If you want to make a case for Richard Curtis as the emblematic film-maker of the New Labour years, you can start with an uncanny coincidence. Four Weddings and a Funeral - a film that features a sudden Scottish heart attack and the eventual unlikely romantic triumph of a gauche former public schoolboy - was released in Britain on the day after Labour leader John Smith died, 13 May 1994. (I went to see it a couple of weeks later at the Screen on the Green in Islington, London; just up the road Blair and Brown were dividing the spoils in the restaurant Granita.) The film immediately seemed to catch a mood. Death and romance were already in the air; Major's Tories were waiting for their last rites; things could only get better.You can't separate atmospheres out, quite, or see where one begins and another ends, but certainly in that summer of its genesis you could find some of New Labour's shiny, happy geography in what we have come to know as Curtisland. Four Weddings located a different kind of Britain to any that had been filmed before. It was neither kitchen-sink gritty nor carry-on smutty. It was an apolitical place, full of can-do possibility, obsessed with the educated middle class, perfectly relaxed about the filthy rich, much more in love with sentiment than ideas, and insatiable in its optimism; it was also in thrall to the idea of happy endings. This mixing of realities seemed like a two-way process. Curtis's inspired initiative for charitable giving in Africa, Comic Relief, which had begun a decade before, could hardly have been more Blairite in its simplicity. It concerned itself not with ideology or history or politics, but made a direct emotional appeal; it was messianic about fun and celebrity: have a laugh, resurrect a career, save the world.Anti-Northern Irish hegemony:
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| Where all those fans of The Wire & Luther when you need them, eh? |
Who or what is Le Donk?
When Paddy and I were in bands together, there were always these guys hanging around who thought they were svengalis, but were just roadies in a suit. Paddy created this persona, but we never found the right vehicle until I had the idea for Five-Day Features.
What are the rules?
The only rule is that it has to be shot in five days. These days even an SLR camera can record hi-def video. It’s that punk mentality. It’s not about somebody putting up £2 million and putting pressure on you, it’s about smaller characters and crazy ideas.
What are you offering?
We’re not offering any money yet, just the idea. We’ve proved that five days is long enough to make a film for £30k and get a release. The Donk DVD and website will be a working manifesto of how to do it. In the end, people are going to have to get off their arses and do it themselves. You can send a film in, and if we like it, we’ll give it our stamp, maybe build a body of likeminded films and help release them.
Who’s it for?
There’s no demographic. You’d imagine it would be for some brand new kid putting stuff on YouTube, but it could equally be for a 75-year-old who made some shorts on super-8 in the 60s. If Steven Spielberg was making something over here and his filming got delayed, he could do it. We’ve already been contacted by filmmakers from New York.
How do you see it developing?
Hopefully we can raise a pot of £1 million, or see if Panasonic, Sony or Apple would give us equipment, to become this titchy studio.
PRODUCTION TIMELINE
Shortly before the Arctic Monkeys/Amy Winehouse two-nighter at Old Trafford in July 2008, Shane has the idea to plant Donk backstage and film what happens.
* Day One (Thursday)
Shooting Donk’s domestic life in Nottingham. Retired rapper Scorzayzee plays his lodger. Donk and Scorz head for Manchester in a clapped-out minibus. Shane winds Paddy up by telling him to sleep in the van and pay for his own meals.
Shooting Donk’s domestic life in Nottingham. Retired rapper Scorzayzee plays his lodger. Donk and Scorz head for Manchester in a clapped-out minibus. Shane winds Paddy up by telling him to sleep in the van and pay for his own meals.
* Day Two (Friday)
Donk meets the roadies. Scorz sent off with camera to improvise his storyline. It’s better than the Donk stuff. An idea emerges to blag them onstage as a double act on Sunday.
* Day Three (Saturday)
The first gig. Shots of Donk and Scorz rehearsing backstage. Lights blow, sound fails. Everyone tired and pissed off.
* Day Four (Sunday)
The sun shines. Producer Mark begs and bribes for Donk and Scorz to open tonight’s gig. It works! Donk sings, Scorz raps. The audience don’t know what’s hit them.
* Day Five (shot a few months later)
The journey home in triumph. Scorz has a towel inexplicably wrapped around his head. Comedy genius. Really he’s hiding the fact he shaved his skull in the intervening months. Gentlemen, we have a movie.
How to make a 5 Day Feature:
- Shoot in story order to avoid reshoots.
- Use a small cast, base the story around the performances.
- Spend time finding the right location so you don’t have to change and dress it.
- Don’t force a big idea into a small budget. Avoid effects, keep the crew small, cut all the offscreen costs that you can, set yourself rules and stick to them.
EXCLUSIVE: Warp Films and Altitude Film Sales team on Jeremy Dyson-Andy Nyman thriller.
Sherlock co-star Martin Freeman (The Hobbit franchise), George MacKay (Pride) and Andy Nyman (Death At A Funeral) are to star in a feature version of well-received supernatural stage production Ghost Stories, co-written and directed by Jeremy Dyson (The League of Gentlemen) and Nyman, who will reprise his role as professor Goodman.
Principal photography is due to get underway in September with Claire Jones (Sightseers) producing alongside Warp Films’ Robin Gutch (’71). Altitude Films has boarded sales on the thriller and will introduce buyers to the project at the EFM.
In Ghost Stories, Phillip Goodman, professor of psychology and arch-skeptic has his rationality tested to the hilt when he receives a letter apparently from beyond the grave.
His mentor Charles Cameron, the ‘original’ TV parapsychologist went missing fifteen years before, presumed dead and yet now he writes to Goodman saying that the pair must meet.
Cameron, it seems, is still very much alive. And he needs Goodman to find a rational explanation for three unsolved cases that have shaken Cameron to his core.
As Goodman investigates, he meets three haunted people, each with a tale more frightening, uncanny and inexplicable than the last. Gradually, Goodman unearths a hidden truth more terrifying still, that will pull his life apart.
The stage production of Ghost Stories, compared by critics to The Woman In Black for its scare factor, was a critical and commercial hit when it opened at the Liverpool Playhouse and Lyric Hammersmith before transferring to the West End’s Duke of York’s theatre and later playing in Toronto, Moscow, Sydney, Shanghai and Lima, Peru.
Dyson is best known as a member of sketch comedy team The League of Gentlemen along with Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. He also co-wrote and directed Sky Arts hit series Psychobitches which won the 2015 Rose D’or for Best Comedy.
Nyman’s acting career has included roles in Kick Ass 2 and Severance and voice roles in Shaun The Sheep and Minions. He is a co-writer and director of magician and illusionist Derren Brown’s TV and stage shows including Russian Roulette, Séance, and Messiah.
Genre aficionado Mike Runagall, managing director of Altitude Film Sales, said: “Having been totally captivated by the original stage show’s devilish plot and unique thrills, we are beyond excited to team-up with the filmmakers to bring this unforgettable, haunting and one of a kind supernatural thriller to audiences worldwide.”
Freeman will next be seen in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War and alongside Tina Fey in comedy Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.BAFTA Rising Star nominee and Screen Star of Tomorrow MacKay, who broke out in 2013 musical-comedy Sunshine On Leith, is currently filming anticipated Bad Robot-Hulu TV series 11.22.63.
Neurauter and Marino’s previous producing credits include Corin Hardy’s “The Hallow,” “Better Living Through Chemistry” and “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.” Altitude’s recent credits include “The Girl With All the Gifts” and “Ghost Stories.”Warp announcing the principal photography on their website
EXCLUSIVE:WME has signed Mark Tonderai, who directed House At The End Of The Street, the romantic thriller that stars Jennifer Lawrence, Max Theriot and Elisabeth Shue and just got picked up for 2012 release by Relativity Media. The film is Tonderai’s follow-up to his directing debut Hush, which created buzz in the UK, was nominated for a British Independent Film Award, and made the courtship of the director a competitive one among Hollywood agencies. WME will rep him for film and TV. Hush was acquired for U.S. distribution by IFC. Tonderai has started Shona Films with partner Zoe Stewart, and they are developing several projects including an adaptation of the Roger Smith book Wake Up Dead, and they are also working on The Kill Team, a drama about the attempted siege of Sierra Leone in 2002. Tonderai is managed by Brian Lutz and repped in the UK by Josh Varney.
Budget See production budget and Prints and Advertising (P&A) Budget. Domestic Box OfficeTotal money spent on tickets by moviegoers in the United States and Canada. Fanboy EffectCertain films have a very loyal following, usually due to their source material. These people will flock to the film as soon as it opens, either over the opening weekend or, more likely, opening night. This inflates these numbers, reducing both the Internal Multiplier and the overall Multiplier. Home MarketThe Home Market refers to revenue derived from people viewing movies at home. It is broken down into three sections: rentals, sales and TV rights. Combined these bring in more than double the domestic box office and can turn a film that was a mid-level hit to a monster hit, or lift a film that struggled at the box office to one that shows a considerable profit. And to think, just a couple of decades ago studios were suing VCR manufacturers and Video Rental stores claiming they would kill the industry! Of course now DVD is king, representing more than 80% of rentals and nearly all of the sales. The Hulk EffectBack in 2003 when Hulk came out, the studio bowed to incredible pressure from fans and released early footage of the special effects. The plan was to get the fans talking and build up the word-of-mouth. However, the special effects were in the early stages and were so bad that the buzz it generated killed any chance the film had. More recently the same happened to Catwoman with the early look at Halle Berry's outfit. Just goes to show you, sometimes there is such thing as bad publicity. Internal MultiplierA film's weekend box office divided by its Friday number. It's basically a measure of the film's word-of-mouth, with 3.0 being the best most films can get these day while 2.3 is generally the bottom rung. Certain films have an inherent advantage (like those aimed kids), while the Fanboy Effect can shrink the number as the hardcore fans flock to the movie on Friday. International box officeTotal box office from all nations outside United States and Canada. LegsLegs is a term used to refer to how long a film lasts in theaters. MultiplierA film's total box office divided by its opening weekend box office. Another measure of the film's word-of-mouth but with a much wider range of possibilities. Films with below 2.0 are not unheard of, while 6.0 or more are a possibility. Just as a side note, not too long ago films with a multiplier of 10 or more were quite common, but the economics have changed and a big opening weekend is too important to the studios and the home market shortens a film's legs. Prints and Advertising (P&A) BudgetPrints are the actual physical film that are shown in theaters and are quite expensive to make and distribute, costing about $2,000 per print. Each theater needs at least one print and possibly more depending on how many screens the film is playing on. The advertising part of the budget is the amount spent on just that, advertising. Most of the money is spent on TV, but radio, newspapers and magazines, the Internet and in theater advertising are also very important. The average film spends $34.4 million on P&A, while some films have spent more than $100 million. Production BudgetThe amount of money it cost make the movie including pre-production, film and post-production, but excluding distribution costs. The average cost of a wide release is about $65 million, with the most expensive films topping $200 million. Screens & Screen CountThe actual screen the movie is projected on. Most Theaters have multiple screens, with largest having two dozen screens or more. Screen Count is simply the number of screens a film is playing on, but this is rarely used domestically, but internationally it is used to measure how wide a release is. The Sequel Effect, a.k.a. SequelitisThink of this as a sub-species of the Fanboy Effect specific to sequels. Such films have a built in audience due to the original movie (as otherwise making the sequel is pointless). Theaters & Theater CountA theater is any place a movie is showing from the smallest cinema on the art house circuit to the largest megaplex. A film's Theater Count is simply the number of theaters a film is playing in at a given time. Domestically Theater Count is used to measure how wide a release is. Worldwide box officeDomestic Box Office plus the International Box Office.
