Film: The Dark Ponderings of a Desperate Man About To Make The Most Important Decision of His Life
Director: Harvey Shead-Jones
Writer: Joe Duncombe
Actors: Harvey Shead-Jones and Karl Allen
Editor: Harvey Shead-Jones
DOP: Lewis Marc
Synopsis: A desperate man contemplates the most important decision of his life, but once that choice is made, there is no turning back.
With The Southend-on-Sea Film Festival will be returning once again from Thursday 8th June to Sunday 11th June, I got an opportunity to ask Director Harvey Shead-Jones a few questions about the film ‘The Dark Ponderings of a Desperate Man About To Make The Most Important Decision of His Life‘ which has been selected to play at the festival on Saturday 10th June at 9pm
Q. What can we expect from the film The Dark Ponderings of a Desperate Man About To Make The Most Important Decision of His Life?
A. You can expect a desperate man pondering about the most important decision of his life, need I say more. It is a short comedy sketch that was originally exhibited in Brighton at a small film festival organised by our Masters’ group.
Q. How did the idea for the film come about?
A. During the production process of a short film festival that was created by our Masters’ group in Brighton, our group was struggling to come up with an idea for a short film to submit. A week before the festival was due to take place our group still had no film. Luckily Joe approached us with an idea for a short sketch that he had written and he gave us his script.
Q. What were some of the influences for the look and style of the film?
A. We were able to use the actor’s house for the filming. Karl thankfully let us use it the night before the festival. With the house having a basement it set up a really nice grungy feel to make it seem like I was at the lowest of the low while trying to come to a decision, but what decision? You’ll have to watch to find out.
Q. Were there any elements of the original script which were adapted during filming?
A. Yes. The original script had me in a bathroom talking to myself in a mirror. Then I would leave the bathroom after hyping myself up to complete the task at hand, more so the punchline of the sketch. I decided on the night that it would be better if there was no dialogue so there would be only visual storytelling. This meant the punchline had more of a punch as instead of the joke having a thirty second build up it had a couple of minutes of build up.
Q. What were some of your favourite moments whilst making the Film?
A. I would say coming up with the shots as we went along. The shoot was the night before the festival so we had to get the shots then and there. Also the editing process was fun as well as I got to play around with certain edits as well as making sure it was the perfect length to make sure it got the all important laugh.
Q. Did you experience any issues whilst making the film?
A. Lighting was an issue as it was someone’s house, not a set. We also did not have time to set up lighting so all the shots were using natural light. This did cause an issue with some shots being too dark but I think it adds to the stressful atmosphere of the short.
Q. What do you hope people will take away from the film?
A. That you can make a decent film within a short time period if you work the script and the location into something manageable. Also being multi-skilled in directing and editing, not so much acting for me, helped a lot too because as we were filming I could picture the edit in my head as we went along.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are working on?
A. I have worked on a sketch called “Keep Your Eye On The Pie” which is another comedy short of the same nature which was made in one night which has been uploaded onto YouTube under the production company named “Naughty Robin”. I plan on making more projects similar to this in the future as they are really fun to make.
Q. If someone is looking to direct their first film, what advice would you give them?
A. Don’t worry about the quality, just make something. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn. Every single mistake I make during productions do not happen again in my next project, and if they do, I learn how to hide them. But always make sure you record great sound because people “watch with their ears” so to speak.
The Southend Film Festival will run from Thursday 8th June to Sunday 11th June
You can find out more about the The Dark Ponderings of a Desperate Man About To Make The Most Important Decision of His Life and purchase tickets for the Southend Film Festival here
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
