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This
short came together after actor James Jeffrey asked me to help
him create a showreel. He was looking to perform a monologue from
a film and we searched through scripts and our memory for a decent
film monologue. Unfortunately it is the nature of films that you
don't get a lot of characters procrastinating to camera - unless
you're Woody Allen. There are the obvious talking to camera films
- High Fidelity, Annie Hall, Alfie, Fight Club or something
that uses heavy voice over - About A Boy, Wonder Boys.
Usually these are book adaptations and the screenwriter is trying
to fit reams and reams of narrative into the script.
None of these seemed to fit what James wanted so I pitched him
an idea that had been bouncing around my bonce - SPOILER ALERT
- what if a superhero did something terrible, something he couldn't
fix? How can you punish a superhero you can't hurt? How would
he punish himself? This was the seed of Almost Human.
James liked it so I set about writing the short in the style of
a straight to camera confession. As I wrote though the script
evolved from the superhero idea into something more ambiguous.
In the end you're not sure whether the captor is a superhero or
simply crazy. You begin to question whether he is even there at
all. I wanted the short to have a dream like quality as the captor
flips between the many emotions he is feeling with no warning
or reason. In the end, as the interrogator rains blows down of
his captor, you're not sure whether he is guilty or not.
We filmed the short in a West London church next to the drama
school were both James and Dan studied. Apparently they studied
drama but I'm still waiting for actual evidence of this fact.
We found a perfect small stone room in the church, at the bottom
of a spooky spiral staircase. It was freezing!
PW
11/08/05 |
