A Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: David French Is a Piece of Sh*t and I Want Him Dead
Genre: Dark comedy
Date: November 2019
Director: Mark van Heusden
Producer: Mark van Heusden
Writer: Mark van Heusden
Cinematographer: Jonathan Flint
Production Company: Dovetail Films
Budget: £13000
Financing: Self-funded and a small crowdfund campaign that got together £2000
Shooting Format: Digital (Alexa Mini)
Screening Format: Digital file (DCP)
World Premiere: NA
Awards: NA
Website: NA
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Mark van Heusden (MH): David French Is a Piece of Sh*t and I Want Him Dead explores the idea that all art has to come from pain. It tells the story of rock band Bad Penny who are doing their first headline tour but they have a problem. Their singer, James, seems to have lost inspiration and both his song writing and performance are lacking. This leads to their support band French Kiss, fronted by singer David French, becoming more popular than them. The remaining band members of Bad Penny take matters into their own hands and inflict great trauma onto their singer hoping that this will increase their popularity again. The idea came to me after a conversation with my mom after I just made my graduation film.
I had no money, lived in a city where I didn’t know anyone and didn’t know what to do with my career and it made me very depressed. I was also very insecure about myself creatively and to that my mom responded that ‘all art usually comes from pain’ and that I would make films again, I just needed to sit down and write. This stuck with me and so I decided to make it the main theme for my film, but putting a little twist on it by having the characters believe in the idea so much that they purposely inflict pain on someone to give him inspiration. I set the film in the world of rock music because I love it so much and there are some infamous feuds between band members of well known bands that have always intrigued me.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Mark van Heusden (MH): I funded this film myself and the PR and marketing was also done by myself. I submitted it to a range of big festivals, festivals focusing on music and festivals based in London where I live so I could see it on the big screen. The festival run started off very slow because of the pandemic and for a while it didn’t do much. But at the end of it’s run it got into the amazing HollyShorts Film Festival and shortly after released online on Film Shortage to a very positive response.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Mark van Heusden (MH): Up and coming rock band Bad Penny are doing their first headline tour, but they have a problem. Their lead singer James seems to have lost inspiration which has an effect on his songwriting and performance. This leads to their support band French Kiss, fronted by the charming singer David French, to become more popular than them. Dean and Anthony, fraternal twin brothers and remaining band members of Bad Penny, devise an evil plan to help James find new inspiration and make their band gain popularity again.
Development & Financing?
Mark van Heusden (MH): I wrote the film myself from an original idea. I wanted to make a movie about rock bands and I wanted to incorporate the theme ‘all art comes from pain’ in an absurd and dark comedic way. I wrote the first draft in a few days, it eventually took me about two months to get to the final draft which I wrote whilst working full time as an assistant editor on commercials. I didn’t know much about financing or film funding, so I funded it myself by putting all my savings into the film. I also did a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo through which family and friends contributed and we got together about £2000 from that. The eventual budget ended up being around £13000.
Production?
Mark van Heusden (MH): Pre production of the film took up around three months whilst I was working full time as an assistant editor which gave me little to no time for anything else. The crew were assembled in the first month and casting happened in the second month of pre-production. During the second month we also secured all locations, including The Underworld which is a legendary rock music venue in London and was my first choice to shoot. In the last month we secured all equipment, did rehearsals with the cast and also did a fight scene rehearsal with Nathaniel Marten and Mat McKay from Lucky 13 Action. The music that the bands play also had to be made before shooting so composer Pablo Scopinaro was heavily involved in making the music before filming began and made the music based on snippets of songs I liked that I sent to him. Bands that influenced the music amongst others were Letlive, Enter Shikari, Dinosaur Pile-Up, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes and Marmozets.
Throughout June and July up until the day of the shoot I storyboarded most of the film and got together a lot of visual references together with DOP Jonathan Flint to pin down exactly how our film was going to look. Because we had a complicated fight scene I also did a previz of that with animated stick figures to figure out how we could choreograph and shoot this. We shot for 4 days in July, two days of which were in a tiny one bed apartment where we somehow managed to cram 17 cast and crew and shoot a fight scene. The remaining two days we filmed the concert and green room scenes at The Underworld. I edited the film myself in evenings and weekends whilst I worked full time VFX editor on a commercial so the only thing I saw for a month was the Premiere Pro interface. The picture was locked in October and then Pablo Scopinaro scored the rest of the film and then our sound designer Sean McGarrity spend two weeks on the sound mix. Last but not least the wonderful Karol Cybulski at Cheat spent two days grading the film and then it was finally finished.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Mark van Heusden (MH): I wasn’t sure how to do the festival run so I met up with a producer who’s films I admired and he gave me the advice to submit to the bigger well known festivals. I took his advice, but also expanded a little on it and submitted to a few smaller London based festivals so cast and crew could attend screenings close to home and I submitted to festivals focused on music because the film is about music. The advice paid off because after a slow start we got into HollyShorts Film Festival which was amazing to be a part of and gave my film a lot more attention and through the online panels I met some great filmmakers.
The Release?
MH: We submitted the film to Film Shortage and they released it online in November 2020.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
MH: Be as prepared as you possibly can. Things are going to wrong, so you’d better be as prepared and on your feet as possible to be on top of all the problems that happen. This also applies to your crew, surround yourself with the best possible crew who are as prepared as possible because they will make for a much more pleasant experience than someone who flukes it and then stresses out. Something I will do different is never self fund completely, putting in a bit of your own money is cool but I went completely broke and gave me lots of anxiety. And with this being my first independent short film after my graduation film, I wanted to pull out all the stops so this film had six characters, crowds, stunts and was just a lot to handle. My next film will be smaller in scale so I can spend more attention to detail and get everything exactly right.
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