Case Study: The making of James Hughes’ The Inuring

James Hughes directs Emily Haigh in a scene from The Inuring

Date: 03 Apr. 2018
Case Study: The Making of The Inuring
Interview: James Hughes, Writer, Producer, and Director of The Inuring

James Hughes is a Multi-Award Winning Director. His debut short film, The Stars & the Stones (2005) was an official selection of several Oscar qualifying festivals such as the Calgary International Film Festival and the Raindance Film Festival.

The success of this short led to him being hired to direct Global Revolution (2006), which was performed in front of a live audience of four thousand in Tuscany and was simultaneously broadcast on Italian television. The following year, he was hired to be a Speaker for the Screenwriting Expo in Los Angeles, where he taught a popular class on short filmmaking, working alongside such luminaries as William Goldman.

The Inuring (2016) is a multi-award winning drama starring Emily Haigh and Sarine Sofair and is on release across the festival circuit. It has won 8 awards to date. It also screened at the Oscar qualifying Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival.

indieactivity: What is your film about?
James: The Inuring is a story I felt compelled to bring to the screen, after researching the many cases of bullying that are unfortunately rife in society. In these numerous cases the victims found it hard and also humiliating to share their experiences with their family members. They would endeavour to bottle up their emotions in a code of silence to shield their shame from those closest to them. These true life stories broke my heart. I became determined to shed a spotlight on the subject of bullying through fiction, and create a story that resonated long after the end credits.

indieactivity: Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
James: The Inuring is currently on the film festival circuit and has been accepted into over 40 film festivals to date. During this time it has picked up 8 awards and 22 nominations for Best Short Film. Our lead Emily Haigh has won three Best Actress awards for her emotionally gut wrenching performance of Aleisha. Along with this it has won Directing, Producing, and Best Film awards.

indieactivity: Dramatic Feature
– Director: James Hughes
– Producers: James Hughes, Emily Haigh
– Budget: £5000
– Financing: Self-financed
– Production: Sunset Aperture
– Shooting Format: 4K
– Screening Format: Apple Pro Res, DCP
– World Premiere: Silicon Beach Film Festival April 2017
– Awards: Best Narrative Short, Best in Show, Best Director, Best Producers, Best Production, Best Actress, Best Actress, Best Actress
– Website: The Inuring

Sarine Sofair in a scene from The Inuring

indieactivity: Give the full official synopsis for your film?
James: A bullied teenage girl finally confronts her sister to drag their fractured past out into the light.

The Inuring tells the story of Aleisha, an eighteen-year-old girl who shares the family home with her twenty-five-year-old sister Claudette.

Ever since their Father passed away three years ago, the rift between the sisters has grown wider. Aloof to the outbursts and moods of her troubled younger sister, Claudette has instead turned her focus to transforming the once modern home with a vintage decor. She has one room left to infiltrate with her passion for nostalgia, Aleisha’s. But that room is already consumed by nostalgia, with Aleisha’s ache for the protective Father they have lost. Having raised his girls alone, the fragile Aleisha has been left to fend for herself with the local bullies, and has been losing the battle.

After years of avoiding Claudette’s remonstrations, Aleisha reluctantly opens up, and their fractured past is finally dragged out into the light.

indieactivity: Development & Financing?
James: I spent six months perfecting the script until it became a locked shooting script. Once it was at this stage I approached the only two actors I wanted for the roles. Emily Haigh as Aleisha and Sarine Sofair as Claudette. They both loved the script and signed onto the production immediately. I had previously worked very successfully with Emily Haigh as Producers on my other short film, so Emily also came onboard The Inuring as my fellow Producer. Our first meeting to discuss the project was at the BFI. At that stage we had no crew, locations, or finance in place, and yet just seven weeks later we were on set shooting.

Emily Haigh in scene from The Inuring

indieactivity: Production?
James: The seven week pre-production period was hectic as we needed to build a set and find the perfect studio in London for our shoot. Fortunately through our DP we were put in touch with Cherryduck Studios who loved the project and were keen for us to shoot there. So we booked their largest studio for our production.

We worked with our Production Designer and Art Department over the course of the pre-production culminating in building our set from 8am to 6pm on a Saturday. The following day, we turned up at 8am with the full team and shot the whole film in one day. It was shot in 4K on an Arri Amira. The very nature of this story demanded restraint in directing. It was critical to allow the performances of both actors to engage the visual. It is all too easy to allow the camera to get in the way of a story – for a Director to lose sight of the greatest visual of them all: an actor’s face.

In The Inuring, I took the decision very early on in pre-production that the camera would be the audience. In what is essentially a classic one-act play, the reactions of Emily and Sarine had to remain the focal point of the frame. This approach to shooting the film, allows the exceptional performances of Emily and Sarine to dominate the screen and make The Inuring the powerful performance piece it was always intended to be for its two actors. Within a few weeks of the shoot the footage was passed to our Editor, Erline O’Donovan, who worked on the edit for a full month with both Producers, to ensure the final film had the rhythm required for it to work.

Once we had our locked cut, I began working with Amie Doherty, our Composer in Los Angeles to create a score that utterly encapsulated the tone of the film. This involved frequent meetings and musical inspirations for the key moment in the film. I had been hearing a score in my head during the writing of the film and shooting, so I did everything possible to convey that score to Amie. Consequently Amie wrote two stunning compositions for The Inuring, the latter of which was performed live by a 40-piece orchestra. Upon completion of our score, the film was then graded at Smoke and Mirrors in London. At these grading sessions, I worked with Jonny Tully, our colourist to perfect the exact look I wanted for each room in the film.

Such was our attention to detail during this grade that it took four weeks before the grade was complete. The film and WAV files of the dialogue and score were then passed to Greg Claridge, our Sound-Mixer at Silk Sound, who used an array of techniques to mix The Inuring to an exceptional standard. While this final mix was happening I was working closely with our title designer in Los Angeles to design the titles I always wanted for the film.

At the end of this eight-week post-production process we finally had our film

indieactivity: Festival Preparation & Strategy?
James: We initially used press releases and social media to build a presence for The Inuring. But soon word of mouth took over, and the film garnered a reputation on the festival circuit, playing at Oscar and BAFTA Qualifying film festivals. It is this word of mouth that has propelled The Inuring to such a degree that it screens at a film festival somewhere in the world on average every five days since its release.

indieactivity: The Release?
James: Using the various festival platform websites, the film was released across the festival circuit.

indieactivity: Advice from the Filmmaker?
James: It is all too easy to rush into production and then realise on set or in post-production that the story is not working. This is invariably because of the script. No amount of finesse in the grade or tweak in the sound-mix can fix bad dialogue. Therefore it is imperative that you work hard on honing the script for your short film to the highest standard you can. If this means entrusting colleagues to gather story or character advice then I implore you to do so. Not only will a strong script lead to a strong film, but you will attract the creatives and actors you want for the production.