As one half of this year’s ‘Rising Star’ IFTA-nominated directing couple, Glenn Leyburn has a lot to smile about. Along with wife and filmmaking partner Lisa Barros D’Sa, he has earned rave reviews for ‘Good Vibrations’ –an exhilarating journey through the punk rock scene in Belfast in the 70s, as seen through the eyes of record label rebel Terri Hooley.
'Good Vibrations' - only the second full length feature that he and his wife Lisa have directed following 2009’s Cherrybomb - won Best Irish Feature at the Galway Film Fleadh 2012 and is set to capture the imaginations of Irish audiences when it comes out this Friday 29th March.
Mr Leyburn spoke to IFTN this week, as ‘Good Vibrations’ prepares to take Irish cinemas by storm this Easter weekend.
What convinced you that Richard Dormer was the ideal actor to play Terri Hooley? Lisa and I wanted to work with Richard for a very long time. He’s an actor we have huge respect for. We’d seen Richard on stage in 'Hurricane' - the one man show he wrote and starred in about snooker player Alex Higgins - and his performance was just staggering. We certainly knew what he was capable of. Richard, like ourselves, grew up right through the Troubles. It’s in our DNA and something we instinctively know and I guess, aside from his amazing acting abilities, it’s something he can draw upon as well.
As a director, what did you find were the biggest challenges in depicting the punk-rock scene of 1970s Belfast on the big screen? Belfast thankfully has changed greatly since the 1970s and that’s a good thing. But there are still a few streets that progress has yet to hit and we were able to find those streets and were actually quite pleased we were able to. Where we recreated the shop is actually in the centre of Belfast. Our production designer Derek Wallace worked miracles with the budget and did a really terrific job in recreating those details and we had great help as well from band members like Brian Young, who was the guitarist in Rudi, who’s a great archivist. He collected all the posters, stickers, badges, clippings and photographs. So there was a great wealth of archive material.
Two great filmic archives and documentaries are the movies that John T. Davis shot at the time – ‘Shellshock Rock’ and ‘Self Conscious Over You’. Both are wonderful documentaries and very useful to that process too.
In co-directing with your wife Lisa, what do you see as the particular areas in which you each excel? We have worked together on several projects now and long before Lisa and I ever directed a film together we collaborated on other projects. I come from a graphic design background. I got into film through designing a lot of record sleeves and through that did some pop promos. I came into it from a very visual angle and Lisa, before she made any films, wrote and did a Master’s degree in Screenwriting. So I guess we have complementary skills. Having said that, I think we have both gotten to know both sides of the job and we’re very well prepared before we go on set. We ask each other the questions that other people are likely to ask us and we actually enjoy it. If we didn’t feel like it worked, we wouldn’t do it. I guess there’s an apprehension sometimes that there could be conflict or it could take longer, but in our experience it’s completely the opposite.
We have a very clear vision for the film that we’ve formed together and when we’re on set and things change, we can incubate ideas really quickly between ourselves. We trust each other completely with our own vision, so that aspect for us we find really beneficial and we really enjoy it.
How do you feel about the response you have received from critics and audiences so far? It’s been absolutely amazing. We’re kind of bowled over. We’re getting great reviews in the press and have had wonderful support from people like Mark Kermode. We’ve had Ron Howard talking about it. The other thing that’s been really amazing has been travelling with the film to festivals and attending screenings where the audiences have really engaged with the film - in some cases bursting into spontaneous applause and singing along to the songs, which is kind of a remarkable thing. As a filmmaker that’s very rewarding. That aspect of it has been quite spectacular and it’s been quite moving for us to witness that. You pour your heart and soul into something for a number of years and to get that response is amazing.
Read IFTN’s interview with ‘Good Vibrations’ star Richard Dormer here.
‘Good Vibrations’ is released this Friday, 29th March in cinemas nationwide.
