RESEARCH
Influences
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The Dirt
The main influence for our film The Exiles was the 2019 Netflix film The Dirt directed by Jeff Tremaine, the film follows popular rock band Motley Crue and is a biography comedy-drama on their life's.
We where very inspired by the cinematography especially in the opening scene as at a party the camera is moving around the room and freezes on a character then the main character Niki Sixx is giving a voice over introduction to each band member and stories from their past.
Pistol (miniseries)
Another biopic that has influenced our style is the 2022 miniseries Pistol directed by Danny Boyle, The drama follows the British punk band The Sex Pistols and their rise to fame.
'Esquire magazine said that "the commitment to the punk ethos of the Sex Pistols comes through in the making of the film itself." Director Boyle would let the actors run through scenes and entire performances, not using a traditional shot list. He matched the energy of punk by using cinema techniques such as split-screen editing, flashbacks, archival footage, freeze-frames, gaudy dreamscapes and slow-motion.
Sid and Nancy
Sid and Nancy directed by Alex Cox in 1986 starring Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb follows the story of a destructive and toxic relationship and tells the story of the couples life's leading up to their deaths.
We wanted to have a relationship like this portrayed in the film to add tension.
Pistol (miniseries) (2024) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_(miniseries) (Accessed: 10 April 2024).
ACTOR'S INFLUENCE
As my film is in the style of a biopic I wanted to know how actors in the industry transformed into their real life characters and what they had to tackle to make it as authentic and true to life as possible, to do this I researched into a few actors and their experiences, for example the actor Rami Malek and his portrayal of singer Freddie Mercury in the film Bohemian Rhapsody which won him an Oscar for best actor in 2019. As Freddie was a performer Rami had to take up singing and dancing lessons, so he worked with movement director Polly Bennett.
“someone led me to Polly Bennett and within a day we were working on ballet moves,” continues Malek. “[Freddie] was very elegant in his footwork and he got a lot of that from Bob Fosse and Liza Minnelli, so we watched Cabaret quite a bit. At one point Polly [had] me do ‘Killer Queen’ as a Shakespearean soliloquy as performed by Marie Antoinette. Essentially, she was getting me to be as spontaneously Freddie as possible. To not mimic him in any way, or try to do an impersonation, so that I, in any moment, whether it be a straight scene or a concert, felt as though he was existing in my body, and it was all grounded in my physicality and my performance.”
Salisbury2019-01-10T09:51:00+00:00, M. (2019) How Rami Malek survived the ‘very difficult’ “Bohemian rhapsody” shoot, Screen. Available at: https://www.screendaily.com/features/how-rami-malek-survived-the-very-difficult-bohemian-rhapsody-shoot/5135465.article (Accessed: 17 May 2024).
Additionally the actor had to undergo a physical transformation which involved multiple wigs and many prosthetics including a fake nose and Freddie's very prominent protruding teeth to capture his unique facial structure.
“I wore them every night, almost, for a year to get used to them,” he says. “I felt incredibly insecure when I first put them in. I felt I needed to compensate in some way, and my posture elongated almost immediately, and I thought, ‘Wow, what gorgeous posture Freddie had. Was he doing the same thing?’ I never really had an answer for that.”
Salisbury2019-01-10T09:51:00+00:00, M. (2019) How Rami Malek survived the ‘very difficult’ “Bohemian rhapsody” shoot, Screen. Available at: https://www.screendaily.com/features/how-rami-malek-survived-the-very-difficult-bohemian-rhapsody-shoot/5135465.article (Accessed: 17 May 2024).
DIRECTORS INFLUENCE
Cinematographer Walker has been working with Luhrmann for around 20 years, on both film and commercial projects. “He is an amazing collaborator, and he brings me on much earlier than most films, so I was there for [star] Austin [Butler]’s first workshops and running around with my Leica camera taking photos,” Walker recalled. “Baz always makes sure there’s plenty of time for us to do research on the visual language of the film, so we went into Panavision and looked at lenses. I had two series of bespoke lenses made to represent the first half of Elvis’ life, and then we went anamorphic for the second half of his life, but they were all very finely tweaked. We shot a lot of tests. And when we do tests, with Baz, it’s not just an actor standing in front of a grey piece of paper — there’s costume, there’s hair, makeup, there’s elements of the art department that’s all being tested in concert with what I’m doing with the lighting. I had to study the existing footage of Elvis. I studied those and replicated the exact camera angles and the lensing of each shot of those [referenced] films.”
Dresden, H. (2022) ‘there is an immaculate reality going on inside the film’: “thr presents” Q&A with “Elvis” creative team, The Hollywood Reporter. Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/elvis-baz-luhrmann-creative-team-interview-1235282257/#! (Accessed: 28 May 2024).
Punk RESEARCH
What is punk?
punk is a music genre made up from rock and roll and hard rock, the culture of punk emerged in the mid 1970s becoming very popular with its anti- establishment views and ethics consisting of individual freedom and using fashion as a form of expression.
Bands
A main influence was the very popular and influential punk rock band The Sex Pistols, formed in London 1975 vocalist Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook, and bassist Sid Vicious gained "fascist regime" attention from the media and general public due to their controversial actions, for example their most popular single to date "god save the queen" was released in May 1977 and made to mock the British monarchy with the line describing them as "fascist regime".
Daily Mirror front page, 2 December 1976
Levelling Up the industry
as the film is set in the North east we wanted to capture the landscape so to do this we climbed up Flatts lane, Normanby to show the panorama of Middlesbrough which has a good view of the industrial sites which are a key factor to Middlesbrough's history. Another reason we chose this spot when location scouting is its an easy spot to get to from my house as its only a 20 minute walk meaning we where able to get there in perfect timing to start shooting at golden hour.
North East Screen is North East England’s screen industries development agency. We work with emerging professionals, home grown filmmakers, production companies and artist filmmakers specialising in film, TV and screen-based arts, developing them through our North East Screen Crew Academy, Talent and Business Development team and Film Office. Through our Film Office, we support regional commercial film and TV production, attracting inward investment by promoting the region as a production base.
We work with our local authority partners across the region to make the North East a filming friendly region for all incoming productions.
Copyright
As we decided to do a band film we knew straight away we would need to figure out what to do about copyright with the sings included, luckily enough Reuben has a family member who is a singer, songwriter and we where able to get permission to use his music.
Music by : Zach Kemp-Hall (Point Nemo)
Song titles : Dirty Work, Fine!, So this is how it ends, Born rich
Mood boards are important as it communicates to the rest of the cast the looks and aesthetics we are going for and acts like a mini- creative brief.