01 Oct Guest Blog | Broken Hearted Youth
KSF Artists of Choice, is open to artists across the disciplines of dance, theatre, musical theatre, music and film. Over the next few weeks, we will post guest blogs from some of our 2015 grant winners about how the grant has impacted their work. Applications will be open in early 2016.
Name | Michael Van Der Put
Project | Rage, Broken Hearted Youth
Year Awarded KSF Grant | 2015
I received funding for my most ambitious short film Rage. It takes place on a rooftop five-a-side football pitch and explores political apathy and anger in the aftermath of the 2011 riots.
In very practical terms the award will enable me to shoot a film I’ve spent three years of my life developing. There will be a clear point over the coming months when I will get to see if these ideas will translate to the screen. That’s an enormously important process for a filmmaker like me, someone in the early stages of their career, to go through.
Since receiving the funding, I’ve been able to enter full pre-production on the film, so my producer Franziska Lindner now has a budget in place that affords us the confidence to secure cast and crew for a shoot. I’ve also been able to start rehearsals with key cast members with the knowledge that there’s a set date when all of their hard work will pay off.
We’ve been busy finalising casting, crew and locations. I’ve been meeting a lot with the three core cast members: Percelle Ascott, Joivan Wade and Karl Jackson to discuss their character arcs in detail. We will soon start rehearsals around the football and building the team dynamic. I’ve also met a lot with Pablo Rojo, my Director of Photography, to discuss the look of the film. We’ve nearly finished our shot list and following a location recce towards the end of the week I’ll work with an artist to begin storyboarding.
If you’re a filmmaker in the UK I really don’t have to make much of a case for you to apply for the award, as funding opportunities at the moment seem few and far between. What I appreciate most about the award though is the total lack of restriction in what they look for. It’s simply about the idea.
The whole process has been a bit of a blur to be honest! At the moment I’m really enjoying the time I spend with my three lead actors. We’ve put a lot of thought into the characters that populate the world of Rage so whenever we meet for a coffee or rehearsal there’s a rich level of detail there to get to grips with. It’s been an incredibly rewarding development process and now it’s just a matter of finding a way to communicate the big ideas through the small details.
It’s difficult to choose just one piece of advice to give to other emerging artists aside from the usual keep going. Ultimately I’d say if you passionately believe that your project has something to say then that carries with it an urgency that people can sense in the room.
That’s it really. If you have that with the idea you’re currently working on then just keep going. That fanatical belief in a story that needs to be told is something you can’t fake. It’s also bloody infectious.
Follow us on Twitter @brokenYTH to keep up to date on our project or contact us at [email protected]
Read more about Rage here.