Written, directed, edited & starring James Button Director of Photography & visual effects Paul Marke
Overworked in the email department at the a local Welsh council, Cwnt Jones purchases a personalised AI assistant in order to help make his life better- the RoButler.
ABOUT THE FILM
RoButler was created for the London Sci Fi 48 Hour Film Challenge. It was nominated for Best Micro-Budget Short, Best Performance in a Comedy, and Best Editing at the 2023 edition of our Kino London Short Film Festival. It also played at the BAFTA qualifying Carmarthen Bay Film Festival and the BIFA qualifying Short Com and The Shortest Nights.
ABOUT THE FILMmaker
Welsh filmmaker from Wales who loves making weird, wacky and silly comedy- James Button has made films about aliens, dinosaurs, time travelling in traffic, adorable goats and dog poo! Double BAFTA Cymru-nominated writer/director of 23 short films, all gaining official selections and screenings. Mostly comedies, they've nabbed 57 awards at international film festivals and competitions. James had fun making fun films for fun for the past 10 years alongside working full-time in commercial work. In 2023 James is now focussing on longer-form projects with two (dream) comedy feature scripts he is very excited to get made.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH JAMES
Welcome to our Short of the Week series. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your filmmaking background?
Ever since getting my hands on a camcorder at age twelve I’ve been making all kinds of nonsense. I simply love it and can’t imagine doing anything else, so have somehow managed to get away with basing my life about making stuff.
My favourite things in life are traveling, sleepovers, friends and films- and filmmaking kinda blends all of them.
Brilliant. So yeah basically, I just haven’t stopped making my own projects my way about fun things that we have fun with which hopefully people have fun watching! Never having had big budgets, my small band of filmmaker friends have had to get super creative with DIY indie filmmaking to make a lot with a little.
Tell us about the genesis of RoBulter - how the project came about and where you found your inspiration?
Well, this one never really should have happened.
Paul Marke and myself had previously done the London Sci Fi 48 Hour Film Challenge twice before- not taking it too seriously with me playing an angry Welshman shouting at aliens once (Flying Visit) and an AI house the other (Melting Point). So when Paul messaged me the day before the Challenge in 2022 and was like, “you up for it?”, I was like “oh alright then”. However, I had a migraine, we had ZERO budget, ZERO crew, ZERO cast but any excuse for a sleepover, even one with ZERO sleep.
What is the most challenging and/or exciting aspect of creating a film in 48 hours?
Subconsciously, I think we really wanted to test (or punish) ourselves by defaulting back to barebones DIY filmmaking to see what we could get away with.
I grabbed a few costume bits (including a tux and coloured contact lenses) from my dressing up box and just the two of us...went for. We ended up roping in Paul’s statistician wife Helen, his cat Narla (also a keen statistician) and then our composer (James Morris) popped around to see what we were up to...which resulted in him getting recruited on his first ever film set as boom operator, body double and prop maker. He even had to make a circuit board that would fit up my bum.
I think the most exciting thing about making a film in 48 hours is just getting to make something- no excuses. There is no time to overthink, self-doubt, delay- you just have to commit and dive in headfirst and really push yourselves. It’s mad.
Did any pre-existing creative ideas happen to fit the brief for RoButler or did you make the film 100% from scratch?
I knew I’d probably have to play multiple characters as we didn’t have any (actual) actors lined up so on the way over in the car I cycled through some weird voices to try see who I could invite to the party. Then I basically went off to a bedroom and wrote way too many silly scenes based on a quickly brainstormed concept with Paul, of someone stressed (based on our clients) who tries to get help, but only makes things worse.
In terms of scripting it was relatively simple as I knew I’d be improvising around it anyway (I can’t help myself) and having played multiple characters before I kinda knew what could and wouldn’t work.
Also Paul is a VFX genius and the real brains behind getting this actually made. Although whilst writing, I completely accepted we probably wouldn't get it done in time...but it would be fun. Turns out...we got it done in time and despite it being a whirlwind without sleep, oh it was fun.
Would you ever continue working on the film after 48 hours for your own personal satisfaction, or once the deadline is complete do you walk away from making any tweaks?
The version of RoButler selected at Kino (and other festivals) is a polished version where basically Paul revamped some of the VFX, James Morris did a new sound mix (he was sleep mixing the first time) and I attempted to do a re-edit. However, I soon found the frantic pace, lack of sleep and rushing really gave the film the energy so barely made any tweaks as part of the magic of a 48 hour film is the harnessed fun and ticking clock vibes. So just because we loved it, it seemed to go down well (and because we thought it would be really funny for it to get into festivals!) we did a visual polish and an audio tidy- and sent it out!
If you had more time to work on this project, what is the main thing you would like to change/develop further?
I think I’d make something better to be honest!
It’s a love/hate thing with me and RoButler- like I love that we bashed something out in a couple of days and that we’re still screening it all over. Buuuut I’m also painfully aware every time I watch it that we can do so much more!
If we had more time, any money, and probably even a bit of planning we could make something more reflective of where we are in our filmmaking adventure. I think RoButler is what it is, a very silly film- too fast and and something that shouldn’t be taken seriously- which is kinda our style but would really love now to get one of the backlog of comedy short scripts produced to have some fun for a little longer!
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences.
I originally popped RoButler straight on YouTube after we finished but I think seeing the laughs it got, I was tempted to see if we could get it seen on a bigger screen with a live audience. I feel I really learn a lot by screening our comedies live as although my heart goes way too fast, I like how you can hear and feel the reaction it gets to learn from it about pacing, gags etc. for next time. But really didn’t expect it to go to like five BIFA and BAFTA qualifying film festivals and I’m not just saying that! It’s shot in Paul’s kitchen, with a tiny crew, with a script I rushed out to just make Paul laugh and it feels as rushed as it was- however, it is short and fun so I’m more than happy to have it be an ice-breaker laugh, or palette cleanser after a proper heavy drama or just something to wake people up literally going “what the hell is this?” (which I’ve witnessed happening!).
What advice or hacks would you give to other short filmmakers?
Oh just go and make some stuff. I know it sounds too simple and has been said a billion times. Obviously you’ll be capped to an extent without a budget and all that- but if you can find filmmaker friends (just one apparently!) who loves doing it as much as you, even if it’s just a weekend go have some fun and practice.
I’ve made films for so long now but it's only really when I’m running around doing a bit of everything, solving silly practical problems (“how do we make the lights move when the drone flies in?” “Fishing wire!”) or laughing on set that I feel I’m really living it and learning from it.
Paul Marke is one of the best filmmakers I’ve ever met- a truly amazing person, dedicated and reliable friend but a damn good filmmaker. He inspires me by making a thirty minute comedy sketch show just to get out of doing a speech at his own wedding, which ended up being better than a lot of commissioned broadcast TV comedy- and just the quality of the work he can create on a whim with a laptop is insane. He can do that because he just does that- as in, he just goes and does it and if he hadn’t messaged me asking “you up for the 48 sci fi challenge tomorrow?”, I wouldn’t be here now. Writing this I mean, not dead.
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
Argh! This was the only question that scared me because it’s so much pressure with so many better filmmakers reading this who have already seen them all!
I think I’m going to have to do a cheat answer...(sorry) and say, go to a film festival. Go in blind. No recommendations, no hit list, no hype, no expectations. A whole block of short films..no wait, multiple BLOCKS of short films.
Some of the best learning and some of the best constructive conversations I have is coming out of a screening with some trusted friends, going and hiding in a coffee shop (or on a sleepover) and just go through them ALL. What did you think? What did you feel or did you even? Why didn’t they work? What would you do differently? I’ve found you can really bond with collaborators over this and find your tribe, because your director to DP relationship or with your composer or any collaborator really can really be proven when you find yourself in agreement on this. Once you watch films and talk films with people, you soon find yourself making better films and the films that you all want to make.
Obviously you always try work with people that are better that you (I do) but also with ones who’d do things the same way or wouldn’t do that or would do this instead? Sorry I don’t know if any of this makes sense but basically watch SHORT FILMS. Watch good inspiring films and just as importantly watch yummy BAD films. You can literally watch like 300 in a weekend (I did earlier this year!. So I’d say go to Kino 2024 ;)
That was a flirt. Sorry what was the question?!