> INTERVIEW
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D. R. HOOD
By Junsui Films | December 2011
The writer/director talks to Junsui Films about her rise in the industry and tells us all about her latest film, WRECKERS…
Junsui Films: Let’s start with your background in the arts and your journey into filmmaking.
D.R. Hood: I didn’t grow up near a cinema, so my first experience of films as a pre-teen and teenager was brilliant, overwhelming …
I went to film school in my 20s; I then worked in many different jobs in and out of the industry while writing. I continued to make shorts and direct a bit of theatre, most recently with a refugee group. Later on, I directed a couple of larger scale shorts – and now Wreckers.
JF: Are there any particular filmmakers who have influenced and inspired your work?
Tarkovsky, Fellini, Pasolini, Antonioni, Agnes Jaoui and many others. I’m always excited by any filmmaker who works with incredible skill and who does what they do to the max. I have just seen Tintin {Spielberg’s 3D animation] and the Bollywood film Three Idiots [by Rajkumar Hirani] – both highly recommended!
JF: You’ve enjoyed great success with your short films, most notably The Other Man and the award winning, Journey Man. What were your experiences making shorts and how do you feel they helped shape you as a writer/director?
With Journey Man and The Other Man the scripts were richer and more detailed than previous shorts I’d made. I became focused on truly trying to embody, bring alive the world of the script – ie. directing. Journey Man was an unusually high budget short film, which made my job as director much easier, in that we built a set in an abandoned pub, and could essentially shoot the storyboard as planned.
The Other Man, meanwhile, is related to the feel of Wreckers. It comes from a similar place emotionally and in terms of setting, and was a useful starting off point when discussing Wreckers with heads of department, especially as I was working with the same production designer.
JF: You’ve also directed for the stage. Can you describe the transition between theatre and film?
It is a while since I have done stage work, and I would welcome the challenge again. Also my stage work has been with student and non-professional actors so it has different parameters for directing. On film you can build up the story from the ‘little bits of time’ that you are shooting, and if you get the shot right, and your cast is good, you are essentially on the way. Everything gets focused through that rectangle, the frame. A theatre piece has to be alive and develop all the way through every night from zero.
JF: Let’s talk about Wreckers. Where did the idea come from?
I grew up in a village and Wreckers is an imaginative response to that. Everything goes on in villages but much is hidden, while at the same time still known by everyone – ‘known’ and ‘not known’ both at the same time – difficult to explain but it’s what I am trying to depict in Wreckers. In film, lies often emerge in a climactic scene but I wanted to see what would happen if they were kept hidden. The story itself came from a mixture of myths and realities in various places I have known, plus some of the feeling came from a book of Fenland tales that I love.
JF: The film effectively explores and exposes the frailties that often exist in relationships and yet refreshingly avoids melodrama. Was this something you consciously set-out to achieve whilst making the movie?
The low budget nature of the schedule and the naturalistic performances of the actors may have saved us from melodrama! I consciously used humour in the script to undercut melodrama.
JF: Tell us a little bit about the funding process and any difficulties you encountered getting the film financed.
We tried to get the film financed for a couple of years. We ended up working with a combination of private equity, the tax credit, and involvement from two post production houses who have been extremely supportive throughout.
JF: Wreckers boasts an excellent central cast in Claire Foy, Benedict Cumberbatch and Shaun Evans. How did you approach casting?
We had a wonderful and very persistent casting director, Chloe Emmerson. She suggested Shaun Evans for Nick immediately and I love the vulnerability that he brings to Nick.
Claire Foy (Dawn) has an extraordinary gift on screen, a sort of emotional translucency – so she is able to do all the watching that Dawn does while remaining the emotional centre of the film.
Benedict came to the project later and we were very lucky to work with him – I love the ambiguity that he brought to David’s character, which again meant we could treat the narrative in a less melodramatic fashion.
We approached casting pragmatically – in that a script has almost unlimited potential and however you cast it is going to take that script in a certain direction. Younger actors were drawn to the script (and willing to work at the budget level) – so the cast is perhaps younger than the script suggests – maybe that brings a vulnerability to their characters and makes them more empathetic to the audience than the characters might otherwise have been.
Obviously, it was crucial to cast the two male leads to play brothers, and we worked on that relationship in rehearsal. Finally: I went against my own rules in not bringing Benedict together with Claire before casting them – but happily they had a good chemistry.
JF: Another highlight of the film is the beautiful rural setting. Tell us about the shoot and your choice of location.
As I said, one of the deepest inspirations for the film was a book of Fenland tales that I love. I had nosed around the Fens before shooting The Other Man though we ended up setting that short in Romney Marshes as they are closer to London where the main crew was from.
I had looked for Wreckers in less extreme landscapes like Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire, but our location manager for Wreckers is Belgian – his attraction to big flat landscapes played into my own obsession with the Fens and we found ourselves there pretty much immediately we began working together. We also were looking for the feeling of a genuine rural community rather than commuter belt and this is now harder to find closer to London. I feel I have only nodded towards the Fenland landscape – I would love to shoot there in more depth.
JF: How difficult was it securing distribution for the film?
We held a screening for industry after finishing the film and were excited to have offers on UK distribution, international sales, and from the BBC for broadcast straight away. Artificial Eye’s plans were dependent on festival success, so the London Film Festival Premiere was very important to the film.
We are very happy that the film is now having a cinema release {16th December onwards}, as well as the Curzon On Demand streaming plus DVD and broadcast to come. Wreckers will also be sold internationally by Content Film.
Crucially the actors’ profiles helped raise interest in Wreckers – we knew we had a terrific cast but we are also incredibly lucky that they became so successful after shooting with us.
JF: Any future plans you can tell us about?
A bollywood musical… A family drama with not two but FIVE brothers… A war story… Something new and challenging!
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