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 |
