But, on the ground in independent film, are things as healthy? What’s it really like to get started as a film-maker, right now, in the UK? If anyone should know, it’s director and Central’s screen acting lecturer Keir Burrows, whose first two short films Air and Donkey are currently doing very well on the short film festival circuit. Keir recently won a Best Director award for Air (an end-of-the-world popcorn horror about all the air becoming poisonous), as well as two Best Short Film awards for Donkey, a touching story about a man who, as an adult, meets someone he bullied badly when they were both children.

Air, Directed by Keir Burrows

How did you get these films off the ground?
Air was shot in March 2010. It was our first proper short film, we were dirt poor, I was doing a teaching diploma, my wife doing a business degree, and I wrote the script for Air in my spare time. Together with our friend and fellow producer, Josephine Rose, we tried hard to raise finance for it. Despite six months of sending out letters, applications for finance, everything, we got nowhere. It’s disheartening, that – I’d written two novels in my 20s, neither of which found an agent or a publisher, yet despite the fat stack of rejection letters I’ve acquired over the years, it’s still a bit bruising to be turned away. Eventually we decided to make it regardless. This is an end-of-the-world sci-fi horror, it needed a crazy amount of props, locations, and so on. Anyway, we did it – it was hell, to be honest, the most stressful few days of my life, trying to make something with a Hollywood look to it for a few hundred pounds. Full credit goes to the cast, the crew, makeup, all of them good friends who worked 20 hour days for a week for nothing, which was incredible. And very heartening.

Donkey was very different – it’s a simpler story, so I didn’t bother trying to raise a penny, I just borrowed a camera from work, roped in an actor I’d taught the year before, brought my wife along to hold the boom, and we ran around London for two days making it, for the cost of a big pizza.

How long was it from when you wrote the scripts to the final cut?
Good question. Bloody ages. Air I think I had a working script in June 2009. We shot it in March 2010. We had the final cut ready for festival submission in April 2011. That’s just shy of two years. Does that sound like a long time for a short film? That’s the reality if you have no money, but you want to make something that looks like you do. You really have to spend forever making it work.
Donkey was less arduous. I think the final draft of the script I finished in November 2010, we filmed it in March 2011, and had it ready in September 2011. So still, almost a year for a very simple short film.
Patience. It’s a long game this, and you need to be thinking in years, not months. Then there’s the festival circuit, and the three to six month disconnect between submitting and finding out whether you’re screening or not – and then another three months before the festival itself. Air we just watched at the London Short Film Festival, with all the cast and crew there – almost two years after we shot it.

Air

Is the UK indie film industry alive and kicking? Or a struggle?
To be honest I’m no expert as we’ve largely been doing it on our own. I do believe the UK indie scene is great – it’s extremely competitive, which is a very good thing, there’s a lot of great stuff coming up and out all the time. There’s not enough funding, especially now, but that’s the economic reality we’re all in so hardly worth another mention – you make do with what you have, simple.
I do wish applying for finance was less torturous, less opaque. At the risk of sounding bitter, it’s hard not to feel aggrieved when I watch Film Council-funded projects at a festival and think, wow, we blow them away on all counts, how come they got the grant and we didn’t? The box-ticking that you’re expected to do on the forms isn’t to my mind what art should be about, and then finally I think the perception that it’s not what you can do but who you know is still a powerful obstacle to many entry-level filmmakers.
But to a large extent this is irrelevant, complaining about something you don’t have rather than something you lost. Filmmaking is far, far more accessible than it’s ever been, and getting more so, and the lack of finance simply forces innovation. So yes, the UK indie film industry is alive and kicking. You just have to learn how to kick back.

Which directors influence you?
I think David Fincher and Christopher Nolan are two of the most technically gifted directors of their generation. Fincher especially, his films are veritable masterpieces of the cinematic art. I dissect their films mercilessly, trying to understand the decisions they’ve made so as to emulate in some small fashion the quality of what they do. However for soul, Danny Boyle is my hero. If I could have one person’s career, if I could magic up someone as a mentor, it’d be him.

Have you got a game plan?
Yes. As I said, it’s a long game this, you’re planning years – many years – in advance. And you’re making sure you always have half a dozen things going on at any given time, because things fall apart very easily.

It must have felt great to win so many awards for your first two films. What do you think the judges were looking for?
Oh the awards were great. Brilliant. I have no shame in saying I cried hard when we got the very first one, a Best Director gong from Colorado for Air. After 12 years of rejections for creative endeavors it meant a hell of a lot. You know, no matter what else happens down the line, what works or doesn’t, that first award, I don’t think anything will ever beat it.
As for what the judges were looking for, I don’t know, I really don’t, and second-guessing them is pointless. We’ve been accepted into wonderful, established festivals like Cambridge and LSFF, and been rejected from some of the most arbitrary start-up festivals, so who knows what they like. An original story that makes sense is a great start, and if you have talented actors to work with, you’re pretty much sorted. James Farrar was simply amazing in Donkey, and for Air, Adelle Addinton and David Chrysanthou (David stars in the In- Betweeners movie ) were both superb.

Keir and wife and producer Dieudonnee at the Air screening, London Short Film Festival

What makes the perfect short?
Ha, if I knew that I wouldn’t tell anyone. This I do know: nothing, not a single thing, beats the story. Story first, acting second, all the technical craft third. That’s the perfect short. The problem is most short films I see seem to start at the back, and then find they’ve spent all their time making it look and sound fantastic, with decent performances, but the film is boring as sin because the story has no emotional heart.

With new technology, cameras less costly, edit software easier to use, etc. making films is now more accessible – is this good or bad?
Wonderful, absolutely brilliant. Now pretty much anyone with a good idea can make a film, and make it look gorgeous, for very little cost. Donkey I’m so proud of because it looks lovely and literally cost £12 to make. And that’s how it should be – the more meritocratic the system becomes, the better it is for everyone. The more genuinely creative filmmakers emerge, people with good ideas, not just people that know how to frame a shot and can afford the best actors, the better it is for the entire industry, and the movie-going public too. Ultimately the best creative minds should float to the top, not the best form-fillers. The ‘democratizing’ of film technology is the best thing that could have happened to the industry.

How do you stand out in a crowded market?
Crumbs, I haven’t a clue. Get platform shoes? I don’t know. Again, original and interesting concepts are a must. Then you need a drum. I’m hoping with these two films, made for nothing and winning awards, I have a platform to pitch bigger ideas from, and hopefully be taken more seriously than I was two years ago. I honestly have no idea though. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m confident – we have some momentum and it’s just working out how best to use it, I suppose.

Have you got your eye on Hollywood?
Without a doubt. I have some great ideas for summer tent-pole movies that will only ever get made with studio finance. I love blockbuster cinema, when it’s done right – Air we tried really hard to make something that looked and felt like a Hollywood movie, just 15 minutes long. But I’m not getting ahead of myself, there’s still a lot of hill to climb before I can even begin thinking along those lines. But yes, I dream. I rehearse my Oscar speech in the shower. Don’t we all?

Which actors/ actresses would you like to work with and why?
Another good question – to be honest the list is probably too long to even begin on. At this stage I’m just eager to work with anyone who is really talented. But of the current ‘it’ generation, Ryan Gosling stands head and shoulders above most everyone else – I haven’t met a single person, male or female, who isn’t mildly infatuated with him in some way. Brad Pitt. Judi Dench. Carey Mulligan. No, really, I could go on forever. Anyone. I’m easy.

Which movie should we see that we probably haven’t?
Okay – so this isn’t a favorite film list at all, just something random you won’t have seen and is great.

The Fall (2006), directed by Tarsem Singh. I can’t explain what it’s about. It’s gorgeous, insane, and very touching.
If you’re a hard-core sci-fi fan, and you haven’t seen Primer (2004), watch that. It’s difficult, it needs to be seen five times to make sense of, and it cost $9000 to make and won at Sundance so it’s inspiring for any poor shoestring film-maker. It’s a massive win for concept over production value. But it’s a mind-bender; relaxing Saturday night fare it ain’t.

What next for you?
I have a feature script, Worm, about three PhD students who create a wormhole generator – it’s planned, plotted, the whole thing is storyboarded and ready to shoot, I just need a healthy chunk of sterling to get it made. It’s a great British indie project with good commercial appeal. It’s The Social Network meets Memento. Anyway, financing that will take ages, perhaps years, so in the meantime we’re making another short in May, which I’m doing through work, which is nice, so some of the production stress is out of my hands. After that I have another short film script, but it will need external finance to get made as it needs a set build, so the idea is to try raise money for that too, and shoot that in the second half of the year. I’d love to try to find representation, an agent, to help land commercial work, but my priority really is the feature. And my wife. And walking the dog. And the day job. Damn, life is busy. I need to go buy milk.

Air and Donkey have currently been accepted into 17 international short film festivals. The next is the Derby City Film Festival in Glasgow, Kentucky and the Charlotte Film Festival, Georgia, with more UK screenings coming soon. Check back here or on  our Twitter page for more details.

Share This

About the author

Loma-Ann Marks
Loma was a performer and freelance writer before becoming a journalist on the Daily Star Sunday, Daily Star and Express. She's the Founder and Editor of Culture Compass. North, South, East or West? I'll go anywhere. I like to think that I'm a pretty good map reader ( not everyone would agree ) but then I remind them that I navigated my way around the Paris one-way system with NO mistakes. High Class or Common or Garden? High class in the garden. Clothes or Culture? Culture in new clothes. My best night out ever made me feel....... That things would never be the same again. And they surely weren't the following day.

Related Posts

British Fashion Awards

Last night I was meeting deadlines while watching 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here", rather than fading into the background amongst the fashion elite at The Savoy. However  I did make sure to keep an eye on Twitter feeds...

ARTROCKER AWARDS & LIVE SHOW 2011

On the 2nd of December The first ever Artrocker Awards will take place at popular Shoreditch venue, XOYO. The showstopping night, hosted by Radio 1s Jen Long will unveil the winners of fourteen unique nomination categories...

And The Winners Are……

Last night Culture Compass Interviewee and favourite Jessie J scooped a much deserved four awards at The Mobos. Jessie in one of her trademark outlandish catsuits Resplendant in a Gothic inspired floor-length lace...