SURVIVORS CHARITY | CAMPAIGN FILM | DIGITAL | LONDON - UK | 2021

DIRECTOR | DAN LOWENSTEIN

When director Dan Lowenstein was approached to make a campaign film for Survivors UK charity for a budget of £1500 and asked for me to come on board, I don’t think either of us anticipated the level of complexity that would become the story of this project. I wanted to do my very best to produce a charity film that felt ambitious and did justice to the stories that we would tell throughout the piece. Dan had written a script based on transcripts, kindly provided by Survivors UK that told of harrowing circumstances and experiences, that needed to be given the attention they deserved. I went away and designed a set using a 3D program, sourced reference imagery and then enlisted the help of art director Andrew Smith ( Your Move ) to begin building our bedroom setting. Working with such a tight budget brings with it a level of complexity that can only really be met with ambition, passion and hard work. From securing a location that could facilitate our shoot, procuring a lighting & camera package, finding props and building a set that would do justice to the writing and the subject matter, every element of this shoot was a challenge.

Eventually Dan secured a sports hall in Dartford, kindly provided to us by Father Pat of St Vincents Parish centre. Whilst not a film studio it would become the perfect space to build our set, which was sourced by sound recordist / set builder, Jimi, in Birmingham and driven down to London for construction on site. It was one of those shoots where everybody took on multiple roles, but none more so than Jimi who really did go above and beyond to help make this project what it is.

The morning of the shoot, Dan discovered that his car had been broken into and our lighting package that had kindly been donated to the shoot by Pilot Lighting in London had been stolen. Fortunately the biggest lighting equipment was being delivered by Jimi in his Van, meaning that not all was lost and now I had the task of making it work with what we still had available to us. My plan had always been to build a bedroom set with a large window, which would motivate the lighting for the film and act the visual centre point of the room. We opted for a simple room with muted colours and basic furnishings, not only through budget constraints but we also didn’t want the staging to be overly distracting from the narrative. Our sports hall only supported 13amp power, meaning that all the lighting in the piece would need to be low wattage but still pack enough punch to illuminate the set through the window. I used a LED 9 light “wendy” supported on a scaffold mount and backed with a 12x12 ultra-bounce that was then augmented with two 2Ks, which were kindly brought at the last minute by my good friend and camera operator, Tobias Marshall. Inside of the set we had a practical bedside lamp fitted with a 60w tungsten bulb and inline dimmer, with one red head that our light thieves deemed too shit to steal, bounced into a muslin circular poly combo.

To shoot the film I had the assistance of two really key individuals who need special mention here for both their generosity and skill. Tobias Marshall who donated a lot of the camera package used in the film, operated one of the cameras and offered so much support. Kristof Keszthelyi from Pilot lighting, came along to offer his services as a lighting assistant and quite honestly we couldn’t have done it without his skill and passion. Thank you both for giving your time, expertise and passion to this project.

Lastly and certainly not least, we were so very fortunate to have three dedicated and talented actors who offered themselves fully to this film. Vic, Bhasker and Isaac, thank you for the humility and talent that you brought to these stories.