Short Circuit (PG)

This 80s classic was my favourite film when I was about 6, and it's out on Blu-ray and DVD today!

Short Circuit (PG) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

Eighties cult classic Short Circuit is pure daft fun.  Packed with goofy American humour and anchored by a warm hearted moral about the universality of morality, the movie is a childhood favourite for many and sure to become one for generations to come.

‘Number Five’ begins existence as a lifeless robot, built to do the army’s bidding and act as a cutting edge military deterrent.  Suddenly lightening strikes (literally), flooding consciousness through his circuits and gifting him with a squeaky voice and instantaneous lust for life.  The now living machine sets off on a hyper-curious exploration of the world, initially oblivious to the panicking armed forces hot on his tail.

Newton Crosby is Number Five’s charming genius inventor, modestly portrayed by a subdued Steve Guttenburg, and Ben Jebituya is his stereotypical nerdy assistant-cum-sidekick, who is to prone to making arguably excessively racy jokes for a PG rated film.

The onscreen oestrogen and obligatory love interest comes in the shape of Stephanie Speck, an animal loving, UFO believing pseudo-hippy.  Her heart is won by Number Five’s malice-free nature, and they enjoy a dance in front of director John Badham’s own Saturday Night Fever, playing on the television. Ally Sheedy fills Speck’s character with no small measure of irresistibility, delivering a spritely and memorable performance in a film where for the most part the best actor is the robot.

Though patchy in quality, the script is nothing if not upbeat and much mirth is to be had from Number Five’s zany and surreal one-liners (“Hey, laser-lips, your mama was a snowblower”)!  Director John Badham’s life affirming mid-career effort is heavily indebted to Steven Spielberg's far superior E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, released four years previously.  Upon discovering Number Five outside her house, Speck even thinks he is an alien, and is delighted as he swiftly picks up human ways.  The film does however carve it’s own unique spot in eighties movie history, with an impressive character design crowned with ingeniously emotive ‘eyebrows’.

Anyone with at least one working eyeball will notice the plain-as-day similarities between Number Five and WALL-E, with their caterpillar perambulators and binocular optics.  Pixar’s Andrew Stanton stated that he ‘may have been subconsciously influenced’ by Short Circuit, presumably using the subconscious as a metaphor for tracing paper.  The bottom line of the matter is of course that Short Circuit came first, but WALL-E is the better film.

It won’t move your soul, unless you’re under five, and it won’t teach you anything new, unless you know less than a dead piece of metal, but Short Circuit is mostly harmless escapism fit for all the family (bar a few blue gags).  It’s worth a look, and the kids will love it.

Blu-ray & DVD extras: Commentary by director John Badham and writers S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, Original theatrical trailer, ‘The Creation of Number 5’, Cast and crew interviews, Behind the scenes featurette

Dexter Fletcher's Directing Tips - Part II

Here are actor/director Dexter Fletcher's concluding top five tips from his exclusive workshop on how to direct a movie!  (Picture: Dexter Fletcher as Bytes' Boy in The Elephant Man [1980]).

6. Keep your crew happy - everyone is important

“Most people on a film set do it because they are genuinely passionate about film, and on the long days you’ve got to help them remember that.”

Fletcher kept his crew happy by being inclusive, acknowledging their contributions and respecting their passion.  “Even the lowly runner does a job and it’s an important one,” he said, “it’s about remembering that.”

Don’t take anyone for granted, a happy crew is a hardworking crew.  It also helps to feed them well and keep the coffee flowing!  Coffee is the oil that keeps the human machinery of many a crew running efficiently.

7. Take risks - just do it!

If you’re not taking risks, then you probably won’t get anywhere as a filmmaker.  In many ways, choosing to be a filmmaker in the first place is a risk!  “Of course take risks,” said Fletcher, “but calculated ones.”

So how can a director use this philosophy of risk taking to get the most out of their cast and crew?  “It’s about pushing other people to take risks.  Ask [your actors and director of photography] to do stuff that they feel out on a limb on, but ultimately gaining their trust and making them take a risk that you’re in control of.  That’s the calculated risk, you’re pushing people to raise their game in a way that they’ve maybe not expected to, but when they do it they go ‘wow’ and they deliver, because it’s about your faith in what other people can do.”

8. Collaborate - be open to suggestions

One of the key features of being an effective director is knowing how to put the talent at hand to maximum use.  It’s all too easy to be precious and thereby stunt productivity, so remember that ‘collaborate’ is a word used by filmmakers again and again to explain what makes a truly creative team.

Dexter Fletcher is no exception, and spoke plenty on the topic of collaborating, “Heads of department are there because they’ve achieved a lot and understand a lot about what it is that they do, and so it’s okay to defer to other people.  It’s part of the collaborative nature of it.  You can say ‘no’, but it’s okay to ask the question and find out what other people think.”

9. Be prepared - know your project inside out

There’s no excuse for a director, especially writer-directors not to know their story better than anybody else.  On set, you always need to know the context of the scene you’re shooting at a given moment.  As Fletcher put it, “You’ve got to be aware of what it is that you’re shooting, what went before it, what’s going to come after it.”

But how can you achieve such a level of preparation and intimacy with the material?  “The preparation is a natural part of it, I don’t think I was really even aware of it [directing Wild Bill], I was just involved with absolutely everything all the way along the line.”

Full immersion in the script and hands on involvement with every department are core elements of the director’s job and preparation.

10. Let things go - edit brutally!

Once you’ve made your film and the stress (and thrill!) of the shoot is over, then it’s time to sit down and piece it together in the edit suite.  Have you ever wondered why DVD and Blu-rays so often include ‘deleted scenes’ as a bonus feature?  It doesn’t matter how much time you sweated getting the perfect light for that scene you’re in love with... if it doesn’t move the story forward then it has got to go.  Said Fletcher: “You’ve got to be brutal, you’ve got to be able to [ask] is it furthering the story?”

This can be painful, and it’s usually helpful if the director and editor and not the same person, because then the editor is able to look at the film objectively and suggest cuts to the director, persuading them to wave even choice material goodbye.  Fletcher is all too familiar with this, “There’s whole sections of Wild Bill that I just cut out because it wasn’t moving the story along.  It doesn’t matter how you feel personally about something, you’ve got to try and be as impersonal about it as you can when it comes to the edit.  It feels brutal at the time, but it’s about being practical and making the best film that you can.”

Of course it’s up to you what stays in the film and what gets left on the cutting room floor, but it might be wise to bear Fletcher’s final thoughts in mind when you’re splicing and dicing your first film: “Nobody cares what you love.  What [the audience] care about is whether they go to the cinema, watch the film and are entertained.”

Ask yourself, ‘am I making this film for myself, or for the audience?’  If you’re Steven Spielberg and answered the latter, then well done!  You’ve got a bright future.  And if you’re Quentin Tarantino and answered the former, then well done to you too!  Some director’s styles are more commercial than others, and these are just tips after all... food for thought for filmmakers.

Now go make your movie!  And don’t forget the ‘kick in the nuts’ shot...

Wild Bill is out now on Blu-ray and DVD, check out the trailer!

(This article was originally written for FilmJuice and can be found here).

Dexter Fletcher's Directing Tips - Part I

Earlier this month I had the privilege of interviewing veteran British actor Dexter Fletcher at the prestigious St. Ermin's Hotel in London.  He began his career as a child actor in classics such as Bugsy Malone and The Elephant Man, before progressing to adult roles in the likes of Band of Brothers and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  He recently made his impressive directorial debut with the critically acclaimed low budget gangster drama Wild Bill, after the success of which he claims to have caught ‘the directing bug’ and is already hard at work helming his next project.  As a filmmaker I was keen to learn from his experience, and here I'll share the first half of his top ten directing tips.  Check back soon for the rest!  Wild Bill was released on Blu-ray and DVD on the 23rd July.  (Picture: Dexter Fletcher as SSgt. John Martin in Band of Brothers).

1. Settle on a project - what story do you want to tell and why?

“Filmmaking is storytelling” said Fletcher, and it is a fact that most budding filmmakers have a million and one ideas floating around their heads, but lack the decisiveness to settle on one and put the time and work into making it happen.  Fletcher had some helpful thoughts on how to overcome this common problem, “Choosing projects is about whether there’s a story in there that [you] can connect to and want to tell, because then you’re telling a story that means something to you.”

Filmmaking is far too much hard work to bother with if you don’t care about the story you’re telling!  Find material you connect with and go for it.

2. Be aware you’re making a product - how can you sell it?

Many fresh faced filmmakers want their work to be 100% Krzysztof Kieślowski and 0% James Cameron, and then wonder why they can’t find an audience, let alone make a living!  Depending on the balance of art and commercial viability in your personal dreams as a moviemaker, you might want to rethink that balance depending on where you see yourself in ten years: still working at Blockbuster and sharing your weekend passion projects with friends and family, or wining and dining with Brad and Angelina on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith 4!  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be auteur, but even the best know they need to make a buck.

Some words of wisdom from Fletcher, “The art takes care of itself to a large extent, it’s the commerciality that you need to keep half an eye on.  You’re not just here to be an auteur and make an artistic piece of film that no one’s going to want to see... what’s the point of doing that?  Think about what’s going to be good in the trailer!  There’s a guy getting kicked in the balls in my film, it wasn’t my first choice but I was talking to an editor of trailers once and he’s like, ‘always the shot they want is someone getting kicked in the nuts.’  It’s a great trailer shot because everyone goes ‘ooh!’  It gets a response.  It seems kind of mercenary and calculated but there’s nothing wrong with it, you are making a product.”

3. Cast big names - what have you got to lose?

“Start with Brad Pitt and work your way down!” joked Fletcher, but he was serious too.  Apparently the first thing most investors asked about Wild Bill was ‘who’s in it?’  Make no mistake, star power counts.  Case in point, Gemma Arterton was originally cast in Wild Bill but couldn’t make it at the last minute.  Would the film have done bigger business at the box office had she made it?  You’d better believe it.  But how can directors yet to make their debut hope to cast known stars in their shoestring budget labours of love?  “The great thing about our industry is that the people who are involved in it genuinely love film...” said Fletcher, “if you’ve got a good script and a good story that you believe in, and a great opportunity for an actor to do something different, then you’ve got nothing to lose by asking them.  What I tried to do was offer great actors the chance to do something different.  If they love it and respond they’ll turn up for a sandwich and a good scene.”

There are plenty of examples of big name actors lending their talents to low budget productions for purely art’s sake, (see John Hurt in the 2011 short film Sailcloth).  So pick up the phone and make the call, because if you’ve got a top script the talent’s not as hard to tap as you think.

4. Get lucky - live in hope!

So many things have to go exactly right for a film to be made that it’s a miracle every time one is finished.  With that in mind, anyone who has made a film deserves respect for seeing the project through to the end (yes, even Uwe Boll), but one thing that never hurts is a little luck.  “Any moment you can get lucky!” said Fletcher.

Be it luck or divine providence, unplanned moments of brilliance can give your film a unique edge, and they do happen!  One such moment occurred on the set of Wild Bill, resulting in a shot of which Fletcher is especially proud: a paper aeroplane is thrown from high up a block of flats... the camera follows it perfectly as it soars through the air for twenty seconds plus.  It is a sensational shot.  However, such events cannot be bargained on, and Fletcher reminds us to be realistic, “Where there’s no luck, then adaptability is going to be the next option.”

5. Work hard and be flexible - roll with the punches

“Obviously there’re no guarantees for [luck] so you also have to work hard” said Fletcher.  A large part of walking the walk as a filmmaker is having the passion and commitment to put in the blood, sweat and long hours it takes to see a project through to completion.  Make no mistake, there can be just as much pressure on set as fun and then some, and it is true that when the going gets tough the tough get going.  “Save the stress for when you get home” continued Fletcher, acknowledging the pressure that he sometimes felt on the set of Wild Bill.  “You’re going to hit bumps and roadblocks all the way and it’s about making sure you can keep things moving.”

Don’t give up then, even when there are fraying tempers.  Just remember that if you keep your head, and aren’t afraid to improvise solutions, then everyone will be friends again by the end of the day.  Prime example, unexpected snow in London prevented Fletcher from shooting a crucial scene as planned.  Did he panic?  Far from it!  He improvised a swift relocation and shot the scene in a cafe instead.  It might sound like a compromise, but sometimes a spanner in the works can lead to an even more effective outcome than originally planned.  Let it happen, roll with it!  Just make sure that as much of the heart of your script makes it to the screen as possible.  The rest is peripheral.

To be concluded!  Meanwhile why not check out the trailer for Wild Bill.

(This article was originally written for FilmJuice and can be found here).