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What the Directors said

JONNY PHILLIPS

THE DONG WITH THE LUMINOUS NOSE

I first worked with Derek Jarman on ‘Waiting for Waiting for Godot’ whilst I was still at drama school and we talked about how he was going to make a film of Edward Lear’s poem. The great Ken Campbell had taken Derek down to Dungeness in Kent with a view to making the film there. Derek fell in love with Dungeness and the rest became history. The Dong was never fully realised, some scenes were shot on Super 8 but Derek moved quickly and was onto other things.

I spent much time with Derek at Dungeness and after his death I moved there and could always see how the beautifully sad poem could fit. With lockdown I could put it off no longer and started to shoot in all weathers and all seasons with the masterful DOP, Oliver Schofield. It was about this time that the small boats began to arrive on the beaches and suddenly the poem had another meaning. Lear’s writing may seem childlike but it’s survived because it comes with a sorrowful resonance that speaks to us all. 

The film was made very much in the spirit of Derek Jarman, friends and family collaborating with ingenuity and fun. Tilda voices the poem with such elegance and heart whilst Guy Sigsworth’s score brings the film hauntingly together letting the words come round again with something very important to say to us.

DAN MCKAY

ONLY SLEEPING

As current events coax Nate's past to the surface, he becomes possessed by the shadowy forces at work beneath his field of vision and unwittingly embarks upon a journey to re-embrace his younger self. ONLY SLEEPING is an experimental short film which smudges sound and image to explore the boundaries between remembered events and the strange, guiding forces of the dreaming mind.

REUBEN HENDY

ECHO

Echo is a product of the 2nd lockdown in late 2021, and the uneasy disorientation I felt with being hemmed back inside of four walls, with dread lurking just outside and threatening to break in. Time felt very different then for me, and the slippery, fluid nature of it was very apparent - that's where the seed of the idea came from. Due to the restrictions in place, I wrote, shot and edited the film alone at home, with my non-actor housemates as the cast. I wanted it to feel bleak, like a predetermined course of events - like the echo of a blunt sound that's already occurred, just out of frame. I think I left a lot on the table with the concept and would love to revisit it one day.

ALEXANDER THOMAS

BEVERLY and BEVERLY BEHIND THE SCENES

Cass Pennant was the driving force of the initial idea to make a short film relating to 2-Tone music. I’d worked with Cass on the documentary feature Casuals which looked at the fashion history of the Casual movement. Cass has a real passion for British sub cultures and he wanted to do something on the 2-Tone movement. We’d got on great on Casuals and work well together and he asked me whether I’d be interested and writing and directing a film about 2-Tone. I wasn’t sure at first, not obviously having been there or experienced it first hand and, but Cass insisted that with the right research, and if he lined up the right people for me to talk, we could make it work. So I agreed, and the rest is history. The plan Cass and I had was always to make the short with a view to proving our capacity for telling the story as filmmakers to attract the funding to make a feature film of the same topic. It also meant  we got to build up a following and show the commercial possibilities of the story. 

2-Tone is a fascinating bit of social history - an important cultural moment – 1979 is really the beginning of a new era – it’s when Thatcher came to power – but even globally I think the kind of neoliberal hegemony that’s now crumbling in front of our very eyes was really signaling a new form of capitalism at exactly that time. I think what’s really interesting about 2-Tone is its engagement with issues of race, class and gender, but within that of course it’s not like everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet the whole time. Within bands you might have people with different levels interest in or commitment to social issues, or even outright different views in same cases, and obviously in terms of audiences at gigs you’d regularly have racist skins in there fighting people of colour or even other non-racist skins, or probably anyone really – at the same time they maybe there unquestioningly dancing to the music, which has Jamaican ska roots and they were lapping up – I mean the whole thing can look bizarre to an outsider. It’s just evocative of the social complexity and contradictions that exist. And despite all that you look back and so much of the music was politically so astute, so literate, so new – it took hold and help mould things – and it gave a kind of voice to a whole generation of people - largely non-white people felt represented as British for the first time by these 2-Tone bands – they felt a sense of belonging and pride, but it wasn’t exclusively for them, white Britain was going mad for it too…so it was a Britishness everyone could get behind in that sense.

GEORGE WARD

NOTES ON A GUN UNFIRED: THE NON VIOLENT PROTEST OF LA HEINE

The reason that rewatching this video essay wasn’t as painful for me as usual was down to just how much I loved the film it was based on and how, despite watching La Haine countless times for this project, I would happily sit down with a new friend and show it to them again.

When making this video essay, the most important thing to me was capturing that feeling of excitement from the first time I saw La Haine at the Exeter Phoenix. Of course, this is not to say the political content of the project is not equally as important. Instead, I feel as if this would be the case no matter what medium I decided to use. If you are to make the choice to create a video essay rather than a written one, there should be a good reason to do so and, looking back, La Haine’s indescribable style, character and slickness was my reason.

This video essay means a lot to me as it allowed me to take a familiar film and view it in so many different ways, watching it anew every time. One technique I used in my many many rewatches of the film was to count, time and measure certain aspects, like the amount of time the gun was on screen, the amount of times it was shot etc. This technique felt inherently uncreative, instead feeling rigid and scientific and often pointless.

However, if you simply love a film so much to offer unbiased opinions on it, give it a go. Watching a film in such a ‘wrong’ way can allow you to see it in a completely unfamiliar way. You will see patterns, notice directorial decisions and, admittedly, go insane trying to work out what is deliberate and what is a coincidence.

Studying a film over and over for a video essay is frustrating, exhausting and repetitive, but, if the film is truly as special as La Haine, you too will still get pleasure watching it in full later on. After dissecting and picking apart every detail of a film, it is all the more satisfying to let yourself sit back and simply let it wash over you, as a fan. Hopefully you can recreate the feeling of watching a film for the first time and knowing, even before it’s over, that it will forever be at the top of your list.

NOAH SOUKOVELOS

THE MORTON TAPES PART 1

After my original plan for my dissertation fell through due to complications with my actors, I was left in a situation where I had limited time and resources in order to create my film. I had to start from scratch and come up with an idea I could not only execute on my own, but also one which would excel. 

As a fan of the analog horror genre that had rose to popularity through YouTube, I was aware that many notable creators in the space worked on their own, and thus, I figured that I could try my hand at the genre and try and add my own ideas to it. I sat down and tried to figure out what makes analog horror work, and why it became such a fascination for so many on the internet, and I concluded that it came down to three factors,

  • Mystery and Ambience

  • Playing on nostalgia

  • Uncanny Valley

Consequently, when creating The Morton Tapes: Part 1, I aimed to focus solely on these three factors, capturing the VHS-esque quality of the found footage style filming, creating a strong sense of mystery and ambiguity, and ensuring that all characters had a sense of the uncanny. 

Overall, for a first attempt at a short film over a 5-minute runtime and first delve into the analog horror genre, I was happy with what I achieved with the film. Whilst, in hindsight, there are many aspects I feel as though could be expanded upon, or improved, The Morton Tapes: Part 1 was a success overall.