Divided We Stand

I think it’s easy to say, ‘Divided We Stand’ is the project that I’ve been most passionate about so far. Period dramas and the like have always fascinated me, the meticulous detail and craft that goes into creating an epic tale of the past. Back in 2014 shortly after finishing university in Yorkshire, I wrote and directed a World War II drama called ‘Our Father’, for me, this was a huge stepping stone, but looking back at this project, I came to realise there was so much more I could have done with it, and after several years of honing my craft and developing my skills, I decided that I wanted to take another shot at creating a period war drama, this time World War I.

War dramas as a whole are a fantastic way to encapsulate our history, a reminder of the horrors of the past and a way to discourage us from allowing it to happen again. World War I, in particular, has always been an area of historical interest to me, the first mechanised war. Prior to picking up the camera, I went out to Belgium and France and scouted the fields and the museums around the Somme and Ypres to witness the scars of this war, the way it's affected these nations 100 years on.

Unlike the vast majority of war films out there, I wanted to focus on both sides of the conflict, how two soldiers, one from Britain and one from Germany, were placed in this hell to battle out for survival. Whilst developing these characters, I decided to forgo the use of subtitles in the final film in favour of focussing on the action and emotions of the cast, using this to instead convey the dialogue. I wanted to place the audience directly in the shoes of our bewildered soldiers, at a time in history when neither country encouraged the learning of each other's languages, these two soldiers are instead left clueless as to what one another is saying, relying on hand gestures, facial expressions and loanwords to decode what the other person is saying. So why should the audience be given it on a silver platter? I wanted them to feel as confused as the soldiers were themselves, learning more about these characters as they learn more about themselves. Ultimately it gave us a chance to show how these two characters aren’t so different from one another, the only dividing factor being the uniforms they wear.

Historical accuracy was an important part of developing this film, and so myself and my team searched far and wide across both the UK and even in Europe and America for authentic uniforms, weapons and props, ensuring we had accurate cigarette packets, era-correct personal trinkets, the right armbands etc, and this went further with the locations too. Acquiring the trenches was a fantastic sigh of relief, the same location that featured in the likes of ‘Journey’s End’ and the Sainsbury’s Christmas Advert, it was a step in the right direction in providing the historical accuracy we yearned for. Similarly, the barn was a character in itself in the film as its where the majority of the film takes place, we struck gold after months of searching when we came across a local 19th-century red brick tithe barn not too dissimilar to barns in Belgium during the time period.

Likewise whilst developing the characters, I wanted to ensure the grittiness and realism of trench warfare was present. So we incorporated plenty of mud, blood, fire, smoke and live pyrotechnics to ensure we were as grounded as possible in the realism of the battle, well, as much as our tiny budget could make possible. In my last short, all effects were CGI, I wanted to avoid this, I wanted to evoke a more visceral and authentic feel to the film, and as can be seen on screen, the actor’s respond to this, they are shaken by the explosions, they’re weary around the fire, this is something just not possible with VFX.

And so with a budget barely pushing a few grand and a relatively modest crew size, we went out and made ‘Divided We Stand’. And in the end, I just hope that audiences enjoy watching it as much as I did making it.