Frances Lea
A Frances Lea movie has not graced the big screen since 2000 but she has is se to return with new movie Strawberry Fields - which is playing at the BFI London Film Festival this week.
I caught up with her to talk about the new movie, the challenges of a small budget and what lies ahead.
- You new movie is Strawberry Fields so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
We like to say that it has something to do with, or is influenced, by A Streetcar Named Desire - It's an intense story about two sisters and in the context of a love triangle.
It is, sort of, a psychological drama where one sister runs off from the other into Strawberry Farm, recreates herself and meets Kev but the other sister finds her.
And she is a bit crazy I suppose, or she reveals herself to be.. she is also fabulous she is visually gorgeous, and over the top and in your face as well as very sexual. So yes she is fabulous but you also realise that she is unhinged.
So it is a battle of will between them and Kev willingly gets in between them (laughs) and sleeps with both of them basically. But it is a very female film in a sense that it is a battle of wills between two sisters and the complex relationship between women a d women within families.
But ultimately she liberates herself from all the crap, the central character Gillian, and gets away and starts a fresh. So it is a positive story too - I suppose it would be called a rites of passage movie.
- You also penned the movie as well as directed so where did the idea for the story originally come from?
Well originally, very originally, I sat down with Judith Johnson, who is credited as the co-writer, because she was going to write it.
And so I sat down with her and we talked about the various things that we wanted to do and she actually slapped A Streetcar Named Desire the play on the table - it was in the context of me talking about a month I spent years ago strawberry picking and so I was talking about the characters that I had come across there and the weird world.
So I thought that it would be a good setting and she put the play on the table and it sort of originated from there.
I sort of took over, in a way, when I wanted to make the psychological aspects of the relationships more darker I suppose - that is probably where me and Judith are different, I have worked with her before and she is great, but I wanted to take it darker and she does very warm and loving characters.
That is also my bag it's misfits and minority groups that I end up being interested so - so that is how is originated.
- Philip Martin Brown & Anna Madeley are just two of the names on the cast list so can you talk me through casting - did you pen the screenplay with anyone in particular in mind?
Anna Madeley is the lead Gillian and her sister Emily is played by Christine Bottomley while Kev is played by Emun Elliott.
It wasn't written with any particular cast in mind and we found them in the casting - and they were absolutely fabulous and stood out. So there was no doubting that they were perfect for the parts really.
- What were the biggest challenges for you as a filmmaker whilst shooting this project?
The budget was the biggest challenge because it was £100,000, which is a tiny budget, and yet I was very ambitious - we had to be realistic as well - but I was very ambitious the look of the and the quality of the film; so I was probably very demanding on everyone.
We only had eighteen days to shoot the film so it was just about trying to get the look of the film without the camera gear, the cranes and the tracking shots.
But I had an amazing crew and my DP got me a steady-cam man free for the day - we kind of had to blag a lot of stuff; which is quite difficult be we did it.
Similarly with the editing we had a limited amount of time to cut it because we could only pay the editors for a certain amount of time - so it was the limitations posed by the budget. But the positive side of that was I had a lot of creative freedom somehow, maybe because it was a low budget film. So it was swings and roundabouts really.
But in terms of difficulties we were very lucky with the weather, because it was all outdoors, but the unpredictably of the light and the weather can be a challenge but we were very lucky because it was sunny.
But, for instance, we were shooting scenes on the beach were the cast are supposed to run into the sea and have a swim but the tide went as out as we were filming - so those are very real limitations - they ran in and had water up to their ankles and just splashed around and pretended to swim.
I would say that the three night shoots on the beach with the lighting and the tide were fun to deal with and were a challenge to deal with.
- As you say the movie was shot in just eighteen day, which is a very short amount of time, so do you enjoy working under since tight time constraints?
No, that is a simple one. It was possible a bit too hard the whole process in terms of expecting to get a very good quality film out of a process that is so hard and we did very well. It was very hard in deed in eighteen days and I wouldn't want to do it again - you need more time really.
- Strawberry Fields will be playing at the London Film Festival this week so you must be delighted to be recognised in this way?
Yes it is fantastic and I am very pleased - I know it's quite hard to get into the festival - and I hope that the audience like the film. But yes I am delighted.
- You are one of the British filmmakers that will be on show at the London Film Festival so how important is a festival for British cinema?
I think it is become a very important festival because it's a great start to a movie to get it launched in this country and launched in London.
I think that they are very good at promoting British grown talent and taking risks with what they screen and promote. So it is a great start for the film and I am very pleased.
- You started off you career as a painter so how and why did you make the transition into filmmaking? And was it an easy transition?
It was a natural transition to be honest - it was actually when I was at art school they had a great video department and miniature studio and so it was a natural path of exploring image.
I have always been writing alongside and so I played with idea when I was at art school at eighteen or nineteen and then I literally couldn't put the camera down.
I did two other courses after that and ended up at film school - I sort of got the love of joining the written word and the visual image together. I have worked all across the arts and this sort of brought all those skills together and really suited me.
- Your last cinema feature film was Everyone's Happy back in 2000 so where have you been the years in between?
Well I have had twin boys - need I say more? So that ground me to an almighty halt. I was actually quite busy before Everyone's Happy directing quite a lot of things and it sort of stopped me in my tracks having twins.
I worked as a writer in residence at a prison for a two or three years and documented that, as the basis for a documentary, and then I went on to write Strawberry Fields and another film called Finger Puppets; which kind of came out of the prison that I was working at.
I then also went back to painting. So I really focused on painting and writing - but I was back onto this project in 2008/9.
- We hear stories about how difficult it is to get independent movies made over here at the moment so how difficult was it to get Strawberry Fields made?
It is just very difficult (laughs). It is very difficult to get feature films made, low budget ones especially and maybe of this nature; if they are not horror or one those genres that people start off in sometimes to get films made.
This is a particular type of film and I have been really committed to getting it made and it has taken a really long time. I was just glad that Microwave people loved the project and seemed very keen to work with me - they have shortlisted another project of mine Finger Puppets.
So they kind of seem to be interested in the sort of material that I was making, which wasn't particularly immediately accessible and they help me make it more commercial and loved what I was trying to do with it. Yes I think it is quite tough but I do think it's getting better - I hope so (laughs).
- Apart from your own movie are there any other films that you are looking forward to seeing this week?
I am very keen to see all the other female director films from the New British Cinema section, I will be sitting on a panel with them so I am determined to see of those films before I sit with them. I also want to see Andrea Arnold and Lynne Ramsey's films as well - it's great bunch of female directors with lots of great movies.
I also want to see the two Michael Fassbender movie Shame and A Dangerous Method and the Werner Herzog documentary Into The Abyss, and he has done what I wanted to do when I was a writer resident; he has filmed prisoners and their victims.
- So are you a Michael Fassbender fan?
I am actually and I thought he did a great job in Fish Tank and I think he sort or surprised people in that - he wasn't what I was expecting anyway. But it is more to do with the content of those films they just sound great.
I also fancy Snowtown, that is supposed to be good, and This Must Be The Place with Sean Penn so that should be a could film.
- Finally what's next you?
Next for me is to get Finger Puppets happening, which is the other script that I have written, and I have three treatments for three other films; so I have got three fantastic films ready and raring to go (laughs). So it's just a case of getting past the festival and getting this out in the spring and getting on with the next one of two.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw