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Fireworks

A team of MI6 officers, led by ambitious idealist GILLIAN LYE, work out of a Special Operations ‘Ops’ Room in London, to oversee a mission to take out a terrorist target. But as they argue about whether or not to use a drone strike, one side of the Ops Room gives way, to reveal the real people and marketplace they are talking about bombing.
A tense thriller, with moments of dark humour, which uses cutting edge virtual production technology to tell its story.

  • Paul J Franklin
    Director
    Interstellar, Inception, The Escape
  • Steven Lally
    Writer
    Strike Back
  • Annalise Davis
    Producer
    Up There, The Railway Man
  • Charlotte Riley
    Key Cast
    "Gillian Lye"
    Press, Wuthering Heights
  • Ivanno Jeremiah
    Key Cast
    "Andrew Peppas"
    Humans
  • Denise Gough
    Key Cast
    "Ellie Sherberg"
    Star Wars: Andor
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Thriller, Comedy, Virtual Production
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    July 15, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    700,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    Arabic, English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    239:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Paul J Franklin

Double Academy Award winner Paul Franklin began his career in cinema over twenty-five years ago when he started making short films with university friends. Beginning as an editor, Paul gravitated towards the newly-emerging field of digital visual effects which lead to work in video games, television advertising and broadcast drama, creating animations, title sequences and visual effects. In 1998 Paul co-founded Double Negative Visual Effects, the London-based studio which has since grown to be one of the world’s largest providers of feature film VFX.

With over 30 feature film credits Paul’s work in VFX ranges from low-budget indie films to summer tentpole action movies. In 2003 Paul began his long-running collabo ration with director Christopher Nolan, creating visual effects for all three of Nolan’s Dark Knight films, Inception and, most recently, Interstellar. Paul’s in-depth understanding of the amazing possibilities offered by modern filmmaking techniques and his intrinsic grasp of storytelling has made him one of the world’s leading visual effects artists and has won him Oscars and BAFTAs for Inception in 2010 and Interstellar in 2014 as well as numerous other awards.

Paul’s debut short film as a director The Escape, starring Art Malik, Olivia Williams and Julian Sands, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and went on to screen at film festivals around the world, including Palm Springs Official Selection

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Director Statement

Creative digital toolsets have been extending the range of filmmakers for many years but the process usually happens in post production, divorced from the energy of life on set. Now a groundbreaking new technique “Virtual Production” holds the promise of telling extraordinary stories in a dynamic and immediate way. The LED screens and realistic graphics bring sets and locations to life on a studio stage.

This creates an engaging and dynamic space for the cast to work in, far removed from the blank expanse of a green screen. The actors are placed right at the heart of the world that the film is building, allowing them true and meaningful dramatic interaction with their dynamic, complex characters and this timely and compelling story.

This new approach to filmmaking opens up the story of FIREWORKS, giving it a compellingly realistic treatment that fully embraces the expressive possibilities of the technique. FIREWORKS will take us from the cool, glowing obsessions of the special operations room out into the vibrant energy of a market place in Tripoli. Gillian Lye, a military intelligence officer whose fierce ambition recognises no obstacles on the path to achieving her goals, will set these two worlds on a deadly collision course as she closes in on the terrorist militant that she has been tracking for years.

FIREWORKS gives the cast new and exciting ways to immerse themselves and an audience in this brilliantly complex, and at times darkly humorous script. The immediacy of the story and the Virtual Production will give the audience an experience that is uniquely engaging and heart stoppingly tense.