A diary by Roger Thorp -
As I write, the film is almost finished. It has been an extraordinary experience
in low budget film-
I met Guy de Beaujeu in September 2002 at a pub in Clifton Village, Bristol. Johnnie Miller who directed Living in Hope, Guy’s first feature as writer/producer, hooked us up. After a couple of beers it was clear that we were singing from the same sheet and Guy gave me the script which I read the next day. I immediately called him to tell him I liked it. It was something we could do on a low budget in a short space of time.
I was particularly excited at the prospect of letting the actors go off script and do some really extreme things with their characters…..sadly, this never happened.
Guy and I thought about a December 2002 shoot but there wasn’t really enough time to make it happen. So we changed tack, Guy reworked a script of mine, The Trash Collector, in double quick time then went on his travels while I focussed on other things.
PPFI went to sleep for six months. I went to Cannes 2003 peddling various projects and met sales agent Mark Vennis of Moviehouse who was later to play a key role in PPFI.
Guy returned from his travels eager to do battle and PPFI was on the slate again. We started development in earnest late in August, looking for funds, cast and location. We found Huntsham Court in north Devon, a rambling Victorian gothic pile that was about to change hands. The house was fantastic for the film, the deep tones of the walls and faded glory reflected the dysfunctionality of the family we were about to portray.
After Guy and I finally exhausted cul de sac after cul de sac of possible finance we decided to shoot on a no/low budget funding it ourselves. PPFI is a credit card movie!
Casting was both amazingly stimulating and exhausting. It is SO good when an actor reads and you know instantly that they are right for the part. Sadly this is an infrequent occurrence and we spent days agonising over who was right for several of the roles.
Next…shoot format…in our early discussions Guy and I agreed a desire to let the actors push their characters to the limit developing them beyond the script. There were two ways forwards, shoot on mini dv or hi def. On mini dv I knew we could achieve the ‘fluidity’ that I wanted but as we are also hoping for a theatrical release maybe we should shoot hi def.
Hi def won BUT there wasn’t enough time to shoot a test and going into the shoot we suddenly found that HD isn’t the tolerant format we believed it was. The camera we used (Sony 750) soaked up light like litmus soaks blood. No chance of a 360 shoot. With 24 hrs to go the shooting script hit the dirt.
Everything was lit to perfection swallowing up any time for expansion of characters and themes. It was my intention to shoot the actors alone with their thoughts. Just to create something that was delicate, moments for them to breathe away from the dialogue. No way….but DOP Terry Flaxton did a great job making PPFI look like a big budget movie
The shoot was frantic, nay mayhem and was more about cutting scenes, reworking shot lists and solving problems that a sublime creative process. Most evenings I would retreat to my room and strip the next day’s shot list back to the bare essentials.
Guy and I faced rebellion from cast and crew more than once and I clearly remember moments of being locked in a state of oblivion. Yet there were moments of great pleasure, hilarity and satisfaction largely due to a fantastic cast and crew who all played to the hilt. It was an extreme experience largely due to the fact that cast and crew lived and worked under the same roof for two weeks….and that is something else, we shot PPFI in two weeks!
PPFI is nearly complete! We started shooting on 6th January and it is now only April
9th. Post production has proved to be a chaotic as the shoot. We off-
The score has been written by Angelo Bruschini and Joe McGill, both Bristol-
Moviehouse has agreed to be our sales agent. It's presenting PPFI to Edinburgh and Toronto festivals and the London UK Film Focus in June. The next few months will be very interesting indeed….and probably as mad as the last three months!
