29 March 2024 The Irish Film & Television Network
     
Liam O’Mochain Wraps ‘WC’
27 Apr 2005 :

What do you do after spending three years writing and developing a feature film only to see it stuck in development hell? Pick yourself up and start writing another one according to director Liam O’Mochain, who has just completed shooting his latest low/no budget feature ‘WC’.

In early 2004, Liam O’Mochain’s planned feature film ‘Bigmouth’ was buried in the development graveyard after its Irish Film Board production funding was refused. “They just said ‘no’, that was it, after three years of development!” says the director. “So I said ’okay, I’ll just do what I did the last time on ‘The Book That Wrote Itself’. I made that film because I couldn’t get money from the Film Board and I went ahead with it myself.” The aforementioned film garnered a lot of international interest and screened at over 20 Irish and International film festivals. O’Mochain hopes his second self-penned, self-directed and self-funded feature film ‘WC’ can do just as well, if not better.

Set in the toilets of a Jazz bar ‘WC’ follows a day in the life of two toilet attendants, an Irish guy (played by O’Mochain) and a Russian girl (played by newcomer Julia Wakeham). Described by the director as a “social drama”, the film promises to examine topical issues like racism, social integration, immigration and low paid workers. Writing the script took six months and O’Mochain has drawn inspiration from the films of Mike Leigh, Ken Loach and Michael Winterbottom.


L. to R. Eamonn Hunt as Dylan Watts,
Adam Goodwin as Brian Watts and Liam O
Mochain as Jack Watts in WC

Made for just under €12,000 euros and shot over 15 days in early April, ‘WC’ is light on budget but heavy on talent. It boasts a credited cast of over 50 and a crew of 30; actors like IFTA nominated actor Karl Shiels (Capital Letters, Veronica Guerin), Adam Goodwin (Short Order, A Dublin Story), Eamon Hunt (Love Is The Drug, Inside I’m Dancing), Sean McDonagh (The Magdalene Sisters), Charlie Kranz (Batman Begins), Tim Ruddy (Gettysburg, Gods and Generals) and Julie Hale (Ash Wednesday, My Left Foot) signed up on the basis of the script alone. Working behind the scenes are; DOP Mark Waldron (Bachelors Walk, Park), Production Designer Sinead Kavanagh (Meeting Che Guevara), Costume Designer Allison Byrne (Song For A Raggy Boy), producer Bernie Grummell (The Book That Wrote Itself), co-producer Liz Kenny (Benedict Arnold), Stunt co-ordinator Alan Walsh (Braveheart, The Boxer), editor John Wilson (Billy Elliott) and composer Richie Buckley (The General).

“You talk about making movies and then you just have to go make the f**king thing, stop talking about it and just do it. To be honest I don’t care how a film is made and the audience doesn’t care how a film is made because what matters is what’s up on the screen. However much it costs to make it’s what’s on the screen that matters. I don’t go along with an ethos where you have to make a film in one particular way, everybody has a different style and way of working so I just did this film the only way I knew how to do it, my way.”

“All cast and crew worked on deferred payment because they liked the script, they liked what the film was about and also because it’s a multicultural movie,” explains the director. “Everybody liked the story and the message that was put across in it, particularly the social integration. I think we’ve had that theme on TV but not so much in Irish movies yet. In this the characters are from a mixture of different places around the world and they are not just seen as somebody who is doing a job - they are part of the story, nobody is being highlighted for being from a particular country, they are just a character in the movie like everybody else.“

The film was shot on the Panasonic DV 100 camera with Tamangos nightclub transformed into a Jazz bar for the shoot. Funded by “sponsorship, private investment, credit cards and sweat”, ‘WC’ is now entering the first phase of post production with a target completion date of early 2006. The director's plans are big for the film and O'Mochain hopes to premiere at one of the top international festivals. “I’m not in a huge hurry, I don’t have a specific timetable but I do want to have it done by the end of the year and ready to begin screening at festivals from February onwards. I want it to premiere at one of the top festivals like Berlin, Cannes, Venice or Toronto. There is a particular strategy you have to have when you are dealing with film festivals, which I learned by mistakes from my first film that was shown in over twenty international film festivals and did quite well.”


Daniel Wo in WC

Despite the mammoth task that lies ahead, O’Mochain is looking forward to the next few months where he will apply for completion grants from the Film Board and funding from one of the major broadcasters in Ireland.

“I think our chances are really good, it’s very hard talking about something you’ve written, in the sense that this film is unique, it’s different and it’s not something that anybody has ever seen before… It was a joy working on this because the production team were consummate professionals. I think for a lot of the crew this would have been their first lower budget movie so they were working in a way that they had never worked before. Independent movies have a different energy to them, your mantra is getting it done no matter what, finding a way to get it made but also trying to make sure everybody is happy at the same time, I mean we didn’t have a lot of money but you will not notice that when you see the film.”

By Tanya Warren.

 





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