It might be fair to say that the detailed period setting of the short film, Family Portrait, may well be the most extensive and cinematic in the whole Official Selection. I spoke to the director of the lavish little motion picture short, Kelly Holmes, about the state of female filmmakers, her role as a director, why she likes era-based films, and the technical crew that help her get there.
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Female filmmakers are increasing in numbers all the time, not just the awareness and amount of films, but the quality of films as well. How do you see the change over the last few years? What more needs to happen for women and their creativity to feel less secluded in the industry?
I see and hear people talking about it a lot, but I’m not seeing a lot of action where it counts. Many film festivals are making an effort and we’re starting to see greater parity there, but the box office and TV statistics are terrible. The fact is, we do not live in a meritocracy, and so for things to change we need to see a cultural shift in trusting women – the issue extends far beyond just women directors.
Do you have friends or peers in the same boat as you? Like female filmmakers or directors of short films?
Many. It saddens me as well to see so many talented women largely being ignored. Women tend to make a first feature film far later in life, and they struggle to come back with a second feature, especially if the first is not a box office hit. I do, however, love seeing the women I know come together to make projects, and by supporting each other, we lift each other up.
I suppose I have to ask, are you a fan of period pieces? Which films did you have in mind when making Family Portrait?
I am a fan of period films, but I guess I’m using historical pieces as a lens to look at macabre elements. There’s a lot of darkness in our past and that’s something I’m interested in. I was particularly inspired by some of the great period BBC shows like Great Expectations and Bleak House. I’ve made a few period films now and I think it’s time to step away for a short while – I’m really interested in trying to make some science fiction next.
What is your process as a director? Who do you collaborate with the most? How organised are you?
I’m obsessed with the art department, and so that’s very important to me. And I spend a huge amount of time in pre-production, researching all of those elements. And my closest collaborator on set is my DOP Alan McLaughlin, that I’ve worked with on my last two films.
I also have a very close relationship with my Editor and Sound Designer. But really one of the main elements I’ve begun to see a lot more clearly in recent years is casting and developing a relationship with my actors – I have a wonderful Casting Director and choosing the right cast and developing trust with your actors is really key for me.
Family Portrait is a lavish project to say the least. Gorgeous to look at. When you first conceptualised this film, how much of your thoughts were on the potential budget?
This film was made on a tiny budget, and I mean really tiny at £5,000. We lucked out with a great location and adapted it as far as we could with the art department – but nearly half our budget went on location. We knew the budget from the beginning and there was no wiggle room there, and so it was about breaking the film down and figuring out what we could achieve. It’s a relatively large cast for costume too, and so that was a real consideration.
When I worked with the writer Nils, we cut out characters and reduced the film down to one room essentially. And when we found the location we realised we’d be able to go outside, which gave us more production value. But the outside of the house was a public park, and so we needed to again limit how much we shot. Just outside of frame there are children playing, and so we knew we needed to ADR the entire scene outside.
How exactly did you hire those responsible for how wonderful the film looks – art directors, costume designers, cinematography etc?
This was my first project with Alan the DOP, and we got on very well. And he’s shot my next project and we’ll continue to work together. We spent time trying to figure out how to make the film feel like one of the photographic portraits of the era, despite shooting digitally with the Arri. So we chose Super Speeds and took an optical flat and distressed the flat to put in front of the lens.
The result was a unique look to the film where the background is separated and there are layers to the image. We didn’t have the ability to put a lot of lights in the room, and so it’s lit from outside the windows and we bounced light around the room.
With the art department, we were very limited in what we could do with the location as it’s essentially a museum. So we worked with National Trust of Scotland to remove some things from the room and insert some of our own furniture, which was a long process. I couldn’t get the grandeur what I wanted in furniture, and so it was a fairly last-minute decision to cover things in white sheets. Assuming that the family was imminently moving home, which helped with the narrative.
Costume was a mixture of rentals, adaptations of existing costumes the designer owned and also a quick build on the young girl’s dress. Keeping everything to the right sort of year in the Victorian era is something I learned quite a lot about, as fashions changed very quickly at that time.
And that cast, so varied in their characters and performances. How do you go about casting something like this?
I wanted all Scottish actors as we were shooting in Scotland. But in the end I decided to cast an English actor I knew as the photographer because Thomas gave the character the feeling of ‘otherness’ within this Scottish family. Kate, who played Louise, is actually the DOP’s sister, but I’d already cast her through seeing some previous work in short films. And now she’s gone off and got an agent, which is fantastic.
The mother, Margaret, played by Alison McKenzie, I tracked down through research and a recommendation from one of the directors of Line Of Duty I knew who had worked with her. Alison is a wonderful actress, and I we really clicked on understanding who Margaret was. Douglas, who plays the Uncle, is another wonderful Scottish actor that has been in shows like Outlander. Again, I really lucked out on my cast and would work with them all again in a heartbeat.
What is your role in post-production? Are you super hands-on?
I am really hands on in post. I always stay out of the assembly edit with my editor however and let them find the film first, which I feel is really important. And I find the relationship with the editor is one of the most important you have to find.
I also like to be in the sound design as much as possible, because for me that’s a huge part of the storytelling process. A lot of this film is in quiet moments where we need to emotionally understand what’s happening and so there’s a good relationship between sound design and composition in this film. And our composer lives out in France, and so there was a lot of going back and forth on email and Skype.
What do you plan to do next film-wise?
I’m currently on the festival circuit with a new film called Attrition, a WW1 supernatural drama. And so that’s taken up a lot of time recently. I have a TV drama optioned that I’m working on now, which is a true life story called Manning Up. And I have a commission for Early Development on a feature film called Year Of The Heart with the BFI that I’m writing at the moment – which is a menopausal body horror. Plus there’s another feature film set in Scotland called Pestilence that I’d like to shoot a proof of concept for perhaps at the end of this year.
Feature films take a long time to develop, however, and so it wouldn’t surprise me if I ended up shooting another short next year. And there’s a script called The Prescription I have been waiting to shoot if I get the chance to finance it, which is a sci-fi about mental health.
Read the review of Family Portrait right here.
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