The Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) is tonight marking the directorial debut of screen writer Paul Fraser with an exclusive screening of his new feature, ‘My Brothers’. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Paul and the writer, Will Collins. IFTN spoke with the filmmaker prior to the event to discuss his transition into the director’s chair.
‘My Brothers’ is set over the Halloween weekend of 1987 and explores three young brothers' quest to replace their dying father's beloved watch in an off-beat and moving journey that ultimately leads them home. Written by William Collins (Escape of the Wild Thing) the film stars newcomers Timmy Creed, Paul Courtney and TJ Griffin as the siblings of the film’s title as well as a supporting cast including Kate Ashfield (Shaun of the Dead), Don Wycherley (Rásaí na Gaillimhe), Sarah Green (Shelter) and Eamonn Hunt (W.C.)
Paul Fraser was nominated for two British Independent Film Awards for his screenplays for ‘Somers Town’ and ‘a Room for Romeo Brass’ and was further nominated for a Golden Berlin Bear award for his ‘Scummy Man’ script. He walked away with the Thessaloniki Film Festival award for ‘Twenty Four Seven’. He has written the scripts for five of Shane Meadow’s projects including the titles mentioned above and ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’ and has also worked with Damien O’Donnell on his 2002 feature, ‘Heartlands’.
As mentioned above ‘My Brothers’ is his first feature in the role of director. We spoke to him about his decision to direct the feature, his partnership with Shane Meadows and his theory that everyone looked older in the 80s.
IFTN: How did you get involved with ‘My Brothers’?
Paul Fraser (PF)“Well, Will (Collins) won the pitching award at the Fleadh in Galway and from the back of that he was just looking for someone to just advise him on the script for the IFB. I do a lot of script doctoring so he asked me to have a look at it. Which I did and I advised him on the draft he had given me.
”And the responses that he gave to the suggestions were really good, he didn’t just take on board what I had suggested which is something that you can’t help but do when you’re script doctoring. Instead he took it in his own way. At that point the script was massively long and had lots of normal first time writers mistakes throughout. But he started to hone in on it really well and the more that I was involved in each new draft, I started to feel like it was something I would have written myself - I thought it resonated really well thematically, I liked the structure and the character-driven narrative that it had as well. So it was just a very casual thing where I just said I’d be interested in directing.”
IFTN: What struck me as strange was that you didn’t choose to helm one of your own scripts.
PF“Yes, I know. The assumption for me was that I’d write something for me but I never got around to writing something I actually wanted to direct, strangely enough.
IFTN: The cast of the film are an unusual mix in that it’s almost half and half established actors like Don Wycherly and Kate Ashfield alongside novices such as the three guys who play the brothers of the film’s title – did you have to tailor your approach to directing with each group?
PF “Yes, the kids had never done any of this before and when you work with an untrained cast you’ve got to kind of improvise and be loose around the script. In many ways its actually a lot more complicated working with untrained actors because you’ve got to direct them in a slightly different way to the way you’d direct someone like Don or Kate or Sarah in that they don’t have a clue, obviously. They’ve never been in front of a camera so you start with very simple things like “Don’t look at the camera.” and getting them to just focus in on what you’re doing within the scenes. So what it meant essentially is that we did a lot of workshops with the boys and we improvised a lot around the script.”
IFTN:Were you involved with the film’s open auditions?
PF “I was, it was a bit like X Factor in Cork! So, for instance, we had a day for casting the Timmy character and the original guy in the script was sixteen but when Timmy came into the room, his presence and the aura and the look in his face was just everything I was looking for. Timmy’s character is meant to be about 16 in the script and he looks about 24. But I just thought to myself “Well, this is a film in the eighties and in the eighties everyone did look a bit older for some reason.” In a way it worked out stronger for us because it’s kind of less stereotypical, less ‘bullied kid’ who was not having a good time at home. He had a little bit more about himself.”
IFTN:Will, as you mentioned, won the Galway Fiml Fleadh pitching award with his script for ‘My Brothers’ and it opened this year’s fleadh – it must have been really nice to have seen it come full circle?
PF “Oh yeah, if anything it was beautiful. I think it was 2 years ago that he won the Fleadh and, like I said, very soon after that I was on board. And I think everyone was really thrilled for it to get back there. Also, it was the first time in eight years that an Irish film had opened the Fleadh – which is great!”
IFTN:And of course it screened at Tribeca then.
PF “Yes, we opened at Tribeca two weeks after finishing the film and we had the volcanic ash situation which almost meant that none of us made it. The producers ended up driving the film from Dublin through Wales and England and France and Spain, and then they flew from Madrid so they could travel under the ash cloud via Columbia, Miami and then on to New York.
“And the kids had obviously never done anything like this and were really excited and the day before we were due to fly, they were told that it was going to be another week before the airways would be opened up again. But for some bizarre reason everyone changed their minds and we were on pretty much the first flight over to New York. It just worked out brilliantly for everyone in the end. I turned into a travel agent for a week before with everyone ringing me up asking ‘Are the flights going?”
IFTN:How long of a shoot was it?
PF “About twenty days - a really short shoot. And it was November to December so daylight hours were about 28 minutes a day! Budget was pretty low as well, just between €6,000 and €7,000, so it was low, low budget. Crew-wise it was immense because I haven’t worked with anyone on a feature over here.
I’ve been doing adverts and things like that over here for a while now but it was the first time I had worked with a crew over here and they were just exceptional. Every day we were battling to get every scene and they were wonderful men to just be around! Logistically it was pretty much a nightmare because we had the floods as well so nothing was easy.It could have all have gone so wrong …”
IFTN:You have had a long term working partnership with Shane Meadows and you’ve also worked with Damien O’Donnell – were you keeping an eye on their directing methods down through the years or did you do things completely your own way?
PF “Shane and I have been friends since we were next to nothing and always made little short films, not necessarily for festivals- just with mates because we enjoy doing it. So in that capacity I knew the way I would like to do things, the way I would work things. But I’d look at what Shane does and at what Damien would do and think “That’s quite an interesting approach” or “That’s a good little technique to try and workshop”.
”But, in terms of the way I write, I approached my scripts for Shane and Damien or the development of any script was pretty much the same- just to be loose to be free.
“So when we went into the workshops with the actors it was to create a backstory for the characters, so that if they were looking at each other, you felt the history there and the characters knew the history. They have shared experiences through these workshop improvisations that they could refer back to them, that’s why I like the workshop approach.
“Whether my approach to shooting is like Shane or Damien, I’m kind of in the middle between the two if that makes any sense….”
IFTN:As it was your debut as a director is there anything you would have dealt with differently if you could go back and shoot the film again?
PF “Well it was a massive massive learning curve. I’d change a few things - even simple things like the edit time that I had or the sound mix time. Little things like that which look fine on paper but then you think “Oh next time I’ll try to get another week of that.”
”And more time and more money obviously. I’m even more aware now of the types of personalities I would like to work with and the way I’d work on scenes. Every step of the way I was analysing how it went and what we’d do next time. The whole initial idea was that I want to have a go at directing - and if I’m in a position to do that I’d be a fool not to - and I don’t know if everyone is going to hate it and I’m going to have to retire…but it’s immensely addictive and something I’m looking to do it again.”
IFTN: Do you have anything in the pipeline at the moment that you’d like to direct?
PF “There’s a couple of projects, I’m writing a few things. I’m writing something for Damien, I’ve got a book adaptation and I’ve got a film script underway. There’s one or two of those that I could look at to direct, but I’ve decided to keep these things separate - so I’ll focus on the writing for certain projects and for the others I’ll make it clear from the beginning that I’ll probably want to direct. But then I try to forget that and focus on the writing because I don’t want to be doing too many different things obviously.”
’My Brothers’ is produced by Rebecca O'Flanagan (The Eclipse, The Running Mate) and Rob Walpole (Man About Dog) through Rubicon Films. Other crew members include PJ Dillon (32A, Kings) as director of photography, production designer Mark Geraghty (In America) and editor Emer Reynolds (The Eclipse).
