Baghead

I had been looking for the good part of 2017 for a strong script and from the moment I read Lorcan’s story, I knew I wanted to shoot it. Its simplicity, elegance and clever premise remind me of the magic realism of Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende, shown in movies like “Like Water for Chocolate” or “Birdman”. This film takes a twist from a supernatural, slightly scary set up to a dark comedy. The audience is made to think they are watching a tragic love story until they realise this is actually about betrayal. The ending is just the perfect closure to an emotional rollercoaster driven by Kevin’s rage at both his fiancée and his brother. What also sets the story apart is its unique role reversal where the ghosts are the ones scared of the living.

Lorcan has also created memorable characters, specially Baghead and her way to invoke the dead, who I wanted to visually portray on screen in a very stylish way.
To me the story packs originality, suspense, interesting characters, punchy dialogue - and a twist at the end - which is a simple but powerful recipe that guarantees that it will be the film to remember when the audience leaves the cinema. All the actors deliver remarkable performances, specially Oliver Walker who manages to take Kevin through all the different emotions in a subtle but impressive way.

Having only two sets in one single location helped us to work in a very controlled environment, which facilitated lighting to achieve the look I was aiming for, a magical, occult world, full of shadows to give it a dark, gritty feeling. This is accentuated by a very strong sound design by Luke Isom.

Hollie Buhagiar provided a fantastic soundtrack to the story, full of darkness and awkwardness to underline the emotional journey that the characters are undergoing.

From a personal point of view, having worked for 20 years in media production, I felt I had the right mix of maturity, experience and knowledge of the craft to deliver a strong short. Having directed and edited hundreds of corporate identity videos, documentaries and commercials, I felt this was the right moment to build my drama portfolio and to hone my director skills before jumping into a feature length project, which is my ultimate goal. I had a very experienced and enthusiastic team to help me along the way, including DoP John Wate and Production Designer Marie Boon.