Off the back of a successful stint on a television show, Beth's agent has been hard at work finding her new roles to make her a star. Beth excitedly arrives to meet her agent but the parts found for her might not be exactly what she was hoping for...
Screenings:
26th Raindance Film Festival (2018)
Century Club Film Club (2018)
Finalist & Best Actress Nomination at The People's Film Festival (2019)
TV Screening: London Live (2019)
Shortlisted for the Performance Short Film Competition
Cast:
Beth Jones - LUCY HILTON-JONES
Samantha - ANNINA KASKI
Crew:
Writer/Director - HARVEY PUTTOCK
Producer - JOE SUPPLE-TURNHAM
Executive Producer - DUSAN MRDEN
Director of Photography - ANTHONY MARTINEZ
Sound Recordist - SARAH NORMAN
Clapper Loader - BAPTISTE CHARLES
Story - HARVEY PUTTOCK & LEXY ANDERSON
We first stumbled upon THE MANY FACES OF BETH JONES when it was submitted to The People’s Film Festival last year. It was a fav of our jury, and even earned an acting award nomination for the Lucy Hilton-Jones. We recently caught up with writer/director Harvey Puttock to ask him a few questions:
WHAT WAS YOUR INSPIRATION TO WRITE THE MANY FACES OF BETH JONES:
Back in 2017 both myself and my then colleague Lexy Anderson were pretty obsessed with Orphan Black and the range that Tatiana Maslany had. In that show she played such a variety of characters that we jokingly started to say she could play anything. We began a list of roles that we thought she could do next, starting with realistic things and getting more and more obscure as the day went on.
Several months later, when exploring ideas for my next short, I found the pile of post-it notes we'd written. None of the ideas here seemed plausible or within budget (a piece of depressed driftwood becoming the frame for the Mona Lisa and finally lives it's dream at the Louvre) so instead I came up with the framing device to have an Agent throwing these ideas out to a disappointed wannabe actress and thus The Many Faces of Beth Jones was born.
If I remember correctly there's seventeen post-it note ideas that didn't make it to the film, but who knows, maybe they'll see the light of day sometime...
WHAT'S YOUR WRITING PROCESS:
My writing process, like any other, is an arduous, painstaking, deep dive into the inner soul. I mean, it's that, or it's drinking five cups of coffees and hammering thousands of words out (most of which are later deleted) until I realise it's 3am and I have work tomorrow.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BRING THE SCRIPT TO LIFE:
It was a brilliant experience to bring The Many Faces of Beth Jones to life, what had started as a silly injoke grew into a film that played at a bunch of festivals and nominated for a couple of awards.
It was about four months from script to screen, with us using a casting call on Mandy to find Lucy Hilton-Jones for the titular role and building a crew of like-minded filmmaker friends. We shot the short in one day, starting at the Cinema in the morning, and moving on to the office later in the afternoon.
DID YOU HAVE ANY CREATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR WORKING ON A SMALL BUDGET:
I think the key thing when working on a low budget film is to not be afraid to ask for help. The budget for the film was around £500, we did pay the actors but the entire crew worked for free as I'm lucky enough to know a bunch of people as passionate about making films as me. You have to work out what equipment you need, and if you don't have it yourself, who you can borrow it from. Also consider what you can offer in return, your friend may have a camera but not know how to edit audio, this way it becomes an exchange rather than an I owe you one.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE PART OF THE FILMMAKING PROCESS:
My favourite part of the filmmaking process comes after all the writing, the meetings and planning. It's in the first few hours of the shoot day, where the coffee has kicked in and you're finally awake after a pre-shoot sleepless night, when action is called and you finally get to see the film take shape. You've probably done a rehearsal or two before, but the moment that the actors are on set, in costume, performing for the first time is pretty magical.
SCREENING RECOMENDATIONS FOR QUARANTINE:
I've mostly been binge watching a lot of TV shows that I've fallen behind on, but I did watch Uncut Gems the another night, a great film that I can't recommend enough. Looking forward to seeing what the Safdi Brothers do next!
Interested in getting your work selected as Short of the Week?