Many
people ask me how the hell I came up with the idea for
Mightier, a short film about a love triangle
between two people and a pen, and I reply, “I
have no idea, now leave me alone with the voices!”
The truth is that the idea came to me one day about
how an inanimate object can be brought to life without
the need for expensive computer generated characters
and dance routes? The answer: never show the inanimate
object, in the case of Mightier's pen, move
just show the effect of its actions – the actions
the pen inflicts itself a couple in the last death throws
of their relationship.
This is were a little rule comes in; in order for the
audience to take the illogical leap of believing a pen
is writing notes, setting up traps and generally being
crafty, the audience need some grounding in reality.
This is where the couple come in. They are the stuff
of soap, a couple breaking up, one trying desperately
for it to work while the other not really caring either
way until it’s all too late. We’ve all seen
this and probably gone through it before. This is all
reality with an improbable twist.
The script came easily. There are two types of script,
those that come easily and those that feel like you’ve
been constipated for a few years. Luckily Mightier
wasn’t like this and with a strong idea already
there the script formed naturally. There was one small
change from the original idea, at first I imagined the
pen and the leading man, Will, fighting to the death,
Will trying to rid his house of this the demonic pen
and the pen just not really liking Will that much. This
left out the other half of the couple, Jude, so the
love letters started to appear. The premise changed
from a fight to the death to a fight over love, the
love of Jude.
The couple, Will and Jude, are polar opposites. Will
is a struggling writer in the middle of a long writers
block and Jude is a career girl, working her way up
the ladder of success. She supports Will and he fails
to thank her for this or care. The romance between them
has died and the practicalities of living together have
taken over. In a last ditch attempt to show how much
she cares Jude buys Will a silver pen for his birthday.
Will is disappointed, he had hoped for a DVD player.
So when Jude starts receiving love letters from the
pen she is reminded of how her relationship with Will
once was at the beginning. All candles and dinners out,
can’t wait to get home and rip each others clothes
off and explore. All the discovery and the pleasure
of the unknown.
With Will it’s more simple. In Will, the pen sees
a friend, a fellow writer and tries to make contact
by leaving notes. Will is obviously scared of these
friendly scribbles and takes it as a sign that the devil
has possessed his new pen. The pen then meets Jude and
in a moment falls in love. It starts to compose anonymous
love letters and leaves them on the doormat. Will loses
what loose grip he had on reality and tries to dispose
of the pen, who in turn now sees Will as a threat to
his future love and so becomes intent of ruining Will.
All the relationships then spiral out of control. Jude,
influenced by the pen and her best friend Amy, decides
to leave Will. The pen and Will try to get rid of each
other and in doing so lose what they were both fighting
for, Jude. In the end she leaves them both, Will a broken
man and the pen out of ink.
Mightier was filmed on DV (the way of the future) and
mainly in my friend, Mark Young’s flat and around
Elm Park and Covent Garden. It took two weeks to film
with a small cast and crew. The editing on the other
had took, on and off, about four months. The main problem
was it was far too long. I wanted to enter the film
into competitions and in most the rules clearly state
that the film cannot be longer than 15 minutes. The
first rough cut was 35.
While I battled to halve the film, my fellow founder
of Evil Hypnotist Productions and friend, Paul Terry,
recorded the soundtrack for the film. Paul has been
involved with many projects I have done and most notably
with the short before this one, Sold, for which
he also recorded the soundtrack. Every Steven Spielberg
wannabe needs a John Williams wannabe. You can read
about his trials and tribulations also on this site.
Click here
to read Paul Terry's tales of musical discovery.
After months of staring at a dimly lit screen Mightier
was down to 15 minutes (well, 15 minutes and 54 seconds,
but who’s counting?), the soundtrack was added
and the film was complete. Now what?
Paul Terry and I put together a press pack, a CD and
a very attractive video sleeve to house the finished
film, and sent it off to as many film festivals and
competitions as we could find. We also screened the
film at a few venues around London, at the Lyric Theatre
Hammersmith, the Lux cinema in Hoxton Square, and Chats
Palace Arts Centre. Then something I never quite expected
happened.
I received a call from Jude Shravin, one of the organisers
of the Cinemagic Film Festival held in Belfast. I vaguely
remembered sending the film off to them and she told
me that Mightier had been short listed, brought
to London, watched by five industry professionals and
had won. So, on December 1st Paul Terry and I flew over
to Belfast to collect my award for Young Filmmaker of
the Year 2001. The Cinemagic Awards ceremony was held
in the Belfast City hall and the whole evening was overseen
by the two TV presenters Dermot O’Leary (T4/E4)
and Amanda Byram (Big Breakfast).
Mightier was the bridge between making short
films with a camera and some mates to making a short
film with a camera and real actors and trying to be
as professional as possible on a tight budget. It can
be done. All you need is a good idea and a friend who’s
willing to lend out his flat for a couple of weeks.
There are no boundaries. Go out there and get filming!
Paul
Williams 10/10/2003 |
