I was recently lucky enough to have a sneak preview viewing of the debut feature from Scottish born film maker Bryan O’Neil. Billed as “a funny, unique and heart-warming story of love, life and moving on”, Booked Out is a sweet and strangely beautiful gem of a film. Two seconds in, and we have Trapdoor on a television set. What’s not to love?!
Centred around a handful of flat block inhabitants, Booked Out’s brightest light comes in the form of the creative – and perhaps a little eccentric – Ailidh, played by the delightful Mirren Burke.
A girl who divides her time between working in a bookstore, crafting her graphic novel, keeping watch on the neighbours via the medium of the spyhole in her door and filling in an intricately timetabled diary of their comings and goings, Ailidh is a loveably mad character who sees the fun in every situation and lives to put smiles on the faces of others. She may be a little obsessive, but always has the best of intentions. How many people do you know who would organise French lessons for a dead husband in order to keep a lonely old woman happy?
Booked Out poster (credit Toby Atkins)
Ailidh’s engineered run-ins and meetings on the stairway lead to an encounter with a new face in the form of Jacob, played by Rollo Weeks. Curiosity sparked, she decides to strike up a tentative friendship, with the ultimate goal of attaining this mysterious boy as the object of her affections. However, it soon becomes clear Ailidh may not be the only girl in Jacob’s life. Who is this grief-stricken girl he visits? Why does she have such a hold over him? And will Ailidh’s jealous outbursts ruin everything before anything really starts? Oh, I wish I could tell you…but I can’t. Perhaps with massive spoiler warnings on my own subpar blog later…
With a cast that works well together, including the always fantastic Sylvia Syms as the ageing and confused Mrs Nicholls, there are both heart-warming and heart-breaking scenes. All backed by a rather well chosen soundtrack. That’s about as much as I can say…apart from keep an eye on this baby, and make sure you see it on release.
Booked Out has a touching kind of ‘indie romance’ vibe going on, with an underlying theme of acknowledging the past – whether good or bad – and putting it behind you. A wonderful thing…because if you can’t move on, you’ll never know what could pass you by when you least expect it. Beautiful stuff.
I for one can’t wait to see what Bryan O’Neil delivers next, as this could be the start of a very promising and interesting career. So I’ll get on with questioning the important fella in this feature, then…
Bryan O'Neil and Rollo Weeks picture credit Rob Baker Ashton
LFF: How goes spreading the word of Booked Out? There have been some positive things out there on the web (Little White Lies and MovieScope to name a couple…)
Bryan O’Neil: I have been blogging about Booked Out for a while so there have been people following that from the beginning but we when we released the trailer for the film about a month ago we have gotten some good feedback from that. Feels like just we are just at the beginning and there will be lots more when the film is actually released.
LFF: What type of feedback are you getting from others who have seen it?
Bryan: Feedback has been great so far. I think the most common element would be that it is an interesting story with a unique style to it. Everyone seems to identify with one or more of the characters (although not always the same one!) which is great as it is a character driven film and that is all down to the great actors that I was lucky enough to get to work with. The soundtrack and score also gets singled out as a particular highpoint.
LFF: Having seen it, and identified with one in particular, I can see this as one of the strong points of the film. Can you tell us more about the soundtrack?
Bryan: The score is written by two of my friends, Mark West who played Guitar in the band Fan Farlo and had just started his own band The Lost Cavalry and Derek Yau who played in a band with me as well as a host of others. I knew what the feel of the score was that I wanted and it was similar to the music that Mark made with his bands and from working with Derek in creating music I also felt his influence was key rhythmically and I asked the two of them towork together. Throughout the whole process of making a film it was key that my key collaborators could work with me to get the vision out of my head and from having a good relationship with them both made the decision a no brainer.
For the songs that we got for the film that seemed like a marathon process. I spent a lot of time trying to find music that I liked that fitted the film and that we could afford. Some music came from bands who I had seen at some festivals like “For A Minor Reflection”, some from more established acts like “The Drums” and others that I stumbled upon randomly but were great finds like “Colorama” who I stumbled across by following some facebook posts on other band pages and unearthed a little jem. So it was hard work but I am really proud of our soundtrack and finding all the tracks that I did. If we had more money we might just have went for a more obvious choice rather than finding the perfect fit.
LFF: Are release plans on the horizon?
Bryan: We are currently speaking to a number of sales agents, distributors and festivals about the release of Booked Out. It is still early days but hopefully over the next few months we will have a release secured.
LFF: What was the inspiration behind the story of Booked Out?
Bryan: There are lots of particular things that were an inspriation that all came together and are intertwined in my mind with the film.
- In terms of films I wanted to try and create a British take on an American Indie. Taking that format but giving it a British sensibility.
- While writing the screenplay for Booked Out I was listening to a lot of Belle & Sebastian and in the film there are scenes where the characters are playing vinyl records so I started to buy the Belle & Sebastian back catalogue on vinyl even though I didn’t own a record player to play them on. I still have the records and they still haven’t been played!
- I took up Lindy Hop Dancing during the writing process and the Lindy Hop dancing scene from the film could be a reconstruction of my first experiences of going to a dancing class and feeling completely out of my comfort zone but loving it at the same time.
- I am a huge fan of the novelist Haruki Murakami and in his novels he has the most wonderful female characters and before I had constructed the Booked Out story one of my goals was to try and make the female characters in the story really strong. I would love to think that Ailidh and Jacqueline could live within the world of one of his novels.
- I started to fall in love with graphic novels just before writing the film. They provide the ability to tell storys in a totally different way from anything I had read or seen before and I knew that I wanted to incorporate that into Booked Out. Obviously Ailidh is a graphic novelist but in terms of the style of the film we tried to incorporate that as well.
LFF: The cast all seemed to gel together perfectly, how did you go about finding the right fit for your characters?
Bryan: I guess one of the positives of being a completely independent film-maker is that you are involved with every detail of the film. As the writer I obviously had a picture of the characters in my head and the casting and rehearsal process was an extension of understanding whether the actors are right for the role. Once you have found the right person you just have a feeling so strong that they must do the role that you can’t be wrong.
LFF: As Ailidh, Mirren Burke is a bundle of hyperactive fun, while Rollo Weeks as Jacob gives a much more understated and quiet performance. A dynamic that really works. Was the chemistry aspect something looked for during casting?
Bryan: Jacob was easily the hardest part to cast on the film. We held a lot of open castings as well as targeting and auditioning established actors for the role but I couldn’t find someone who could have the vulnerability and openness that Jacob needed in order for him to work with the two girls in polar opposite worlds. A lot of people would not allow Ailidh to be Ailidh and would try and come back at her with the same level of activity which was completely the wrong thing.
I nearly didn’t see Rollo as all of the images of him online were of him when he was really young but I decided to see him as we were struggling to find the right person and I am so glad I did. Rollo provided a Jacob who reacted naturally to the two girls which seems like an easy skill but it isn’t. He combines that with humility, charm and a subtle comedy that fitted with my own vision of the tone of Jacob and the film. Jacobs character in someways is the one who is the link between all of the main characters in the film and was key to get right.
LFF: What was your approach with regards to directing the character interaction? For example, the growing tension between Ailidh and Jacqueline as the two women in Jacob’s life?
Bryan: I believe whatever the type of story you are telling it is of upmost importance to provide the best possible environment for the actors to work within and to prepare them with the knowledge they require to gain a total understanding of their character and in doing so I set out a few rules that I believe helped create this environment.
Early on in the process I made the decision that Mirren and Claire wouldn’t meet during the film-making process so the only time they looked or spoke to each other was during their scenes on set. Shooting in a cramped flat and in very short timescales made this tough but we managed to do it and it was interesting to watch as if one of them was talking to Rollo and had inhabited one of the few rest areas on set then the other one would have to find somewhere else to go and a lot of the time there wasn’t anywhere else available other than standing in a corridor or sitting outside. So in some ways the tension of wondering who the other person is that exists in the film was paralleled off camera.
LFF: And of course, nice one on having the lovely Sylvia Syms!
Bryan: I had watched Sylvia Syms in a number of her films and I sent her a letter telling her how much I wanted her to be in the film as well as a copy of the script. She read the script and decided to do the film based on the back of that. She has since said to me that she did it because her character didn’t get killed off and that she got to play a lunatic old woman.
The first time I met Sylvia was five days before we were scheduled to shoot the film and she invited me over to her house for a cup of tea. I was really nervous and had no idea what to expect but after a shaky start where I couldn’t get my answers out quickly enough, I calmed down and we started talking about her character and found a mutual understanding on what we were expecting.
LFF: How long did the entire process of making Booked Out take? From the writing, through filming and post production?
Bryan: I started writing Booked Out in September 2008 and finished the first draft of the script in early 2009. I originally planned to shoot the film in October 2009 but abandoned those plans about 6 weeks before the shoot date as I hadn’t been able to raise enough money and had no crew. That was when the films producer Sam Alani came on board and we set a new shoot date of March 2010 which we met. We shot the film in 19 days over a 3 week period. For the flats that the characters live in we filmed all within a single flat that was dressed three times to create Ailidh, Jacqueline and Mrs Nicholls worlds. It was a bit of a challenge to create the spatial geography of the rooms and to make them look and feel unique but with some clever concealment it works and you would never tell any different. When our main location was being redressed we filmed in a variety of locations throughout London.
Post production took over a year and we finally finished the film in July 2011. The long post was mostly down to me working a full time job at the same time and raising additional funds to pay for the final parts which we did when I took voluntary redundancy from my job which handily sorted out both those issues.
LFF: Was the overall experience of shooting your first film a good one?
Bryan: I think it was! I still find it hard to look back on everything as there is still further things to do on the film. I still can’t believe that we managed to shoot the film in such a short timescale and get the performances we got out of the actors within those constraints. It’s in my nature to always want to make things perfect so you are always looking for ways to improve and to make the film better. Not sure that answers your question but in my head I really want to make the next film now so at the very least it hasn’t put me off.
LFF: Have you always wanted to write and direct your own scripts?
Bryan: After a few years of working as a computer programmer I came to the realisation that I didn’t want to spend years of my life working on something that I was good at but that didn’t get me excited. I have always loved film and decided to start writing with my goal right from the beginning that I wanted to make the films that I wrote probably because I am a bit of a control freak but it felt like the end goal of the process for me was a film rather than a script.
LFF: I assume its always better to be able to tell your own story visually, rather than have someone else take control of something you’ve worked on from scratch. Would you be happy to hand the reins over in future? And similarly, would working on someone else’s script appeal to you, if it were the right one?
Bryan: I would definitely work on someones elses script if I found it interesting but would probably find it a bit hard to let go but I guess most writers are like that. I would find it a lot harder to write an original script and then to hand over control as I can’t imagine writing something that wasn’t personal to me so that would be like giving someone your diary to unveil to the world.
LFF: There has been talk from you – in an unofficial Twitter capacity – with regards to working on a science fiction feature next. Do these hints hold any truth?
Bryan: Its still early days but I am writing a new sci-fi film and the current plan is for it to be my next film. It will probably all change but currently it is the story of a teenager who finds a broken alien rover which he manages to fix and discovers that he can talk to his future self. So it is based on the premise that if you could change something from your past what would you do and would it be a good thing if it changes. I imagine it having a similar tone to “Let the right one in” but with sci-fi elements rather than horror ones.
LFF: Interesting stuff! Anything that sparks your imagination where science fiction is concerned?
Bryan: I have read a lot of science fiction books, I tried to read all the books in the SF Masterworks series but they kept adding new ones too it and some of the books are tombs so I gave up and tried to read all the Phillip K. Dick ones on there instead plus the top ten of course. I also have a degree in mathematics so I am probably more qualified to make a sci-fi film than something like Booked Out but in terms of sci-fi I have always tended towards the more realistic ends of the spectrum where I can imagine myself in the situations rather than some of the more outlandish ideas out there.
LFF: Would you take control of directing again?
Bryan: Definitely. I imagine myself as a film-maker and directing is just one part of that.
LFF: Where writing is concerned, who do you see as influences?
Bryan: My favourite author is Haruki Murakami and for Booked Out his stories were a major influence. I always love his characters and especially his female characters which are brilliantly inventive. When writing Booked Out I had implanted in the back of my head that I wanted to aspire to write Jacqueline, Ailidh and Mrs Nicholls to be somewhere near the level of his characters and to try to imagine them fitting into one of his novels. I hope I achieved something close to that.
LFF: Are there any major influences on your approach to directing or your visual style?
Bryan: I think every film should have its own particular style that suits the story that you are telling. For Booked Out myself and the DoP set out a mini set of rules that we tried to apply. Things like having a different style for each character, Ailidh is more hand held and chaotic, Jacqueline is static, Mrs Nicholls is slow and steady. Then adding to that the fact that it is a character piece on the whole so I was keen to not shoot the film with lots of angles so that the focus could be on the acting and the drama rather than trying to race through a number of shots throughout the shoot.
In terms of directing I just went with my instinct really. I am generally a quiet and introspective person so on set this manifested itself in having quick distinct discussions with all the people I needed to rather than being a shouty director (if those actually exist). It also helped that I had spent a lot of time with the actors beforehand going over their characters journeys so on set it was quick reminders that were needed.
LFF: Do you think these influences – and your approach to the process – will change when moving between genres?
Bryan: Definitely. Booked Out came from a certain place within me and a new film would come from a different place with different things attached.
LFF: Are you aiming for a consistent style? Or would you prefer the freedom of trying new things with each project you embark upon?
Bryan: I guess there are certain things that I will never want to do and things that I like that will keep coming back as well as exploring new ideas. I guess as a film maker I aspire to be someone more like Jim Jarmusch than a Michael Bay which I hope is evident from Booked Out. Each project must mean something to me if I am going to spend a large part of my life on it.
LFF: Any other projects you have your eye on?
Bryan: I am really just concentrating on Booked Out and the sci-fi film at the minute.
LFF: In Booked Out, Ailidh’s art plays a role in the story. Can you tell us more about the artwork, and the artist involved?
Bryan: The artwork was all created by a South Korean artist called Kyeongmi (Kimi) Baek who my production designer found. My initial inspiration for the artwork in her room was based on the artwork of Yoshitomo Nara who is probably my favourite artist and seemed the perfect fit for Ailidh. We took inspiration for Ailidh’s rooms set design from some photos of Nara’s studio as well. The drawings in the film though are definitely Kimi’s style but we went looking for someone who had the same playfulness as the original inspiration. Kimi also did the graphic novel drawings for the film which where then redrawn by Mirren Burke who plays Ailidh. These were inspired by the style of Marjane Satrapi who is one of my favourite graphic novelists. Also if you look closely you will see a couple of drawings by me, Mirren Burke (Ailidh) and our hair and make up designer.
LFF: Need to have a rewatch and look out for those! There are lots of tiny details that bring something different to Booked Out.
Bryan: Especially in Ailidh’s room! It reminds me that Mirren also brought in a conker for Ailidh’s room which went missing so if anyone out there has it then she wants it back!
LFF: Claire Garvey’s character of Jacqueline is in a very low place for much of the film, and spends a lot of time with the comfort of classic kids tv…was good to see some Trapdoor in there! Why the adventures of Berk and Boney?
Bryan: I asked Claire what her favourite cartoons were as a child as I wanted to have something on TV that she could relate to even though we shot all her scenes without the TV but the point was she would be imaginging Trapdoor. From her list I then selected my favourites and I always loved Trapdoor as a child (and adult!) so it was definitely top of the list for me. It also played nicely against where her character was in the film, in some ways it is quite loud and funny but there is also a darker element to it which fitted quite well for the story. If you ever want to talk Trapdoor though you should speak to our dialogue editor who I would describe as the biggest Trapdoor fan in the world and listened to a whole series of shows to find a few random sound effects to through into the sound mix. He also took the DVD of Trapdoor on loan and I haven’t seen it since so Marc if you are reading this I want it back!
LFF: Another rewatch needed for Trapdoor sound effect spotting, then? Oh you *need* to get that back.
Bryan: I do hope he reads this…
LFF: Well if we can get Trapdoor and the missing conker retrieved, I think we’re onto a winner. And because its always a question that everyone always wants to ask…what are your favourite films, Bryan?
Bryan: Oh… that is a tough question. This changes all the time but there a few films that I will keep coming back to so I will tell you why I love those. I am sure that as soon as I stop this interview I will think of loads more though!
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind – This gets me every time I watch it. Nausicaa is probably my favourite character ever. She is just so heroic throughout and even though I know what happens I still get all pent up when the ohms are attacking at the end and she is trying to stop them. I love pretty much all Studio Ghibli films but this is my favourite.
Delicatessen – I love the detail and world of Delicatessen. A lot of people say they watched Star Wars and they wanted to become film makers but for me that was watching Delicatessen and being transported to this unusual but beautifully detailed world.
Taxi Driver – This is probably on a lot of lists but I must watch it a few times every year. The soundtrack, De Niro’s performance, Scorsese on top form… doesn’t get better than this.
Donnie Darko – I can remember watching Donnie Darko for the first time and not knowing what to expect and it really grabbed hold of me. I have read all the stuff online and listened to the two commentries on different disks and I still think the actual plot behind it is flawed but that doesn’t matter one bit. We are in there with Donnie and dealing with the situation as he does. Also it probably has one of the best 80s inspired soundtracks too.
LFF: Sometimes a film can be carried quite far by the soundtrack and choice of music. Is that something you hold in high importance, given that music seems quite central to Booked Out?
Bryan: Depending who you speak to there is lots of talk about what parts of a film are the most important and really the simple answer is that they all are. From the moment I started writing Booked Out till it was finished I had an idea of the music that would fit with my vision of the story so it was important to realise that. It is actually quite easy as the music was either right or wrong for me and I knew that straight away. Finding the music that I would say was right though was the hard part. I should also say that sitting through the whole sound design process itself has also given me a greater respect for the impact that can have on a film so I definitely will be focusing a lot more on that from the early stage on the next film!
LFF: Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my random questions and being a fabulous interview subject, Mr O’Neil. I hope to see Booked Out on release soon, and more of your work in future!
For more information on Booked Out, head to www.bookedoutfilm.com
