Horror short heading to Perth, York and Wrexham

In recent weeks I’ve found out that my short film Little Brown Bird, has been selected for some more film festivals.

On Saturday 17th August, our Australian Premiere will be part of the Imported Fear strand at Perth Horror Film Festival. You can find out more here.

Following that the film will be shown in York, England at the Dead Northern Horror Film Festival at the end of September. The full schedule hasn’t been released yet, as I only got the notification we had been selected today. Find out more about the festival here.

On October 12th and 13th Little Brown Bird says welcome to Wrexham, for the Phantasmagoria Horror Film Festival. I’m pleased to add another Welsh date to our festival run and to let the North Wales audience have the chance to watch it.

I’m awaiting on decisions for sixteen more festivals whose notification dates are between now and the end of October. These are our sixth, seventh and eighth physical screenings and including online festivals/awards takes us to twelve official selections so far in our run.

The full rundown:

Marbella International Film Festival, Spain 2023  - World Premiere. Nominee, Best Short Film

Chapter Moviemaker, Cardiff, Wales, 2023 - UK Premiere 

Ramaskrik Presents at Minimalen Festival, Trondheim, Norway, 2024 - Scandinavian Premiere 

Scream by the Seas, Bournemouth, England, UK, 2024

Sunday Shorts, Lisbon, Portugal, 2024 - Portuguese Premiere 

Perth Horror Film Festival, Perth, Australia, 2024 - Australian Premiere 

Dead Northern Horror Film Festival, York, England, UK, 2024

Phantasmagoria Horror Film Festival, Wrexham, Wales, UK, 2024.

Online Festivals/Awards:

Director Talent Movie Awards ( Budapest), 2024 - Honourable Mention, Best Horror Short 

Athens International Monthly Film Art Festival, 2024 - Winner, Best Horror Short 

Prague Film Festival, 2024 - Nominee, Best First Time Director 

Los Angeles Short Film Awards, 2024 - Official Selection 

Little Brown Bird festival run continues

This Friday Little Brown Bird has its Scandinavian Premiere at Minimalen Short Film Festival in Trondheim, Norway. We are the opening film of six being shown as part of the Horror: Ramaskrik presents strand of the festival, which has been running for thirty-six years. You can see the full festival schedule and get tickets here.

Closest to home and in the county where I grew up, Little Brown Bird is coming to the South Coast next month. We have been selected as part of the short film program at the inaugural Screams by the Sea festival in Bournemouth on February 10th. Find out more here.

Godzilla Minus One - a lesson in elevated genre film-making

I finally got to watch Takashi Yamazaki’s film Godzilla Minus One recently, and I’m really pleased I got to see it on the big screen. It was by far my favourite film of 2023 and it resonated with me as both an audience member and as a film-maker. I could write pages and pages about the themes that the film explores, but that wasn’t the main takeaway for me. As someone who made their directorial debut this year, I often slip into analytical mode when I’m watching a film or television show. When something is truly transcendental it’s different, I quickly forget about the script writing process, the direction, shot choices and composition, visual effects, and score and find myself washed along with the story instead. What makes this film so powerful, is the strong central characters, exquisitely crafted through both script and performance. You care about all the people you get to meet in this film and are invested in them, as their individual story arcs play out. Godzilla in many ways is a catalyst, a force of nature, an existential threat that prompts change. This isn’t just a throwaway monster movie, far from it. They draw you in via the characters, and you are with them from the very first frame to the very last one, emotionally invested far more than a kaiju movie might suggest.

I strongly believe you can create just as emotionally charged, character-driven stories in genre storytelling, as you can in straight drama. For me, this is where some Hollywood films get it wrong, their focus being on pure spectacle often at the expense of three-dimensional characterisation. If I don’t care about the central characters in a film, and don’t believe their relationships or the motivation behind their actions then no amount of visual bells and whistles is going to make me any more than a passive observer. The best cinema, like the best music, makes you feel.

Another excellent example of an elevated genre film that succeeds similarly is the 2014 film Spring by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (indie darlings who have recently become Marvel Studios creators). Before Godzilla Minus One works as a monster movie or even a disaster film, it has to function as a post-war story about the Japanese people. Before Spring reveals the terror that lies beneath the surface in Italy, this Horror/Sci-Fi/Romance has to work as a romance. You have to believe that a relationship can be established and deeply developed in a very small amount of screen time, just as films like True Romance and Before Sunrise successfully did. If they hadn’t got that central relationship right, the whole film would lose its potency as a result.

Seeing Godzilla Minus One, a film I only knew about thanks to online word of mouth from people I trust, has made me examine my own creative process again. When I look back on Little Brown Bird, the script became most successful when I worked harder on the two central characters and the relationship that binds them. If you don’t buy into Kate and her Father, you won’t be with us for the rest of our short journey. With actors of the calibre of John Rhys-Davies and Eliza Butterworth in our lead roles, we ended up with just the emotionally charged, character-driven elevated genre piece I was hoping for.

As we head into 2024 I’ll be working on another elevated genre project, feature film Bone Dry. I’ll be reminding myself regularly about how powerful Godzilla Minus One was, as I start the scriptwriting process. I might even squeeze in time for a rewatch of Spring. If I want an audience to suspend their disbelief without losing them along the way, then character is everything. If you haven’t seen Godzilla Minus One yet, I highly recommend it. It’s still in cinemas at the time of writing.

Festival update

Following Little Brown Bird’s premiere at the Marbella International Film Festival in Spain and the screening at Chapter Moviemaker, here in Cardiff , Wales, our short film has been selected for a few more festivals in recent weeks.

We won the Best Horror Film award at November’s Athens International Monthly Arts Film Festival, making us eligible for their yearly awards too. The trophy will take pride of place in my writing room.

We are also being screened at the Minimalen Short Film Festival, in Trondheim, Norway in January, as part of the Ramaskrik Presents section. It’s an honour to be selected as part of their curated group of horror films from all over the world.

Little Brown Bird premieres in Marbella

Last month Little Brown Bird had its world premiere at the Marbella International Film Festival and I made it over to Spain for the duration of the festival.  On the festival’s opening night on Wednesday 4th, and again on Saturday 7th October, Little Brown Bird played on the big screen at Red Dog Cinemas. 

We had a really positive reaction from festival goers and fellow filmmakers, which was extremely gratifying. On the final night of the festival, Sunday 8th October it was the gala dinner and awards ceremony. where Little Brown Bird was nominated for Best Short Film. The category was won by the excellent Dragunov, written by, directed by, and starring fellow Brit Robin Kirwan. 

One of the best things about being part of the festival was getting to spend so much time with other filmmakers, comparing notes and discussing the writing and filmmaking process was a real highlight of the week. I’ve been to a number of film festivals before in my capacity as a VFX Producer, so it was a really good feeling to be there representing my own work and as a filmmaker in my own right. 

Our next screening is at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff on Monday, as part of their monthly Moviemaker event which makes us eligible for next year’s BAFTA Cymru awards.

Cast and crew screening for Little Brown Bird

On Monday night we invited our cast, crew, Indiegogo crowdfund backers, and guests to see Little Brown Bird on the big screen in Cardiff. Producer Daniel J Harris from Eat Sleep Media introduced the film with me, giving an insight into the development process while trying our hand at being a comedy duo!. After the screening, I was joined on stage by lead actress Eliza Butterworth (The Last Kingdom, A Town Called Malice) for a Q&A.

Introducing Little Brown Bird with Daniel J Harris

Q&A with me and Eliza

I was a nervous wreck all day prior to the screening, I was worried about what to say to introduce it and unsure whether the film would be well received. I put myself through the wringer unnecessarily though by assuming the worst. From the moment I saw the name of the film on the door of Screen 1 in Chapter Arts Centre to the very last question at the Q&A, I felt relaxed and incredibly at ease, As soon as I joined Dan at the front of the auditorium all those nerves disappeared.

The audience reaction was extremely positive, which I was thrilled about and the Q&A was littered with interesting and insightful questions. All in all, I think it was a massive success, and it felt like all the hard work, the self-doubt, and the persistence had paid off. Next week we take the film to Marbella International Film Festival for its Festival Premiere, and I’m excited to see how it goes down on the Costa Del Sol too. It’s been an incredible, life-changing journey and it’s far from over yet. So many people have helped me along the way and I will forever be grateful to them all.

Storyboard artist Mike Collins, production assistant Cerys Hodgson, me, producer Daniel J Harris, Eliza, DoP Mark Nutkins

Everything is rewriting

There’s an old adage that all writing is rewriting, and I firmly believe that to be true. Through the process of directing my first short film, Little Brown Bird I’ve come to realise that everything is rewriting.

The obvious rewriting is the twenty or so versions of the script itself, which began life as something with far less substance than where we ended up. Taking on notes from writing mentors, my producer, and other writers I trust was the first part of the process. Much of that involved strengthening the central relationships and removing unnecessary dialogue and superfluous exposition. Each round of amends kickstarted new thought processes, and ways to strengthen things and make the story even better.

Then things shifted to the logistical, as the shoot became closer to reality, the casting, the location, the funding, and the amount of time we had to shoot, all these things lead to changes to the script. Some changes were very purposeful surgeon-like tweaks and others were very much happy accidents when I was backed into a corner with nowhere to turn. Some of my favourite aspects of the script, and in turn the film, were caused by restrictions and things I realised weren’t possible - necessity is the mother of invention.

Once we arrived at the location, me and our DoP Mark Nutkins had half a day to get used to the farm we were shooting at. We started to think about how to use the space, and what we wanted to do with the camera along with some initial staging and blocking conversations based on our shotlist. These conversations lead to rewrites and it was extremely cathartic to do those on set, looking around the real space rather than the version of it in my head (as our only location recce had been a virtual one). Seeing the farm encouraged me to trim back dialogue and lose some lines that we didn’t need thanks to how well the location worked for our film.

On the second day, and our first day of principal photography finally got to work with our lead actors in person at the location. A morning of staging and blocking conversations, discussions about intent and emotions and some all-important rehearsals helped shape the script even more. Once I saw the relationship between Dad (John Rhy-Davies) and Kate (Eliza Butterworth) played out before me, I knew that there would be looks, gestures, and touches between them that did far more than what was on the page. That led to more rewrites, honing some dialogue, making other lines work better for the three-dimensional characters I was seeing before me, and most importantly removing lines that weren’t 100% needed. This process carried on throughout our three-day shoot. Overnight I’d be rereading the next day’s pages in bed and deciding what could go and on-set I’d be giving notes that included changes to the dialogue as we moved between takes and scenes. As I became more confident about what we were making, more and more of the dialogue got stripped back.

The next round of rewrites happened in the edit, working with our editor Luke Andrews. His initial assembly cut had removed some lines of dialogue, to get out of scenes quicker or to allow the actors’ performances more room to breathe. As we went through new versions, and I gave my notes, we ended up cutting more lines, including some that had been my favourites during the writing process itself. Ultimately the script purely serves to inform the finished work and is not gospel, and in contrast some lines that felt throwaway on paper have become extremely important due to the shape of the edit and the power of the central performances from Eliza and John. Making this film has taught me a lot about directing, as it was my directorial debut, but it has taught me just as much about writing. The message I’ve taken away from this whole experience is that less is more, throw it all out there and then keep removing things until you have fulfilled your intention. Don’t be beholden to your own words, embrace change, enjoy collaboration and rejoice in something far greater than the sum of its parts.

We have locked the edit on Little Brown Bird and are partway through our colour grade and sound mix. Our score from composer Robert Reed was signed off on Friday, that also had a similar process to the script, paring things back, removing things, and honing the overall piece so that the intention and emotions were just how they needed to be.

Our film is being submitted to festivals in the coming weeks and there will also be a cast and crew screening, to include many of the people who backed our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. I’m very proud of Little Brown Bird and every rewrite has been part of that process, I can’t wait to share it with the world.

Little Brown Bird - Cast Announcement

In two weeks’ time, I’ll be heading to the Isle of Man to direct Little Brown Bird, a short film that I began writing during lockdown. I wrote about it here previously under the original title, Shortest Day.

Our cast is led by two fantastic actors- Eliza Butterworth and John Rhys-Davies. We’ve also assembled an excellent crew, including multi-award-winning cinematographer Mark Nutkins.

Cast members Eliza Butterworth (The Last Kingdom, Town called Malice), John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones)

The film is being produced by Daniel J Harris for Focus Shift Films and Eat Sleep Media, with support from the Isle of Man Arts Council and Gorilla Post Production.

Two of my good friends are also on board as collaborators, with Mike Collins providing storyboards and Robert Reed composing the music.

Storyboards by Mike Collins (Freakhouse Graphics)

Most of my free time in recent weeks has been spent in HoD meetings and doing rewrites and adjustments, while Dan and his team have been working tirelessly to pull everything together for the shoot. More to follow on the project soon.