New Talent Aubrey Reynolds

Aubrey Reynolds

Funded by North West Vision’s short film scheme, ‘Bulletproof’ is the story of teenager Carl (Chris Perry MetCalf) who discovers through his adolescence that he not only has to deal with his voice breaking, random hair growth and a sudden need to take a lot of cold showers: he has also developed the powers of a superhero. With the assistance of his comic book obsessed friend (Raymond Quinn), the two set about exploiting these new found ‘gifts’. Aubrey Reynolds, writer of ‘Bulletproof’ talks openly about his creation, filmmaking and working with Raymond - a contender in the final twelve of ITV1’s X-Factor 2006:

You’ve recently written and filmed ‘Bulletproof’, what is the film about and how did the shoot go?

Bulletproof was actually the first script I ever wrote and came about as a combination of my many loves: comic books; irrelevant comedy; American High school TV shows; people who have no inner monologue and girls in short skirts.

Stemming from the fact that I’m a deeply shallow person, I wanted to make a short film that eschewed polemic and social comment; contained neither a moral nor ethical message; and as opposed to presenting a realistic verite ‘slice of life’ is nothing but a glamorous mix of sexy people, in sexy locations, talking verbosely.

The shoot went great – mostly due to the fantastic cast and crew assembled by producer Ian (D Fleming’s). With this being only my second short, and with the level of ambition in locations used and SFX etc. in the script, it was really important to get a skillful, hardworking and understanding group together.

Bulletproof was filmed as part of North West Vision’s digital short scheme, how has the scheme assisted your work?

The film wouldn’t have been made if not for the scheme, simple as that. I’m not in a financial position to self fund shorts; because short films make little money and only a few of the hundreds made each year receive big PR – production companies very rarely fund short films; and because of my limited directorial experience, art funding for shorts is the only way that I could get Bulletproof made.

However, working as part of a scheme like this brings its own difficulties – the minute you take on any form of outside funding you loose autonomy and authorial power of the project. With Bulletproof I had a particularly gruelling script development that I blame for the sudden onset of my receding hairline! It can be a frustrating experience having to change the script due to a differing opinion – but when it’s the option of your script but no film or a changed script and a finished short it’s an easy choice.

What else have you filmed?

Fiction wise I have only directed one other short, ‘The Bar Lights Faded Early’ as part of North West Vision’s Mini Digital Shorts in 2004. But I have been working as a freelancer in the industry for two years now, since graduating University and have filmed everything from corporate vox pops to live performances; music videos to wedding videos – anything to support my ‘detective comics’ habit.

Do you have any tips for filmmakers either starting out or working with a limited budget?

I’d like some advice on this myself! I feel really odd offering any body sage wisdom being only 23 and having only made 2 short films. But the two things I would say are that you have to really, really want to do this – there are easier ways to make money and impress women; and that it really is all about the idea – a good idea filmed on a low budget, with the best visuals and effects that you can afford is still a good idea.

Do you have a preferred genre in filmmaking?

I don’t think so – the feature scripts that I’m currently touting round (ooube@yahoo.co.uk – write now for details!) are all from different and varied genres – but I do think that thematically my scripts are very similar.

It’s like Ang Lee, who makes different genre films – from superhero to period romance; swords and sandals epics to gay cowboy romance (yes this is a niche genre); but thematically they are all about the same thing – somebody who through situation of class, location, politics and ultimately themselves, can’t open up to the outside world and accept love. Would you look at that, in all seriousness I just compared my self to Oscar winning director Ang Lee!

Joking aside, I don’t think you can classify films as genre anymore; cinema is now over 100 years old and the audience is so cine literate and genre savvy that the interesting stories and fantastic films of recent years have successfully blended genres together.

One of the actors in Bulletproof, Raymond Quinn has made it through to the final stages of ITV1’s X-Factor, what was his role in the film and could you have predicted this level of success by working with him?

Well Ray came to Bulletproof with an already fine pedigree having been ‘Little Anthony’ (or ‘de Murderer!’ as he still gets heckled) on Brookside. I think he won two Soap awards for acting at ten years old (my favourite memory of the Bulletproof shoot is him regaling cast and crew about how he couldn’t go to the show and collect being underage - ‘but now, the flipping dog gets to go!’).

Ray’s a fantastic actor and he has amazing comic timing; I’m just gutted that I didn’t know he was a song and dance man before shooting Bulletproof as there may have been a song and dance routine placed in there for comic effect – probably to some cheesy 80’s track by Yazoo.

How did you begin your career in filmmaking?

Well me Mam would say it all started when I was about 8 practicing contrazoom shots (or ‘the Jaws shot’) on clothes pegs on the washing line with the family Hi-8 cam; but I’d say it really became a decisive plan when I went to University (LJMU).

Up until then I’d attended a very academic and strictly conservative senior school (careers advice was ‘who wants to be a lawyer, a doctor or an architect – follow us; you others talk amongst yourselves.’) and although a deep rooted desire, never really thought it was a possibility. At university I met lots of like-minded people (Tim Horsfall who wrote and directed the Mini Digital ‘Fear’ and Mike Bowyer who edited ‘Bulletproof’ being two of them) and it gave me a chance to edit, write and direct.

I also got lucky as I placed my graduate short script ‘Bar Lights’(which barely scraped a 3rd mark), in for the Mini Digital Shorts in 2004 and was successful – so went from Uni straight into pre-production on my first short film (alongside the Screenwriting tutor who almost failed my script – also working on his first writing commission – I love to drop that in every chance I get).

What is your favourite film / and or film director?

If it was top 5’s in both choices I’d struggle but to narrow it down to one it’s surprisingly easy – my favourite film is ‘Cidade des Deus/ City of God’ and my favourite director is Steven Soderbergh.

‘City of God’ is just an absolutely outstanding film on every level. It takes what could be a melodramatic or a ‘miserablist’ story and tells an endearing, entertaining and shockingly powerful narrative with outstanding visual flair and aesthetic invention.

I love non-linear narratives and cross cutting, elliptical editing; and nobody does this to better effect in mainstream Hollywood cinema than Soderbergh.

I think the sequence in Solaris where George Clooney is sleeping aboard the ship; meets Natascha McElhone for the first time; has sex with his wife and has sex with the Solaris duplicate of his wife onboard the ship is as close to perfect visual cinema as it comes.

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