Written, directed, and produced by Mark van Heusden.
An art history graduate couldn't get a job after graduating and now works in a supermarket. Years of being terrorised by his boss make him reach his boiling point.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH MARK
Tell us a bit about yourself and your filmmaking background.
I grew up in The Netherlands and made no budget short films with friends while doing my undergrad. I soon realised that I didn't really have any technical knowledge and started interning as an editor and camera assistant on corporate videos to become a more skilled filmmaker. I then moved to the UK and wanted to make a new film and I was able to do that by doing an MA in filmmaking. British Graffiti is my first film after having interned for 6 months and it helped me a lot in terms of planning and knowing how much time it costs to do certain camera set ups. I since made another short film David French Is A Piece of Shit and I Want Him Dead and a couple of music videos and mainly work as an editor to pay the bills.
What's your inspiration behind British Graffiti?
When I was doing my MA, lots of other students in my year had this fear of what would happen after graduating. Would we able to find work in the film industry?
I found that very nervewrecking too, and so decided to make this the central theme of my movie. What if you can't find your dream job and are forced to work somewhere you don't want to work? In this particular case I set the film in a supermarket because I worked in a supermarket for eight years whilst I was in school. I enjoyed the mundane task of restocking shelfs as I could kind of switch off, but it wasn't always a fun place to work because I encountered quite a few miserable people there. This film was a great way of getting both of these frustrations out of my system!
What obstacles did you overcome while in the making of this film?
Filming in a supermarket was very tough. An amazing opportunity, but we shot overnight between 22:00 PM until 04:00 AM for a week whilst they were restocking shelves. The first obstacle was exhaustion, because we had been up during the day to go through the shotlist and rehearse the scenes and then we needed to shoot through the night. So we were extremely tired every day. Secondly we had to be on our feet constantly because even though there were no customers, there were still employees stocking the shelves. We had to make sure not to be in their way and had to move around a lot to ensure we could get our scenes done and not have them in shot or ruin the sound.
Any hacks or tips for making a short film?
Be as prepared as you can! Things will not go exactly as you planned, so the best thing you can do is plan everything meticulously with everyone involved. This way not only you know what you want, but also your cast and crew have an idea of where you're heading. If obstacles arrive, you have a goal in mind and you can work around them. I hate it when people say "we'll cross that bridge when we get there" because in filmmaking, that bridge is usually on fire so you'll have to be prepared.
Also, take care of your crew. In order to make your film everyone needs to be at their best, and in order to do that it's best to keep them happy and comfortable! Check if everyone is ok and the best trick to a happy and motivated crew is good catering! (No pizza or kebab but nutritious meals!)
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences.
This one is tough because I had a little trouble with this film. I produced it myself and shot in a supermarket showing all their branding and uniforms and they weren't too happy with that. My own fault, so I had to learn DaVinci and change the colour of the uniforms and a VFX artist removed the branding. So getting it to audiences happened a little later than I wanted, but it did have a small festival run. Since then it's been on Vimeo as to be very honest, I find it difficult to promote my work! I'm very comfortable on set and in the cutting room, but once a film is done I find it tricky to reach an audience.
What are you working on now?
I have written two short films that I would like to make. A Part of Me is the prologue/proof of concept for a feature, but since it would be quite ambitious and expensive I might make a cheaper short set in one location titled Love Is a Drug and I Overdosed. My films have always been quite large in scale and very (maybe too) ambitious so I quite look forward to doing a small movie before I gear up for something bigger again.
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
So many! Not many people in the UK are familiar with Dutch cinema so I'd like to recommend a few. Soldier of Orange (1977) is a classic by Paul Verhoeven who would later make it big in Hollywood. Character (1997) won the Oscar for best Foreign Language Film and is very good. And a personal favourite is Aanmodderfakker (2014) which is a comedy that reminds me a lot of Edgar Wright's films. One of my all time favourite's is an underrated gem: Delicatessen (1992) by Jean-Pierre Jeunet who did Amelie. And recently these films have blown me away: Höstsonaten (1978), To Be or Not To Be (1942), After The Wedding (2006), Fail Safe (1964).