top of page

DIRECTORS NOTES

 

INSPIRATION

 

The idea for Phone Box came to me around 2008. It was inspired by my desire to create a film that not only engaged viewers through visceral performances but through an unfiltered cinematic reality that was raw, textured and 'fly on the wall' real as well. I hadn’t really explored those elements in great detail in my film making before. It wasn't until six years later, after watching Open hearts, a Susanne Bier Dogma 95 feature, the motivation to do something became too strong to ignore. 

 

SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT/CONCEPT

 

Having developed a feature script with Angelo Eidse as well as working on other projects with him, I pitched him the idea. He could see his way into writing it and quickly sent over a first draft. It was good! Well drawn, empathetic characters The plan was to shoot in Toronto, Canada where I was living at the time. Use available light, steal the location and shoot with a minimal crew. For one reason or another we got busy with other things and the project was shelved.

 

Flash forward to 2014. I recently settled in London, England and was bent on doing something other than meeting production companies, networking and flying back to Canada for work. So I revisited the script with Angelo. We revised it so that it took place in an iconic red phone box which are quickly becoming endangered. The story then became about the demise of the phone box. A historical piece if you will. The whole concept became that much richer with mood and texture when the Phone box became the central character. It was that day, when we decided this, that I just happened to walk past a phone box that was ideal for our location. After scouting various phone boxes around London I settled on the one I first walk past.

 

Each character’s story involved either a beginning or an ending or both. This was Angelo’s design. I loved it. The thing about working with Angelo is that his work continues to permeate and get deeper and richer with meaning as I move through the various stages of production until I get to the screening and I think ‘Wow. Did he know how emotional this would be when he was writing it?’ He knows. Powerful stuff. What a talent.

 

PHONE BOX AS A CHARACTER

 

It was important to me that each character relate to the phone box in way that would express their present circumstance in life. It was also clear that I needed to create a personality for the phone box. Whatever art direction I gave needed to have meaning to the viewer. It didn’t matter that characters saw the messaging. What mattered was that the viewer got the subliminal communication the phone box was using through the graffiti and various stickers that have been left by others over the life of the phone box. It was this messaging that would define its energy and presence as a character.

 

LIGHTING

 

Using available light, my plan was to shoot the monologues in one take and use the best one. That way I would avoid the expense of having to colour correct various shots BUT we were shooting outside a hospital that, a week before the shoot, was shading the phone box pretty much all day. So I had given up on the idea of using actual sunlight, dawn and dusk as my available lighting to set mood. At least the shade would be consistent if I did need to cut together takes I thought. On the day, the sun had shifted and the typical overcast skies opened and our phone box was bathed in sunlight all day! Armed with only a black foam core board (from art department) Ollie Ford and first camera assist, Nick Morris, performed miracles. Shooting the polish man’s scene with the windows blown out behind him played like heavenly light and was a symbolic foretelling of the death of the phone box. I couldn’t have planned it better and I didn’t but I will take credit for it!

 

CASTING

 

Without the huge helping hand from Annie Rowe I don’t think I would’ve found such talented actors. Annie worked tirelessly to meet the specs of my casting requirements and she did it superbly! My main criteria for all the roles is that each actor needed to have the emotional capacity to drive the character’s motivations. A phone conversation with Hayley, Geoffrey and TJ a few days before shooting helped to solidify character background and feed their intentions. We had no rehearsal. We did each of their scenes two or three times with the exception of Geoffrey. I restructured his emotional journey during his first three takes and he nailed it in take five.

 

FILM SCORE

 

I am fascinated and in awe of Nina Humphreys' talent. She created a film score beyond anything I could've imagined. The score has a haunting emotional quality that is not only foreboding and foretelling but also makes sense to each of the characters stories. It's layered - much like the stickers on the phone box. The score truly elevates the story with an emotional charge and adds another dimension to the character of the phone box.

 

SOUND DESIGN

 

We had no sound man on location. We had rented a radio mic and a boom and we ran both into the camera. I monitored the sound. We had an advantage in shooting in the phone box. It's enclosed by glass and that's a pretty good sound barrier. So the street traffic noises of east London on a saturday we're already beautifully mixed on the day! The added bonus was I had already made the decision to shoot the monologues in one take and use the best one so the sound would be uninterrupted and the sound edit/design would already be done. Only in the Polish man's scene did we need to cut (a necessity that came from story and not performance) so in that instance we did some editing/mixing. For the other shots including phone box interiors  we recorded a wild track of the street sounds. So all in all our post sound work was minimal.

bottom of page