn’t move around, you can move an image around in the edit if you know what you’re doing. And there are a lot of things that I used, particularly perspective warp within Photoshop, although it has to be said that when shooting, everything was done in camera and not in post. Everything was filmed in the camera. I applied multiple gestures, movement and all of that sort of thing to create the abstract and create something that may actually move people when they see it.

How was the process of deciding what images and what structure you wanted to put into the film?

Well, you’re really listening to yourself. I never sat down and asked myself “what am I going to do with this structure here” I just turned up with a crew and explained what I wanted and what we were going to do. I used music at the same time, the soundtrack was done beforehand, so I listened to the soundtrack and thought about approaching a certain shot. There was no strategy at all, that’s what abstract expressionism is. 

The music is such an integral part of the film which you mentioned creating beforehand, how was this integrated?

The film was initially going to be made in the Mojave Desert and the soundtrack was half done, everything was booked but then COVID happened. So I thought, “okay, I’m at home with half a soundtrack and no footage other than the stills I’d already got.” I knuckled down and thought “I can do this, I can create the same vibe, the same feeling, the same message from New York.” I worked on the soundtrack and brought in a couple of other people to help me so we were all ready to go when the lockdown lifted. I already had the whole soundtrack and made notes as to what locations I might want to find to go with the music. Unusually for a film, we created the music first which is very much an odd thing to do but that’s often how I work, upside down. 

Tell us more about the images you captured and how you then worked with them to become the film we see today?

It’s very difficult to explain, as I mentioned everything is done in camera and on the spot. It came together through a lot of multiple exposure and letting your technical knowledge interface your camera. I have experience creating this desired effect so I was shooting, then checking the images and then moving around and trying different techniques. It can all be done experimentally but I intuitively knew what I was doing and used the look of the image, the speed of the camera, the lens, click and focus.

I wanted to talk about the narration as the words are so key and give your audience a bit more of an understanding of what they’re viewing. 

One of my influences was Laurie Anderson. Within a song of hers, Let X=X, she talks about a place somewhere 50 miles east of here and so those words gave me the title of the film. I was very influenced by the way she talks and the film certainly pays homage to her. I spent a lot of time on the script as I didn’t want to lose the audience. We’re already in deep water with the seeds of emotion and we can’t take people onto a journey which they just don’t understand. I worked a lot with the scriptwriter and he allowed me to just lighten it up sometimes or make it a bit more understandable. I want the audience to hang in there with me on this journey through the film as each person has a different way of understanding or trying to put their own feelings through this film and deciphering the intentions.

I’m like a guy driving a car and I’ve got a bunch of people with me in the car, looking out the windows at the vast abstractions all around and telling me what they’re seeing and how they’re feeling as I concentrate on keeping them on the road and not crashing. The film is taking people on a journey, it isn’t mine but everyones in the audience. It’s going to be really interesting when people’s minds go off in all directions as people have different triggers. The film addresses all sorts of ideas about America, how great it is, the land of brave and you can do anything, everything’s possible. But, as the film goes on, you’re starting to touch on climate change and racism. It wasn’t created or edited to address these specific subjects but done by way of an allegory, something you are seeing. So it really has quite a number of triggers for stirring the seeds of emotion that are buried in your heart or your soul.

I know that you’ve got some big screenings coming up. How have you felt showing people the film so far and what are you looking forward to in those screenings?

I think with artists, they effectively create to show somebody else what they’ve done. It’s in you as an artist to want to communicate your work. The good thing about art is with communication there’s also understanding. If people like your work, relate to it and if you have an affinity with your audience and gratitude to them coming to watch it’s a recipe for understanding. 

What do you hope for this film?

I would hope that people see it and get something out of it. An artist once said said “the best art has the whole world in it. You might wonder what they are talking about but if you look at the best art it has got the whole world in it. It’s got people, it’s got emotion, it’s got feelings – it’s got everything in it. This film is so dense and full of colour, detail, allegory, straight talking and a vast number of images which were put together so it’s up to the individual to decide what they’re going to get out of it. It’s not up to me.

It is thought 1 in 50 people may suffer with OCD. And that figure is expected to actually be higher due to the shame people can feel about opening up. The whole team behind ‘Waving’ are keenly aware of the difficulties some may have reading this article and watching the film. Executive producer Catherine Benfield has worked on putting together a series of free resources on her Blog Taming Olivia which open up a further understanding of OCD and the realities of the condition.

‘Waving’ leans on a very fitting, surrealist thread as it explores some very hard truths about OCD and the terrifying compulsions which can render daily life almost impossible.

A desolate beach, a sign warning about “being cut off by incoming tides” and a deep and reverberating voiceover followed immediately by a cacophonous chorus of words open Rolfin Nyhus and Steven Brumwell’s ‘Waving’. Steven Brumwell, who co-wrote, directed and produced the short with Rolfin Nyhus, has poignantly taken direct experiences from his own battle with OCD and produced a film exploring what would happen if a sufferer approached the point of ultimate despair. What if the realities of the disease took someone away from their real life and forced them into a self-imposed exile? Steven has bravely been able to draw out some of those key destructive powers, and combined with Rolfin’s talents, brought us an only-too-real world of split lives, haunting and unfiltered dark thoughts. 

In the second sequence, we are viscerally dragged into a dystopian black mirror-esque nightmare setting with boarded windows and scrawls all over the walls of an abandoned house. An old-fashioned telephone and television house pleas from Charlie’s desperate family. The production design and mise-en-scène in ‘Waving’ screams with pain and serves to further emphasise Charlie’s suffering. This isn’t anywhere you would choose to live. It is a stark reflection of the reality for sufferers of OCD, who have no desire to be stuck living with their thoughts, and this forced self-exile is accentuated by the clever use of space. 

The casting in ‘Waving’ is highly commendable and deserves recognition all round. Ralph Ineson plays the haunted protagonist Charlie with depth and skill, while his wife and daughter’s desperation and love are conveyed equally well by Krissi Bohn and Emily Amoh. Charlie’s gaunt face and unkempt appearance accentuate the inner turmoil he lives through on a daily basis. Ralph expresses all the pain through his face, his expressions and a frenetic energy which holds his very physical performance. Offering a beacon of light at the very end of the film is Sophie Bould whose character is a welcome respite from the pain and suffering and allows us to take a small step back form the turmoil and be enveloped by the kindness and warmth of a stranger.

“Our Cruel Demons”, a phrase Charlie crudely scrawls on a wall of his prison, alongside “burden” and “worthless”, encapsulate everything screaming through his mind and reveal the depth of his self-hatred. ‘Waving’ does a commendable job at both internalising and externalising the realities of OCD through its visuals, sound design and an extremely detailed approach to every minute part of the film, which come together perfectly in the 16-minute run time. 

‘Waving’ leans on a very fitting, surrealist thread as it explores some very hard truths about OCD and the terrifying compulsions which can render daily life almost impossible. As with so many diseases, the suffering is under the surface and might be imperceivable to an outside observer. The ending of ‘Waving’ needs to be absorbed, as with the rest of the film. While doing nothing to negate the agony of the protagonist’s suffering, it seems to offer a scintilla of hope courtesy of a kind stranger. And where there is hope, there is life …

‘Waving’ will screen at Brighton Rocks Film Festival 20-25 June 2023.

The film essay is a form which has been embraced by many of the greatest filmmakers over the years – Chris Marker, Agnes Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, to name a few. When filmmaker Adam E. Stone lost his father, he wanted to pay homage to and explore writings and unsolved mysteries left behind. Adam, a great believer in pushing the boundaries of filmmaking, followed a strong desire to ask his audience to step out of their comfort zones and explore film in different and more engaging ways, namely a rule-breaking alternative to more traditional forms. 

‘Atmospheric Marginalia’ takes us through dreamy, almost surreal, natural landscapes and flashes of sky, all painstakingly filmed on an iPhone 8 with no additional equipment, and deftly juxtaposes harsh man-made structures with the flow and ever-changing beauty of nature. It is a stunning piece of work which asks the viewer to use all of their senses to take in the ebb and flow of the narration and the images, which complement Adam’s own soothing tones. ‘Atmospheric Marginalia’ is a prime example of a piece of work which didn’t require a hefty budget or massive resources to produce, but instead relies on a story which asked to be told and a patient, driven attitude towards the craft.  

I knew I wanted the film to be both experimental and lyrical, because, other than the occasional conventional documentary, that is really the only kind of film I am interested in making.

What inspired you to make this film?

The initial impetus to make Atmospheric Marginalia was the death of my father in 2005. It is always hard to lose a parent, but I think I was especially devastated because I knew my father was not ready to go yet. He left behind unfinished writings and unsolved mysteries. I often refer to this film as being “equal parts poetic essay film and family folklore,” and the latter part of that comes from the fact that at the time of his death, my father was still trying to figure out the greatest mystery of his own life, and was still grieving the loss of the love of his life, a woman he met and had a relationship with long before he met my mother. Exploring, through my father’s unfinished writings, these star-crossed lovers and their relationship across several decades, including after her death, led me to the continuing bonds theory of grief, and to both practical and philosophical questions about the existence of an afterlife. It was also pivotal to resolving my protracted grief following my father’s death.

How did you decide on how to put all of this into cinematic form?

I knew I wanted the film to be both experimental and lyrical, because, other than the occasional conventional documentary, that is really the only kind of film I am interested in making. I also knew the film, delving into such timeless, and yet ephemeral subjects as loss, grief, and life after death, had to have an abstract and dreamy feel, and an unconventional almost subversive storytelling method. That is what led me to play around with and eventually dive deeply into the free-flowing cycles of imagery that permeate the film. I was fascinated by the idea of these strange, recurring palettes of unpeopled skyscapes and waterscapes, and the idea that you could connect and disconnect them in ways that allowed you to tell a deeply human story without ever showing a human face on screen. In many ways, and on many levels, ‘Atmospheric Marginalia’ is a ghost story, so focusing on unpeopled imagery and yet juxtaposing that imagery with some of the human-made objects that have invaded these wild, natural spaces seemed to me like an appropriate way to bring out the otherworldly elements of the story. 

Likewise with the direct exposition of the narrative voice-over. I suspect both may be jarring to anyone expecting a mainstream Hollywood film, but a story should always be told on its own terms, even if that means conventions go out the window. Just as people grow when they step out of their comfort zones, art forms grow when artists push the boundaries and encourage people to view new works with open minds, shedding dogma and orthodoxies. I think most mainstream cinema including much mainstream indie cinema resists that, but when you think about it, the idea that art should be restricted by formulaic conventions is quite antithetical to the concept of art as freedom, exploration, and ultimately a search for meaning. 

Why are you, as a filmmaker, drawn to the medium of the film essay?

I am sure some filmmakers, or at least some critics and film scholars, would disagree with me, but in my view, there aren’t really any rules for essay films.

Well, for one thing, it is a very up-close and intimate way to make and share a film, and I think we need more of that in this fractured and increasingly impersonal and desensitised world. I also think that essay films are great for experimental filmmakers who want freedom, but still want to make films that have a narrative. I am sure some filmmakers, or at least some critics and film scholars, would disagree with me, but in my view, there aren’t really any rules for essay films. Or maybe, to the extent there are rules, they are much less formulaic and ingrained than the rules of more mainstream narrative films, especially Hollywood films that are created to be safe, easily digestible producers of revenue. In addition to this feature film, I have made a variety of short essay films, dance films with music, a completely silent dance film, and poem films with audio narration, as well as a poem film with text-only narration and the theme that unifies them is experimentation. To me, it is not about breaking the rules just for the sake of breaking them, it is about breaking the rules with the hope that by doing so you will discover something new and magical that you can share with viewers.

How did you go about writing the incredible, almost epic, narration?

The writing took a long time. I had so much material to go through, both in terms of my father’s unfinished writings, some of which he had spent a lot of time on and nearly finished, and some of which consisted of handwritten notes on scraps of paper, or marginalia on earlier drafts he had nearly finished, or other little pieces here and there that needed to be fused into a more complete and coherent narrative and terms of my own writing, which also ran the gamut between the nearly finished and the quite raw, as I tried to make sense of this story’s impact on him, and of course on me as well.

Can you tell me more about the recording process to garner that soothing feeling of ebb and flow over a long runtime?

Yes, with me being the only speaker in the film, that was something of a balancing act. When I finished writing the script, my final edit was very holistic and comprehensive, so ideally, for smoothness and consistency, I would have liked to have recorded the entire voice-over in one 75-minute take to mirror that. Maybe there are some voice actors who could pull that off, but I knew my voice, not to mention my brain, would become fatigued before I ever got there, and that the quality of the voice-over would start to diminish pretty rapidly once that fatigue began to hit. Plus, even in the best studio you are going to have little distractions, or technical glitches, over a 75-minute span of time, which is going to make it almost impossible to pull that off. So, I split the narrative into 3 parts, each of which turned out to be approximately 25 minutes long, and recorded it in 3 different sessions, each a week apart. That also allowed me, in terms of rehearsing, to focus on each recording session separately, rather than the entire script as a whole, and it allowed me to rest my voice between sessions, so I could try to keep that intimate, at times whispered, quality of the voice-over consistent throughout the full 75 minutes. It also helped with the enunciation of each line, each syllable really, which was much more manageable over three sessions than it would have been in one marathon session. It was a lot of work, and took a lot of self-discipline, but I ended up very happy with the voice-over.  In fact, I wouldn’t change a single enunciation, which is something I can rarely say about a voice-over.

What did you use for the filming and how long did it take you to put the whole film together? 

I felt that embracing the tradition of raw, no-budget guerrilla filmmaking was the best way to capture the abstract and otherworldly wonder of everyday life that was so important to the underlying themes of the film.

‘Atmospheric Marginalia’ was filmed entirely by hand on an unmodified iPhone 8 without the use of tripods, external lenses, lighting aids, stabilizers, or any other equipment. It was just me, my phone, and the gracious people who drove me around, my partner and my youngest son, wandering around Carbondale, Illinois, and Huntsville, Alabama, looking for hidden gems in the free spaces around me. That was a very intentional choice on my part. For one thing, I did not have the money for anything more fancy. For another, I felt that embracing the tradition of raw, no-budget guerrilla filmmaking was the best way to capture the abstract and otherworldly wonder of everyday life that was so important to the underlying themes of the film.

In terms of how long it took, I guess honestly I have been struggling with how to tell this story, and make sense of my grief, since the day I lost my father in 2005. In early 2016, I began to feel a stronger sense of urgency that I had to find a way to tell this story, which I think was driven in part by the sense that I had to make peace with my protracted grief, which in many ways still haunted me and disrupted my life as much as it had in 2005. It took a few more years for everything to come together, but in early 2020, as I was finishing a couple of shorter films, I began poring over old writing, reworking and honing down various earlier attempts at telling the story, and I began filming at around the same time. I finished filming in late 2021, just days before I finished the editing.

You were working on the film, in one way or another, for a very long time. Do you think that benefited the final piece?

Sometimes an entire short film develops over months, or even years from a little phrase or note to myself, jotted down on a scrap of paper. 

Yes. I am not always the most patient person, but over time I have learned that, at least for me and my creative process, it is a really bad idea to rush things. At the same time, it can be hard to slow down and let things develop at their own pace. I have to consciously give myself permission to do that, because sometimes I will have a very clear idea of how I want a film to turn out, which can lead to the urge to push forward at full speed, because I want to capture everything before I lose that sense of clarity and inspiration. But as I have made more films, I have learned to trust the process. Sometimes an entire short film develops over months, or even years from a little phrase or note to myself, jotted down on a scrap of paper. Most of the titles of my creative works have come to me in that way too. I have learned that if an idea that is important to me really resonates with me I will come back to it and keep trying to figure it out, no matter how long that takes, and no matter how many mistakes I make–or dead ends I pursue–along the way. So, that knowledge helps me slow down and let things go at their own pace, in their own way, which I think results in a finished film with a more fully developed structural and thematic integrity.

Your imagery flows so smoothly with the narration with that juxtaposition you mentioned. How much footage did you capture and how did you then match that to the narration?

I could sense that certain visual themes that I was capturing would go nicely with certain audio narrative elements, so I began to very roughly match things in my mind, which helped me figure out if I needed more footage for certain themes, or variations on the footage I already had for that theme, or new footage entirely, for a new theme or themes

When I started filming, I had only a general idea of what kind of imagery I wanted, which was basically unpeopled skyscapes and waterscapes. From there, I just did a lot of experimenting. I shot a ton of raw footage, and kept somewhere between 800 and 900 clips, each of which was anywhere from maybe 10 seconds long for the shortest clips, to maybe 2 minutes long for the longest ones. I realized certain themes were emerging, so I started analyzing and organizing the clips, placing the best ones in folders I named based on themes, getting rid of anything that was out of focus, shaky, poorly lit, or that inadvertently captured things like people or houses that would be distracting or disruptive to the rhythm of the film. As I was doing this, I was still working on honing down the narrative and figuring out what the final voice-over would be like. Still, I could sense that certain visual themes that I was capturing would go nicely with certain audio narrative elements, so I began to very roughly match things in my mind, which helped me figure out if I needed more footage for certain themes, or variations on the footage I already had for that theme, or new footage entirely, for a new theme or themes. 

Once I finished writing and recording the voice-over, I knew the film would be approximately 75 minutes long, and I knew where the audio narrative shifts would be, like chapters in a book, so then I could really start planning which cycles of imagery would fit best with which parts of the audio narrative. That said, it wasn’t always a smooth and precise process. Sometimes I would have what I thought was a great plan for certain footage to accompany a certain part of the audio, only to find that when I put the two together they did not mesh as smoothly as I had hoped, or one was distracting from the other, rather than harmonious with it, or they just didn’t flow with the pieces that came before or after them. That’s one of the reasons I continued shooting new footage even after the voice-over was finished and I had begun to piece the visual and audio elements together: I could see there were gaps, or the need for more smooth transitions, so I had no choice but to go out and shoot more footage. Usually, at that point, I had a pretty strong sense of what I wanted to use to fill those gaps, so it became a matter of trying to think of places to go to capture that sort of footage, and of course getting lucky enough to be in the right places at the right times as far as capturing magical natural light, shadows, and other consistencies and contrasts with the earlier clips.

What do you hope for your film?

I firmly believe that every story is important and deserves to be told, and that every person who wants to should be able to participate in the world of filmmaking.

In terms of the film’s content, my hope is that it will resonate with people who have experienced similar protracted grief, and that it can be a source of comfort for them as they make their way through that journey of darkness, and at times hopelessness. To me, that is the purpose of all art: to connect people, to help us help each other process and understand this experience called life. I also hope it will resonate with people who have experienced more “normal” grief (whatever that means!), as well as with professionals who study grief and all of its effects, or who work as practitioners counseling those who experience grief.

In terms of the film’s artistic vision, or aesthetic technique, my hope is that it will remind people that you really can be the master of your own story, including your own storytelling method, and that you do not have to have a ton of money or fancy equipment to be true to yourself and the story you want to tell. I firmly believe that every story is important and deserves to be told, and that every person who wants to should be able to participate in the world of filmmaking. I also hope the film serves as a gentle reminder, in this world that often seems to be overly materialistic and status-seeking, that all the wonder of the world, and all the mysteries of time, space, memory, connection, and the rest of the human experience, are right here among us at every moment and in every place, if we focus ourselves and choose to perceive and embrace them. All the magic of life literally is right here, right now – hidden in plain sight.

Forbidden love, systemic prejudice and senseless suffering are three themes deftly explored by NFTS graduate Director Em J. Gilbertson’s clever and nuanced depiction of a time where the imbalance of gender roles and expectations on women were patently absurd.

‘Requiem’ is set against the backdrop of the violent witch trials of the 1600s and centres around a rebellious and spirited minister’s daughter. The short film starts with a blazing fire and guttural scream of anguish delivered by actor Bella Ramsey, who plays alongside Safia Oakley-Green. We are then transported into the joy and beauty of shy young love which is unfairly weighed down by the insanities of the time.

Em has taken experiences from their own life growing up in Liverpool in a society where their queerness and selfhood weren’t readily accepted, as well as their own powerful, all-consuming experiences of first love, and transplanted them into their film with skill and a unique voice. Whilst ‘Requiem’ is undoubtedly a tale of heartbreak, the ending (plot spoiler) takes no prisoners as the oppressed women stand up for themselves and wreak revenge. 

Naturally a lot of conversations about our experiences as queer people fed into the script.

How did you come to be working with Laura Jayne Tunbridge on the script and how did you two form the project together?

Laura and I both studied at the National Film and Television School. As well as being a very talented writer, she is incredibly approachable. I pitched her a very loose idea: a girl watches another burn at the stake whilst her father holds her back. As well as a final image of a group of women burning down a church. I asked Laura if she would like to work on the project with me and she said yes.

One of our early aims was to create a project about the witch trials that centred around women/people assigned female at birth. One of the topics we explore in ‘Requiem’ is a fight for bodily autonomy which is still a very prevalent issue today. Gender roles are something I have explored in my previous work ‘Crashing Waves’ and I’ve always found them utterly absurd. Naturally a lot of conversations about our experiences as queer people fed into the script.

We sat down together and started to come up with scenes on index cards which we moved around. Originally the script was non-chronological but as we developed it became more linear. Our fantastic producer, Michelle Brøndum, came into the process around this time and offered up editorial notes. Michelle’s notes added production value by coming up with clever solutions that never compromised the story, only heightened it. 

As Laura began writing, I started researching. I would feedback what I had learnt in order to  inform the script. Research included the time period and films that dealt with similar themes. We had quite an experimental writing process: one draft was from the perspective of Minister Gilbert and there was even a draft inspired by a tarot card reading. Each draft would unlock something new. Eventually we had a script

It is a nuanced and subtle exploration of young love in a time where we rarely see this kind of representation. How did you work on maintaining the tensions and challenges of the time whilst building in their budding relationship?

My forte is creating a sense of longing on screen.

Falling in love for the first time is a very significant moment in all of our lives. It often crops up in my work. From the very offset, I wanted to explore an innocent young love being encroached upon by a cruel and violent world. I felt the softer their love the more it would juxtapose the brutality of the world. A lot of that work was done in the script by Laura, even when Evelyn and Mary do get their moments alone they always end up interrupted by the men of their village. 

My forte is creating a sense of longing on screen. I believe these scenes excel because of what characters do not say. The script has little dialogue and so it allows for more room to read into the subtext as well as helping to build suspense. 

Your locations are incredible. I read you filmed part of it at the Bromsgrove’s Avoncroft Museum, where else did you film to really create that authenticity?

I was keen to shoot this film as close to the National Film and Television School as possible. Our production designer Freddie Burrows has an immaculate eye for detail and is incredibly well researched. Freddie was adamant on using real locations and not doing a set build. We ended up finding a church about 20 minutes away from the school, St Mary Magdalene’s in Windsor. I felt the interior really worked and one of our challenges was shooting during the first wave of Covid and so we didn’t want a church that was too big. 

Bromsgrove’s Avoncroft is an open air museum, the buildings are all authentic from the time period and have been rebuilt on site. The interior was perfect but the exterior was more complicated as it meant we could only shoot directly at the house due to the fact there were buildings from other periods surrounding our set.  But we managed to find ways around this by creating foreground elements (Freddie built a fence) and making it feel like the house and church were next to each other. And hanging sheets on washing lines to block undesirable background elements. 

The location we found hardest to find was the field with a tree. A lot of locations we looked at were either next to a busy road, under a flight path or had pylons. This location was the last we went to after days of combing around fields. I’m so glad we searched for it because it really was worth it in the end. 

The performances by Bella Ramsey and Safia Oakely-Green are so delicate. How did you work in their performances and build those tender moments?

I think the most intimate moments often have a very pregnant subtext. Where you and the other person know exactly what the other is thinking. Even if you can’t say it loud. 

Both Bella Ramsey and Safia Oakley-Green are incredible actors. It was a real privilege to see them in action. I’m so proud of what they have gone on to achieve. Safia recently won a break through BIFA and Bella is currently in the Last of Us. It’s needless to say that they both brought a lot to their respective roles. 

My taste in performance is typically very naturalistic and nuanced. As an audience member I like looking for the clues that actors leave where characters reveal how they really feel about something. I’m naturally interested in the fragility of love and the intimacy of a quiet moment. I think the most intimate moments often have a very pregnant subtext. Where you and the other person know exactly what the other is thinking. Even if you can’t say it loud.  Both Bella and Safia excelled in comprehending this which is why I picked them. Typically, when I work with actors I just give them a little and hopefully enough confidence to allow them to run with it and make their own choices. Only nudging them when needed too. 

Your score and sound design are haunting and beautifully weave in the tension we know is coming. How was this approached?

I started having conversations with our composer, Madison Willing, early on in the process. Madison had come up with three themes that she wanted to explore when we were at script stage. A theme for the men, a theme for Mary and a theme for the women. Madison introduced smaller elements for each theme throughout until at the end it became a big epic piece of music. 

Chats with Miles Sullivan, our sound designer, surrounded making this a very subjective experience and so Miles would pick parts of the sound design to really highlight and bring out. An example being when Evelyn is in the church with her Father and meets Matthew, Miles really heightened the sound of the basket in order to put us in Evelyn’s experience. Both of their work really adds to the feeling of the film. 

The cinematography moves from light to dark, really immersing us in the story, and bringing us to the final burning. How was this planned out?

One of my favourite parts of the process was working with  our cinematographer Joseph Guy. We wanted to create something which felt naturalistic but with an ominous atmosphere.  One of the challenges that cropped up was limitations due to covid, it was something that we took into consideration early in the process and decided to create static and subjective frames. 

I think in terms of the film moving from light to dark, it’s actually a happy accident. We planned to shoot the pyre scene around blue hour but the day of the shoot there was a huge lighting storm. Which meant we were unable to start shooting until after sunset.  I think the night time works better, it makes the fire look more striking and the tone is weightier. The fact that it tells the story of going from light to dark is an added bonus. 

What are your hopes for the film?

I hope that the audience feels the highs and lows of the film, the injustice, the blossoming of love and the danger of the men lurking around every corner. 

I think the beauty of art is that it can be read in many different ways. I hope that however this film affects you that it creates a dialogue as I truly believe the only way to move forward is to have difficult conversations. 

Today marks one year since the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine. A year in which the world seemed to take a giant leap backwards, with the upheaval causing trauma and tragedy for millions of lives.

‘Once Upon a February’ by Russian filmmaker Julia ​​Shlenskaya is an intensely personal project that makes a brave attempt to come to terms with the shock of the invasion. Julia is a diverse contemporary filmmaker and artist who, through her work, challenges viewers to reflect on their inner worlds and explore a range of emotions, memories, fears and insecurities.

The film deftly explores the absurd and nonsensical nature of the war through the eyes of a young boy. Through a bizarre and reflective series of montages, Julia asks her audience to reflect on the incomprehensible nature of the war and the way people have reacted. ‘Once Upon a February’ forces us to look inward as the war rages on. Rocks Blog had the pleasure of talking to her about creating this film as a means to open up a discussion about this incredibly important subject matter and her creative craft.

The film uses surreal language, the only language that can even partially illustrate an overwhelming range of feelings that we are forbidden to talk about or express in words.

As a filmmaker, I can only imagine how hard yet crucial it is to explore such a monumental issue. Where did ‘Once Upon a February’ start for you?

The day the war broke out I was working on another film. It was about an elementary school teacher, an adult immersed in a child world. It was supposed to show the contrast between the joyful, naive world of children and the heavy-burdened, grey world of adults. In this movie my character was constantly in doubt and entangled in his desires, which eventually faded over time. This film was supposed to be a reflection on how people sometimes abandon their bright and beautiful children’s world to that of a dark and ordinary, boring adult world.

Then the war started. Everything turned upside down. Emotions began to tear me up. I didn’t know how to continue with my day to day life, how to live in a country with people, who pretend that nothing has happened. Those thoughts were driving me crazy. The media was discussing the war so rationally, so seriously trying to justify this act of aggression. This is how the idea for this film was born.

After coming up with the initial idea, did you write a loose narrative structure to follow?

The story in this film is not complex and very straightforward. But it is not possible to present it in a chronological or retrospective way, because these structures don’t highlight emotions and feelings, which are the main focus of the film. It’s about the ‘right here and right now’, the present moment. Current emotions that we live through every day. We can’t fully reflect or talk about those feelings, as they are not fully experienced or understood. Therefore, from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to have a loose way of presenting this narrative, a way, which is focusing on images and emotions.

Seeing it through the eyes of a child perfectly encapsulates the insanity – what direction did you give your performers for them to bring out the surrealism?

I don’t usually reveal the exact emotions that my actors should live through. I want to see their take and their performance. I treat it as an experiment, the result of which I see on location there and then. I give them certain tasks and study the results. The actors don’t usually know what exactly they are doing and what they were supposed to do, so they give a natural reaction. Also, each actor has their own individual charisma, which I try to spot beforehand and use in my movies.

I love the collection of nods to the absurdity of the situation – how did you come up with these and work them into the film?

I’m turning unintentional into intentional, and this is how the surreal illusion is created.

Most of these nods were planned in advance. They were inspired by news, announcements, and events. I believe that mundane and often overlooked little things such as gestures, mistakes, etc are often the best sources for inspiration. I’m turning unintentional into intentional, and this is how the surreal illusion is created. I knew I needed to construct a figurative world in my story, so I became a patient observer of the outside world. I am very curious about news, stories, music, art – they also were a great source for collecting images for my film.

The close-up shots bring us right into the emotions of the characters. How did you decide on the angles and shots included?

In this case, I used the close-ups as a tool to help create an immersive atmosphere.

I always prepare a storyboard with the angles in advance. However, when I arrive at the set, I try to look at the storyline with a fresh pair of eyes, as if I’m a different person, operating with intuition and relying on emotions that need to be translated into a frame. I only use storyboards as a starting point. In this case, I used the close-ups as a tool to help create an immersive atmosphere. You become close, can almost feel the madness, feel that it’s real and overwhelming. This is exactly what I felt, after the war started, and feelings that I wanted to express with my work. Close-ups work as a magnifying glass that helps to see and convey emotions.

The whole film seems to be guided by the choppy and abrupt editing. How was this approached?

I studied under the guidance of Sergey Ivanov, who is a renowned expert in the editing world. He taught me that editing is both an emotional and a structural tool, which helps show what was intended. The events that inspired my movie were so sudden, abrupt, unordinary and shocking, that I wasn’t ready for them. I show all of this through my editing.

The colour seems to have been sucked out of the room – how did you work on the grade and tone?

Beige was a very common color for Soviet interiors from the 80-90s. These plain, lifeless interiors are a product of the time. They have their own style and atmosphere, which is achieved through the colours, sounds, smell, and items, that mostly everyone had at that time. It was important for me to set a specific mood and connect to the USSR legacy.

What do you hope for your film?

The main idea of this film is to ask questions and try to interpret emotions, so that in the future it can create a therapeutic effect for another person.

This movie is therapy. It represents feelings which were taken out from within, in order to offload their intensity and be able to reflect on them. Many people in Russia are in shock and puzzled with the emotions, while many are still trying to figure things out. Many 20-40 year olds are on the verge of leaving Russia. it is impossible to live in such a surreal world where their elderly relatives support whatever the government or media says. In childhood we were often taught to obey the elderly and respect them, and this makes the whole situation more complex and problematic. The main idea of this film is to ask questions and try to interpret emotions, so that in the future it can create a therapeutic effect for another person.

‘Once Upon a February’, a surreal micro drama, will be screened at Brighton Rocks in June this year.

Filmmaker Mick Child, founder of Forge Photography & Film Production, first graced our screens at Brighton Rocks in 2022 with his live action short ‘Villa’. He is back with a thought-provoking micro movie, ‘This Bee Movie, Our Future’, focusing on the increasing strains on our climate. Mick has been tinkering with photography since the age of 12 and now works with his son George, currently studying film at university, to bring his passionate filmmaking to the next level. Mick is very much a self-taught talent and after dabbling with a few film styles and forms he has recently discovered a fervour for macro photography and documentary filmmaking. Mick has a fervent eye for detail and a true zeal for filmmaking, and we hope to see a lot more content from him over the coming years.

‘This Bee Movie, Our Future’ is wholly immersive with incredibly detailed and considered shots of bees at such a precise level you really feel as if you have been shrunk down in size. The concise levels of care and preparation involved in this type of filmmaking mean it is not for the impatient, but patience has certainly paid off for Mick. Whilst he knew his footage had something special, it needed another layer to truly bring it all to life. To this end, Mick employed the services of friend and actor Dane Foxx to narrate. Dane’s gentle intonations and dulcet tones further envelop the audience into the story whilst keeping the gravitas of the message. Allow yourself to be engrossed by these fabulous little workers and, as the film asks us to do, consider their significance to our lives and future.

The way I’ve approached the macro in this film is very different to other filmmaking I’ve done.

Apart from the obvious and worrying environmental impact, why bees?

A while ago I read that the government had issued temporary authority for the use of a neonicotinoid pesticide treatment for sugar beet which is sadly again the case for 2023. I understand the need for sugar in our modern world, but at the same time read about the overall importance of bees as “critical pollinators”.

What first got you into macro and how do you think it differs from other filmmaking you have done?

I have always been fascinated by the photography in the David Attenborough programs. I was featured as an apprentice in a Canon magazine back in 2015 shooting some friends who had won gold at London 2012. Around that time I saw someone featured in the same magazine doing macro photography and I was looking for a new creative outlet. Out of the blue, my stepmom also a keen photographer, sent me some macro images she’d taken on an experience day and the penny dropped. I did however feel that the images we were seeing weren’t particularly clever, they were being captured in controlled environments. The lighting and camera controlled and it took a lot of time, but ultimately the images we were seeing weren’t of animals and insects free to roam, they were in captivity.

“In terms of focus, a lot is done by eye because my subjects are so erratic and this takes a lot of practice to perfect.”

The way I’ve approached macro in this film is very different to other filmmaking I’ve done. Firstly, I like to win over the bees. I slowly introduce myself and kit over the course of a day or two. The kit becomes heavy so I have to come up with solutions to help me with the camera’s weight. This can include temporary supports for my slider, a strategically placed line to suspend the camera from and wearing a body vest or using a handheld glide. I have to shoot some handheld shots or place the camera rig on the ground. In terms of focus, a lot is done by eye because my subjects are so erratic and this takes a lot of practice to perfect. I work out roughly the shot I want, set the focal length manually and away we go. You need a lot of time and patience.

How much footage did you end up with over the months you were working on this and how was that then pared down into the edited film we see?

Whilst I was perfecting my skills I deleted an awful lot of footage. Shooting this stuff in raw light or even 4K XF-AVC is very memory hungry. We didn’t have the resources available to keep large amounts of data so we had to be brutal. My workflow involved colour grading and sharpening, then stabilising if necessary before saving as smaller ProRes clips. I was spending 4-6 hours a day and 2-3 days a week filming and amassed upwards of 20 hours of footage. It took 6 months because some of our flowers that the bees like are not always in bloom so there were quiet periods. Then, out of the blue and totally unexpected, the solitary bees turned up in September, thousands of them. What a treat that was.

Bees are known for their hard working ethic not dissimilar to your approach to filmmaking. How did you decide on what to focus on in their numerous activities?

I was going to film a friend’s hive but that didn’t really support my message. I was concerned with the contradiction to my ideals of not necessarily wanting to shoot animals in captivity. Honey bees are really a domesticated creature, much like livestock on a farm. I was almost giving up the idea when the solitary bees turned up. Pure luck for me, I spent a week with them just relaxing in the autumn sun and watching what they did.

“The hairs raised on the back of my neck the first time I heard that because that’s exactly how I feel about photography. Sometimes it’s my moment, nobody else’s.”

There is a passage in ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ by Ben Stiller that I really connect with. In the film Walter Mitty tracks down photojournalist Sean O’Connor who is shooting a rare snow leopard in the Afghan Himalayas. When the Snow Leopard walks into frame the photographer lets it walk away without taking the shot he says; “If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it” The hairs raised on the back of my neck the first time I heard that because that’s exactly how I feel about photography. Sometimes it’s my moment, nobody else’s.

How did you work together with Dane to write the narration and at what stage was this done?

Normally when I work with Dane he will give me feedback about the script and we adjust it accordingly. On this occasion however, he was totally happy with what I’d written.

What tone were you looking for in the writing and why did you choose Dane to narrate?

I was looking for a sense of fun. I believe that if you relax your audience they will hear your message, and this is a message aimed in equal amounts at children and adults alike. I felt Dane’s style which we’ve used before was perfect. Like I say softly, softly with a strong message.

Dane, you are brilliantly factitious with a playful little background notes. How did you approach this narration?

“I think I viewed the script as if through the eyes of the bee. How would that feel for the bee?”

The only subjects I have previously narrated are for children and subconsciously, I think I viewed the script as if through the eyes of the bee. How would that feel for the bee? I have played the victim in film before and find it holds a vulnerability I can relate to. The bee has no choice in its destiny, it is in the hands of humans who are destroying their environment.

Were you watching the film as you recorded? How did you find the right nuance with each little subject matter?

I had seen the film but I didn’t want to watch it as I narrated it. I really believed in the script as it was written and found myself empathising with it. I was supercharged to get it recorded and felt affected by the subject. Because I enjoyed learning about the subject, particularly the bee’s struggle, I thought it was important for me to focus on my larynx as I recited the words to ensure a gentle projection of my voice.

What are your hopes for ‘The Bee Movie’

Mick: I really enjoy documentary making and hope that people can see that I’m sincere and professional in my approach.

Dane: I would like to be involved in subjects that emotionally move me. The bees gave me warmth, rage, frustration and suffering. If I have the ability, as you imply, to be factitious whilst being playful so I hope dark subjects should be something I can help people find easier to digest with my approach.

Generative AI in all of its weird and wonderful forms is set to bring about a huge revolution in filmmaking. Whether ultimately this is for better or worse, whilst this technology is continuously evolving, now is the time to be embracing the advances and playing with the various forms. This is exactly what artist and filmmaker Matteo Di Gioia has done in ‘Italian Boi’, a gaudy and flamboyant mix of live action, CGI and AI animation brought to life as an incredibly watchable music video. 

Matteo, founder of The Jack Stupid creative studio, takes his audience on a queer and delightful narrative journey exploring the often unfavourable, nuanced tropes associated with a typical Italian man. His music video is heavily guided by the featured lyrics and is visually enriched by a vast and impressive array of AI generated images interspersed into the live action and CGI, creating a somewhat chaotic but wholly enjoyable watch. As an artist and freethinker, Matteo further invites his audience to explore the images and messages hidden within his fast-paced musical delight as multidimensional art i. Amateur AI aficionados such as myself and anyone with an interest in incorporating AI into their projects are in for a treat. 

The lure of the Italian anti-culture is deep in this video, yet the goal was to keep the tone light and bright.

I love your stereotypical representation of ‘The Italian Boi’. How was he born?

We wanted to tell a love story about a cultural clash. We have someone who falls in love with an Italian Boi who is attractive and charismatic, but they soon realize he’s a bit of an ignorant, chauvinist, lazy mama’s boy. Furious, they break him into fragments which fly off and land across the nation. We decided to have three visual worlds: a human, a 3D-modelled Italian Boi and an AI-generated stream of Italian Zeitgeists. 

Prior to shooting, we designed and developed the 3D model and animated those scenes. Parallelly, a geek squad of our people prompted DALL•E to obtain thousands of pictures that could be sequenced to create a visual stream of consciousness that best described the Italian Boi’s upbringing and environment, featuring the good and the bad! Italian politicians, historical facts, trashy personalities of today. These computer generated sequences were pre-finished ahead of shooting so that once the filming was over I could use all the ingredients and immediately move on to the editing. 

Your music video is an audacious and surreal dream incorporating so many different elements. How did you go about planning what to include and the rough narrative structure?

I started imagining the scenes verse after verse and it started coming together quite naturally. Given that we decided to have three visual worlds this seemed like a natural point of division.

The starting point was always the lyrics which tell the story of these two characters. Full disclosure, I’m the author of this song, music and lyrics. For the music video, I started imagining the scenes verse after verse and it started coming together quite naturally. Given that we decided to have three visual worlds this seemed like a natural point of division. The sections that contain vocals would be live action so that the actor can lip sync, the instrumental parts would mainly be animated and the short DALL.E sequences would be tossed in the mix when relevant whilst the longer DALL.E sequences would play the main role during the guitar solo and the final riffs. In our animatics, each world had a key color so that everybody could immediately spot which technique would be used in each scene. I like to start working with post-its on a table and then moving to digital boards to shuffle things and eventually making a rough animatic as the music plays.

The tropes focussed on the typical ‘Italian Boi’ are brilliant. How did you go about planning what to include?

I wrote the character and set his environment so that we could imagine the Italian Boi’s train of thought which took the shape of a wishlist: “Berlusconi running naked in a field”, “solarium and underwear with big logos”, “Pinocchio hitting a bong underwater”. We then divided the wish list into colors and started mounting and dismounting the puzzle over the song structure until the balance felt right. During the production, many new ideas came to life and a few old ideas changed radically, but I hope all of them kept conceptual coherence, organizing chaos is super fun.

I am both fascinated and terrified by the rise in AI technology at the moment and love the inclusions in your video. What prompts were you giving DALL•E to produce your images and how did you then manipulate them to what you wanted?

After some hours of interaction, the AI behavior becomes less mysterious and manipulating it feels easier.

We started picking phrases from our wishlist and testing them out, prompting the AI with various deliveries of the same concept, varying and shuffling words to adjust the result. This approach did the trick for the brief sequences such as “Luca Di Maio energy vampire flying in the pink sky”. Longer sequences were trickier. I don’t remember the exact wording for the sequence but as an example “The Pope rides a pink bull in Rome” after a few dozen frames progressively blended into “Pagan orgy fire party painting”. We then morphed “Mandolin shredding in flames” into “Cannon battle in a soccer field” into “Gladiators slay in the Coliseum” into “Pantani’s skeleton wins the tour de Mars”. I picked the images that suited my purpose and organized them into stop-motion-like sequences to get a feel of where the story was going and to have a clearer idea of what to ask the AI. After some hours of interaction, the AI behavior becomes less mysterious and manipulating it feels easier. Typing down the name of a color or one artistic movement may suddenly turn the search in the right direction. I’d suggest being patient, setting a line, and tweaking it progressively, a word at a time, search after search. 

How many images did your geek squad eventually attain from DALL•E and how did you choose and collate those together?

We normally do a lot of stop motion so we developed an eye for sequencing stills and obtaining an animated scene.

At some point, seven people were prompting the server at once and each of them had tens of windows calculating at the same time! This went on for over a week. Thousands of pics were downloaded and hundreds of them were hand-picked only for us to realise we needed many more, and more specific ones. We normally do a lot of stop motion so we developed an eye for sequencing stills and obtaining an animated scene. The process is the usual: set a strong start and end, then set the main keyframes, and finally choose the in-between frames to fill the sequence. Watch and adjust. If some jumps are too quirky, rearrangements and horizontal flips come in very handy. It is a very intuitive process based on trial and error.

With so many different elements, how did you work on the edit to put it all to the music and garner that manic yet story-led flow?

Having the animatic done before shooting was crucial! All was time-based, all the keystone scenes were set and some ‘question mark’ blank spaces were left to be filled by the DALL.E sequences, which we knew would be erratic by nature. I guess the manic flow comes from playing music and translating musical concepts on screen. A few people working on this video are musicians, and if music is sound organised in time, a video is images organised in time!

What do you hope for your film?

I’d like this film to make the audience reflect on cultural and national stereotypes, which are often partly, and humorously, true. I also want the process to be fun. As the lore on the topic is deep, I believe irony is the key. I personally love those works that can be quickly enjoyed with a light heart but they’re also concealing more under their surface. I always try to achieve some pleasurable layering. I hope you will enjoy the vision!