The story for 'Let Him Go' came from a one page script written by Nigel Goodwin that I think he wrote for entry into some one minute script contest or the like. It was bare bones, the characters didn't really have a chance to reveal themselves in a one minute script but the idea was most certainly there. It was one of those ideas that is so simple that you smack yourself in the forehead and say, 'Why didn't I think of that?' Simply put, someone wants to turn off a life support machine and someone else wants it kept on. The opportunities for dramatic conflict here more or less write themselves.
When I think of a loved one slowly dying in hospital, the death of my Grandfather immediately springs to mind. My sister held a vigil at his bedside for the last few weeks of his life. She couldn't understand why her mother (his daughter) didn't visit very often and why she seemed unemotional about the whole affair. Thus the script became an opportunity to explore what might have happened had my sister and mother been faced with the unbearable option of turning off his life support.
The structure of the script was simple. There are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I wanted to show all five of these stages compressed into this one scene so that our lead could portray each of those five stages.
The structure of the script was simple. There are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I wanted to show all five of these stages compressed into this one scene so that our lead could portray each of those five stages.
Immediately I had Kym Veldman in mind to play Adele, the daughter of the dying man. She had very few lines in Troll2357 but still managed to impress me, particularly with her facial expressions which (I must admit) I had no part in directing. I just told her to stare at him, figured we would probably have to work on that stare to get it right, but I was totally wrong. Her stare exceeded my expectations for how appropriate it was to the emotion of the scene.
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| Kym Veldman as Adele |
What I didn't know at that point was that Kym had lost her father when she was younger. This led to her taking 'Let Him Go' quite personally and drawing on her own emotional experience to drive her performance. As a result, when we were filming, I gave very little direction to Kym and instead tried to build the rest of the film around her performance.
Nigel Goodwin jumped aboard as producer and took on the role of the doctor in the film. He recommended Kathryn Rigby for the role of Adele's mother, and what a find that was. The only part we hadn't filled as we closed in on filming was actually the priest. We were getting quite close to filming by the time I messaged Noel Ross and asked him if he fancied a playing a priest. Noel is a fantastically versatile actor whom you can comfortably slot into a lot of different roles so I wasn't really worried if he would be right for it.
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| Noel Ross as the Priest |
So, with our cast all in place, Nigel suggested the location of the Lee Valley Millennium Centre. He was doing some drama course there so I attended one night just so we could try and find a classroom that might double for the hospital room. Once found I called a contact he had and negotiated a very reasonable rate to film there (I won't say how reasonable for fear of getting anyone in trouble but it was very reasonable).
Matt and I flew down there one afternoon for a recce but unfortunately I had no idea that our contact didn't work after a certain time. Our recce thus consisted of looking through the window in the door with the camera and little else. I figured that would be okay... I was wrong.
I had a particular lighting scheme in mind when I started, one that used the daylight from the windows as a fill light. I figured I would have to screen off certain portions of the window, little realising that these weren't just windows, they were enormous windows.
THURSDAY 11TH MAY 2017 - the first day of filming.
So, when it finally came to setting up in that room, I noticed immediately how much smaller the room was than I imagined/remembered. The only other time I had been in the room I took some shots on a wide angle lens which I think tricked me into thinking the room was much larger than it was. Alas that made all my storyboards pretty much useless so I had to improvise, come up with alternatives to each shot as we went.
Initially I thought it might be best to concentrate on one performance at a time, starting with Kym. Later I would realise that was a mistake, that it removed the immediacy of the scene and made it more difficult for the actors to feel where they were in the scene - particularly those not being concentrated on. In a way it was quite fortuitous that just about everything else screwed up that day.
The other big problem I had, as earlier stated, was the amount of daylight coming through those two enormous windows. The blackscreens we had didn't cover the whole height of the windows. There was a spotlight meant to represent the sun for certain shots where Kym and Kathryn's character stand in the foreground. The idea was that, for two shots, the sun would hit their face (meant to represent an emotional awakening). Instead I tried to use that light to overpower the daylight on the walls, so I turned it up... thereby turning that into the keylight and screwing up the whole scheme.
It was only when I watched the footage back later that I realised how bad the result was. Shots where they came too close to the light were overexposed and, at a distance, the lighting looked more suitable to a comedy. I told Kym we would have to start again... she had a fit with her leg up, understandably.
TUESDAY 16TH MAY 2017 - the proper recce.
Nigel Goodwin, Matt Hughes and I took the lighting equipment, the camera, the blackscreens and black bedsheets to the location. We covered the windows and set up the lights, shot some footage that looked more or less how I wanted it. This is how you do a recce, not by zooming through the window of a door. This was a valuable and important lesson though, ensuring I will never again film without first doing a proper recce.
THURSDAY 18TH MAY 2017 - the last day of filming.
So by now we'd done a proper recce, I'd dropped the whole 'sunlight motif' moving the sunlight to the background, and I was storyboarded to the hilt. This time we would alternate between the characters. Breaking the scene into smaller pieces and considering each portion individually, nailing each part of the scene for all characters before moving on.
Kym had requested footage from the first day and I think that gave her the chance to reassess her performance because I thought she was good on the first day, but on the second day she entirely blew me away. At least she would have done if I had time to be blown away and wasn't just saying, 'Right next shot.' So my apologies to Kym for not showering her with praise which she most certainly deserved.
Kathryn Rigby also finally had her chance to show what she could do, and she didn't disappoint. It was obvious when she started that Kathryn does a lot a theatre, she nearly blew my ears when she started reading her lines. All I said to her was, 'Don't project, just pretend.' She got it. I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly she adapted.
On the first day Noel Ross had sported fake teeth and his performance was hilarious. I think I was a little carried away with the humour and it took Nigel to pull me aside and say, 'Maybe that's inappropriate to the scene.' He was right. I asked Noel to remove the humour from his performance and play it straight. I realise that may not be much fun but he was still brilliantly convincing, even on shots where he was just in the background.
Nigel's doctor was an interesting case. It was the first time an actor had ever applied for their dialogue to be removed, but I would suppose the dual role of actor and producer had some influence there. Nigel's role was eventually reduced to a single line of dialogue and a couple of facial reactions but he was a good sport about that. Like me I think Nigel rightly prioritises the dramatic impact of the film he is working on over any other consideration.
Incredibly we managed to achieve all 50 shots in that scene on that single day. We worked quickly but without haste. Rushing the film would have had a detrimental effect on the performances and could have probably dripped down into the editing, lifting the pace of the cutting also. Instead, at least in those more emotional shots, we filmed each shot within two takes. That was largely down to my removing almost all of the moving shots I originally intended and relying largely on static shots. Static shots are invariably easier to film than moving ones.
POST-PRODUCTION
This would have been easily edited within a couple of weeks. We're it not for my later discovery that approximately 30 out of the 50 shots required digital manipulation. The two main reasons for this were that the words 'TUTORIAL ROOM' were clearly visible on the door behind them, and there was also a huge dirty mark on the wall behind Kym's head. Those two items would have been simpler to remove were it not the entire film is shot in shallow focus making it near impossible to motion track the shots. In fact there are two effects shot where the tracking had to be done by eye (I won't tell you which in case you look for it).
Thus what should have taken two weeks took six.
Once again I approached the brilliant Lois Paton about the music, actually I think she had a script ahead of time this time. Again I approached the film as though it were to have no music at all which enabled me to give Lois free reign to compose. She did not disappoint, once again providing a first draft that exceeded my expectations. By the fourth draft we once again nailed it.
If you have watched the film once you may not have noticed the music so much because of how apt it is to the scene. I would encourage everybody to watch this film once just to appreciate the amazing score.
The result was an emotionally dense drama that effectively represents the five stages of grief. While much credit must be given to the actors for their commitment to the material for much of that emotion, one shouldn't overlook the effect of how it was shot and cut nor how the music accentuates that emotion.
I'm a strong believer in the idea that, if you surround yourself with brilliant people, they will help make your work appear brilliant. Troll2357 was the first step in demonstrating that idea, and Let Him Go is the second. I'm hoping to reunite this winning team (and grow it a little) for the third step.
THURSDAY 11TH MAY 2017 - the first day of filming.
So, when it finally came to setting up in that room, I noticed immediately how much smaller the room was than I imagined/remembered. The only other time I had been in the room I took some shots on a wide angle lens which I think tricked me into thinking the room was much larger than it was. Alas that made all my storyboards pretty much useless so I had to improvise, come up with alternatives to each shot as we went.
Initially I thought it might be best to concentrate on one performance at a time, starting with Kym. Later I would realise that was a mistake, that it removed the immediacy of the scene and made it more difficult for the actors to feel where they were in the scene - particularly those not being concentrated on. In a way it was quite fortuitous that just about everything else screwed up that day.
The other big problem I had, as earlier stated, was the amount of daylight coming through those two enormous windows. The blackscreens we had didn't cover the whole height of the windows. There was a spotlight meant to represent the sun for certain shots where Kym and Kathryn's character stand in the foreground. The idea was that, for two shots, the sun would hit their face (meant to represent an emotional awakening). Instead I tried to use that light to overpower the daylight on the walls, so I turned it up... thereby turning that into the keylight and screwing up the whole scheme.
It was only when I watched the footage back later that I realised how bad the result was. Shots where they came too close to the light were overexposed and, at a distance, the lighting looked more suitable to a comedy. I told Kym we would have to start again... she had a fit with her leg up, understandably.
TUESDAY 16TH MAY 2017 - the proper recce.
Nigel Goodwin, Matt Hughes and I took the lighting equipment, the camera, the blackscreens and black bedsheets to the location. We covered the windows and set up the lights, shot some footage that looked more or less how I wanted it. This is how you do a recce, not by zooming through the window of a door. This was a valuable and important lesson though, ensuring I will never again film without first doing a proper recce.
THURSDAY 18TH MAY 2017 - the last day of filming.
So by now we'd done a proper recce, I'd dropped the whole 'sunlight motif' moving the sunlight to the background, and I was storyboarded to the hilt. This time we would alternate between the characters. Breaking the scene into smaller pieces and considering each portion individually, nailing each part of the scene for all characters before moving on.
Kym had requested footage from the first day and I think that gave her the chance to reassess her performance because I thought she was good on the first day, but on the second day she entirely blew me away. At least she would have done if I had time to be blown away and wasn't just saying, 'Right next shot.' So my apologies to Kym for not showering her with praise which she most certainly deserved.
Kathryn Rigby also finally had her chance to show what she could do, and she didn't disappoint. It was obvious when she started that Kathryn does a lot a theatre, she nearly blew my ears when she started reading her lines. All I said to her was, 'Don't project, just pretend.' She got it. I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly she adapted.
 |
| Kathryn Rigby as Adele's Mum |
Nigel's doctor was an interesting case. It was the first time an actor had ever applied for their dialogue to be removed, but I would suppose the dual role of actor and producer had some influence there. Nigel's role was eventually reduced to a single line of dialogue and a couple of facial reactions but he was a good sport about that. Like me I think Nigel rightly prioritises the dramatic impact of the film he is working on over any other consideration.
 |
| Nigel Goodwin as the Doctor |
POST-PRODUCTION
This would have been easily edited within a couple of weeks. We're it not for my later discovery that approximately 30 out of the 50 shots required digital manipulation. The two main reasons for this were that the words 'TUTORIAL ROOM' were clearly visible on the door behind them, and there was also a huge dirty mark on the wall behind Kym's head. Those two items would have been simpler to remove were it not the entire film is shot in shallow focus making it near impossible to motion track the shots. In fact there are two effects shot where the tracking had to be done by eye (I won't tell you which in case you look for it).
Thus what should have taken two weeks took six.
Once again I approached the brilliant Lois Paton about the music, actually I think she had a script ahead of time this time. Again I approached the film as though it were to have no music at all which enabled me to give Lois free reign to compose. She did not disappoint, once again providing a first draft that exceeded my expectations. By the fourth draft we once again nailed it.
If you have watched the film once you may not have noticed the music so much because of how apt it is to the scene. I would encourage everybody to watch this film once just to appreciate the amazing score.
The result was an emotionally dense drama that effectively represents the five stages of grief. While much credit must be given to the actors for their commitment to the material for much of that emotion, one shouldn't overlook the effect of how it was shot and cut nor how the music accentuates that emotion.
I'm a strong believer in the idea that, if you surround yourself with brilliant people, they will help make your work appear brilliant. Troll2357 was the first step in demonstrating that idea, and Let Him Go is the second. I'm hoping to reunite this winning team (and grow it a little) for the third step.
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