Bfi-Filmmakers-Issue-4-Spring-2016
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BFI FILMMAKERS 08 ISSUE 4 | SPRING 2016 04 WELCOME Ben Roberts on future worlds, imagined worlds and the richness of contemporary British film 05 IRENE’S GHOST Iain Cunningham and Rebecca Mark-Lawson discuss the development of their intimate documentary 06 SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS Andrea Gibb looks back on the development of her adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s children’s classic 10 07 THE HARD STOP Filmmakers George Amponsah and Dionne Walker on tackling an incendiary story 08 VIRTUAL REALITY The future is now – how virtual reality and narrative cinema might just find common ground 10 NOTES ON BLINDNESS Directors Pete Middleton and James Spinney on finding a way to visualize one man’s loss of sight 12 INTO DARKNESS Producer Mike Brett discusses Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness VR Experience 14 LAURIE ROSE The cinematographer talks about his collaboration 06 07 with director Ben Wheatley and their latest film Free Fire 16 KEN & ME Acclaimed screenwriter Paul Laverty discusses his working relationship Ken Loach and their new drama I, Daniel Blake 18 THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS Director Colm McCarthy and producers Camille Gatin and Angus Lamont on their dystopian vision of the future 14 16 22 WAR ON EVERYONE CONTENTS Foul mouthed and funny – director John Michael McDonagh on his US-set third feature Cover image from Notes on Blindness 18 22 Editor IAN HAYDN SMITH Creative Director PAUL MARC MITCHELL All information correct at time of going to press. BFI gratefully acknowledges permission to use copyright material. Copyright holders are acknowledged on the page containing the individual copyright item. Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders. If there are any inadvertent omissions we apologise to those concerned, and ask that you contact us so that we can correct any oversight as soon as possible. WELCOME... n his essential book ‘In The is that it is most effective when it seems Blink Of An Eye’, acclaimed to fuse two contradictory elements – I editor, sound designer, director the general and the personal – into a and writer Walter Murch looks to the kind of mass intimacy. The work itself future and ponders on “the diabolical is unchanging, aimed at an audience of invention [for future filmmakers] of a millions, and yet – when it works – a film black box that could directly convert seems to speak to each member of the a single person’s thoughts into a audience in a powerfully personal way.” viewable cinematic reality. You would When senior production and attach electrodes to various points development executive Mary Burke Design still from In the Eyes of the Animal on your skull and simply think the and I visited Marshmallow Laser Feast film into existence.” design studio in Hackney (featured in this issue) late last year, I tried out their I don’t believe the collaborator in In The Eyes of the Animal VR project ‘Why VR Storytelling does not currently So many questions, but as we’ve Murch would like that. But what does and had the experience of being – or at work. And can it ever work?’ He argued entered the new year and are eager to he think of those other black boxes least empathising with – another living that “storytelling is a retrospective ask questions about form and content making their presence felt – the Oculus thing. It was exceptionally moving and thing… Hardware mimics real life and in film – and we believe in evolution – Rift, Google Cardboard and other powerfully personal. real life timing, whilst current non- we decided to explore the world of Virtual Reality headsets that might – But was it film? Was it storytelling? gaming VR content relies on existing VR in this issue. or might not – be an evolution in film Sort of, but then I don’t know if it was forms of linear narrative. These things Meanwhile, we’ll continue to and storytelling, and which could lead trying to be either. do not co-exist. Yet.” support the creative ambitions and us away from the communal experience Mike Woods (aka @cartelmike) is Perhaps they do. And they’re called collaborations of our best emerging and that has defined ‘cinema’ for a century? the co-founder of White Rabbit VR. He ‘games’. Can ‘real life/real time’ co-exist established independent filmmakers – After all, he says, “the paradox of cinema recently wrote a piece in Medium entitled with a linear narrative in film? Doesn’t many of whom gathered in Manchester this make documentary filmmakers the last September for our inaugural NET. obvious pioneers? How do you make the WORK talent Weekender – that make Participants at the NET.WORK Weekender, at HOME in Manchester, September 2015 kind of sudden, switch-in-perspective the UK one of the most exciting places ‘cuts’ – which we take for granted in film in the world to work in film. – in a 360° environment? How do you Walter Murch closes ‘In The marry VR’s first person/present tense Blink of An Eye’ by suggesting that with our dependency on a narrator? “cinema will be with us a hundred Is there a version of a communal years from now. Different of course, experience to be had or is it exclusively but still cinema. Its persistence will personal – the end of cinema, even? be fuelled by the unchanging need for What’s the relevance to independent stories in the dark, and its evolution will filmmakers? Or is it just a theme park be sparked by the technical revolutions ride – a Captain Eo for millennials? now getting under way.” Besides, what is ‘film’ anyway? The future of film is bright. Enjoy. BEN ROBERTS Director of the BFI Film Fund 04 BFI.ORG.UK IRENE’S GHOST IAIN CUNNINGHAM AND DIRECTOR Iain Cunningham PRODUCER Rebecca Mark-Lawson REBECCA MARK-LAWSON SHOOT DURATION 3 years LOCATION Nuneaton and the UK TALK ABOUT BRINGING FORMAT Digital IRENE’S GHOST TO PRODUCTION COMPANIES Forward Slash Films / Irene’s Ghost Ltd, in THE SCREEN association with Tyke Films PRODUCTION PARTNERS BFI, WORDS BY JOE UTICHI Creative England, Wellcome Trust, Maudsley Charity FAMILY HISTORY ain Cunningham never knew his mother Irene. He was three I when she died, after suffering severe postpartum psychosis since his birth, and the devastating effect of her loss on Iain’s father made her an absent figure during his childhood years. “She wasn’t spoken about in our house when I was growing up,” he says now. “Her life and what happened to her was always a bit of a mystery to me.” When he turned 18, he received a box of her possessions, including a baby book of his that she’d filled out. “There were crazy sentences in it, and things like that. I wanted to connect with her; I’ve always felt a deep need to find out what happened to her.” Over the last four years, Cunningham has been recording the process of unpicking that mystery for Iain Cunningham and a documentary feature, Irene’s Ghost. Rebecca Mark-Lawson “It’s really a film about a process I (PHOTO: PAUL MARC MITCHELL) was doing for myself,” he explains. “Capturing that became the genesis of it. But I didn’t want to make it as a straight documentary. I wanted it always Cunningham. “All the way through the didn’t at the time, but that takes time to to have a magic feel, and with animation film, what I was trying to do was put process. He’s in the film and, in a way, I thought I could bring that out, because We want this myself in her footsteps, and so part of it’s built around our relationship because the baby book is illustrated in an “ that was understanding what the we’re almost a mirror of each other in the interesting way and tells its own story.” film to be part illness is like. We want this film to way that we’ve dealt with it.” The BFI came on board with be part of a wider campaign to try The plan is to complete the film Irene’s Ghost following a moving pitch of a wider and raise awareness about later this year, though piecing the story by Mark-Lawson and Cunningham at postpartum psychosis.” together has been the biggest challenge. Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015. (The BFI is also campaign Cunningham began his exploration “Documentaries are especially difficult in backing other documentaries that were ” by talking to his dad. “It wasn’t the edit and always take a lot longer. And pitched that year, including The Lovers something he was keen on talking with the animation element, we’ve got and The Despot, which premieres at maternal mental health, families and about,” he explains. “Then I put an ad a long post-production process,” notes Sundance, along with The Hard Stop, generational things, but it was the in the local paper, and started to meet Mark-Lawson. She started her career which features on page 7.) personal story that drew me in.” up with her old friends, which opened in documentaries, and says there has Cunningham has a background in She jokes that it is like “expensive up networks of people. She worked in a never been a better time to bring them television documentaries and he tapped family therapy”, but the film, which tights factory and used to go on holiday to the screen. “You can now identify producer Rebecca Mark-Lawson, with has the support of charities such as to Margate, and I learned more of these an audience that would want to see whom he’d made short films in the the Wellcome Trust, the Maudsley details about her life.” this film without the traditional route of past, to help him realise the project.