Neighbours who don’t like to communicate meet via their intercom at dawn.

(click on player to play trailer)

See home page for news and interview with Mark on Intercom.

PRODUCTION NOTES

Cinematographer Dick Pope was on board early on and shot Intercom prior to gaining his
Oscar nomination this year. Having spent his career turning down short films, he decided Intercom was an exception.

Co-writer, Producer and Director Mark Gutteridge cast the film and waited for artist availability. The planets lined up when Marc Warren suddenly had free time at short notice, which meant there was just two days to confirm crew and reconfirm locations.
So Mark G ended up line producing and production managing, which was, “an experience” according to Mark. Having also co-written it meant that he was good for answering questions and making changes!

Shooting on location helped to minimise costs, as well as free camera rental thanks to Panavision and (almost) free lighting. Thanks also to the many people and companies in post-production who also gave their services.

Regarding the shoot Mark says, “The actors knew how to use the camera so we could concentrate on what was happening in the scene therefore the shoot ratio was kept down. Later that started making it economic to shoot a rehearsal, in case the initial freshness worked best.

Jenny was wondering about one of the ways her character might react to what she’s seeing on the intercom in a particular scene. It was a close up, a long take and her eye line was straight to camera with nothing to bounce off. I asked her to imagine her character being at the Colosseum in ancient Rome, getting a kick out of what she’s watching and then correcting herself. On the next take all she did was think it and you just see it flicker in and out of her eyes. I loved that. It had to be that small because the lens was only 6 inches away from her face, but her doing that saved a lot of time and film. I’d been used to working with mostly non-professionals, members of the public. Not being their job to worry about cameras and such, it was my job to capture it and prepare for more takes if necessary, so this was different.

- Serendipity can play a useful part too though. A supporting artist took several takes trying to hang up a phone correctly. In all fairness it was the last set up of a long day but finally, the man playing her husband in the shot grabbed it from her and hung it up himself. It happened to work well for the scene and get it done so that was the one we used”!

PRODUCTION STILLS

TECHNICAL NOTES

Mark had been mostly shooting on Hi Def recently but wanting an analogue look for this story, opted for 35mm and Kodak Vision 2 for breadth of conditions. The timeline covers early morning, daytime and evening light with exteriors and interiors. Keeping post-production and grading optical without going the DI route meant that it’s not just more detailed but also a more lucid and transparent experience for a cinema audience. It also served to create the slightly older look Mark was after and at 24fps offers a pace that suited the characters.

To capture micro expressions on faces Mark wanted Dick Pope’s lighting. His deceptively simple style meant that on the pre light day they were of like mind for classical head and shoulders framing for the intercom’s ‘POV’ shots and tracking. Dick operated the camera and was well used to shooting in tight spaces on location. He can put a track down anywhere! That and scenes requiring the camera be suspended on its nose out of a window four floors up, led to using the relatively small ‘Moviecam Compact’.

Set in the summer, the colour range was soft cadmium yellows and greens for day through to cool grey blue for morning exteriors and this was mostly achieved in camera. Mark set up a second unit working in tandem shooting the intercom monitor action with a ‘video look’ Sony DVcam PDP-1P to play back on the intercom monitor and film later. To get good black and white on the titles Chris Allies shot them on a 35mm rostrum camera, sadly the only working one left in the UK.

Regarding sound, Mark says, “As well as dialogue, the sound generated by the characters is part of the texture of the story. For example, some of the characters are beset by a need to communicate but replace it by having the TV or radio for company. As the story unfolds, the programmes they choose are designed to give us an insight into their personalities. That involved me scripting and recording with voice artists all these various background parts. Allowing the background stuff to play with the foreground a little, hinting at what’s happening next. I had some fun with that.

- It was no fun getting to the recording session for the music. I was trapped in a bomb scare on the Piccadilly Line for 3/4 hour. In that time the only announcement made was that the army were on their way to look at the suspect package on our train. We were then left to think about it. This was all just one stop from the studio. When I got there it was harp to be recorded, thankfully the most soothing music in the world”!

MARK GUTTERIDGE BIOGRAPHY

Born in South Manchester, Mark was building sets for his first film at the age of 12. He first visited a studio was when his grandmother was working at Granada Studios on the long running UK TV series, ‘Coronation Street.’ Art College came next followed by running a successful computer business. He was doing this when he visited Ealing Film Studios. Mark was later asked back and made Head of Marketing during a busy period in its history. From there followed some crew and acting experience before going into production on his own.

After making two digital shorts, several promos and a commercial, Mark shot his first full production short film  ‘Intercom’, working with Bafta and Emmy award winning actress, Jenny Agutter and Oscar nominated cinematographer, Dick Pope.

Procession DOCUMENTARY. 13 Minutes. Daylight Films

Official Selection, 10th Raindance Film Festival, London UK.
Short-listed Best “British Documentary Short”.

A procession of the Italian Confraternity filmed in one 24 hr day. The Confraternity is an order of the Catholic Church whose hooded members carry burning crosses and skulls through the streets. Children take part whilst dressed in the same white pointed hoods or ‘capirotes’.

To the eyes of so-called non-Catholic countries, this perhaps looks like another very different movement. As an accepted part of the established church in different parts of Italy, Spain and France, the Confraternities (and the procession itself) contain no political meaning contextually.

Do these images still have the power to create any cultural uneasiness?

Mark says, “I wanted the viewer to feel they might be watching something they recognise and know about when really it’s something else. ‘Procession’ is intended as a docu-poem using narrative but without narration. I was inspired by some of the values of Humphrey Jennings and the docu-poetic movement of the 30s and I wanted to rekindle interest in it. Documentary that doesn’t spoon feed but leaves the audience maybe hungry to go and find out more for themselves – after all Google is accessible to almost everyone”.

Revisited DOCU-DRAMA. 7 Minutes. Idget Films Ltd.

Official Selection, Portobello Film Festival, London UK.

Is our protagonist about to commit a terrible crime or revisiting the scene?

A scene from ‘Blow Up’ by Michelangelo Antonioni is reinterpreted and chosen because of his love of location to invoke story.

Maryon Park in Woolwich, is where the blown-up photos were shot by Thomas, the photographer played by the late David Hemmings. The location is completely enclosed by large trees to the city surrounding it, making a private and slightly claustrophobic space in a public park. The original film was produced at a time, decades before digital correction and colour grading, when the Director was having location surroundings and elements of nature painted to enhance colours prior to filming. Trees, grass, fences and paths all received this treatment using gallons of paint!

During scouting for this piece it was found that some of the paths and steps still have large areas of black paint on them from production dressing 37 years ago by the film’s designer Assheton Gorton, keeping the park a fading movie set.

The original film contains themes about reality, the photographer protagonist’s interpretation and therefore our interpretation of what is seen down a lens. Has a murder actually happened or is it just the angle of the camera?

In this re-interpretation, members of the public are employed to highlight this theme.
Is the audience to expect fiction or reality?

Mark says: “In ‘Revisited’ I just wanted to see what resulted if we stripped down the original scene to two key elements. Firstly to play with audiences expectations as in the original scene and secondly to see what resonance a location has when re-filmed. It is drama but I also wanted to subvert a traditional documentary format”.