It’s easy to throw around the “one-to-watch” label when talking about short film directors and it’s probably something I’m more than culpable of doing here on Short of the Week – but with so much talent showcasing their skills in the format, it’s hard not to be excited about the filmmakers that we get to watch develop in the early stages of their profession. One director already making a name for himself is Lewis Arnold – with two shorts featured on our site in the last year and a blossoming career in British television, Arnold is a filmmaker with a talent for putting the emphasis on narrative and performance. With his latest short Charlie Says having just featured on SotW and its simple yet powerful narrative still resonating through our minds, we spoke to the director about basing a film on his own childhood experience, shooting on 35mm and releasing a 24-minute short online:

I know from the last time we spoke about Charlie Says, that it’s loosely based on an autobiographical experience you had on a family holiday. How much of what we see in the film is taken from that real-life incident and how do you think your memories of what happened impacted on the film?

Producer Rob Darnell and myself where looking for a story to develop for our NFTS graduation film. I ended up telling him this anecdote about a lie I had told my own family, when craving the attention of my parents during a holiday. We felt there where themes there that where worth exploring so we decided to take the set up of me as a young boy on holiday with my family, the lie itself and develop it on from there.

I have to confess that my own father didn’t burn down an ice-cream van but we did cause the holiday management to go out looking for a mystery man and although he questioned my story, he only found for sure that I had lied, when I started developing the film and I had to call him to get his side of the story.

I think my memories of the incident and the feelings of loneliness and regret are present within the film but Frances Poletti bought so much to the table when she started writing the film and she pushed us to delve deep into all the characters.

Although the story is inspired by your experiences, it was actually written by Frances Poletti – what can you tell us about how the narrative developed from initial idea to final script?

When Fran and most of the crew came on-board the project, all we really had was an outline of the real incident and from that we only ever wanted to take the set up of young boy on holiday with his family and the lie itself. So when Fran started we basically built everything from scratch, the details of the story, the characters, the whole world really.

It was developed over a few months with Fran, Rob and myself spending many days in a room talking through the characters, themes and the story, before Fran went away and wrote the script. We also had great tutors at the NFTS whose input was so important to the development of the narrative and helped us move it on from the real life incident.

One of the main developments took place within the key dynamics of the family. So we made the parents separated and introduced the idea of the father having a new girlfriend. We also pushed the theme of ‘masculinity’, which is represented through the three male leads Charlie, Luke and Rich and their varying ages.

For me story and performance are the key, essential components that make up a great film.

We’ve been lucky enough to follow your filmmaking career for a while now and the thing that stands out in your previous shorts , and in Charlie Says, is how your focus always seems to be on character and performance. What is it that appeals to you so much about character-driven narratives?

I’m not sure really, I have such a huge appetite for all types of movies and I’m actually a huge comic book geek who’d love to direct a Marvel movie one day but I just go on my gut and I’m drawn to stories or scripts with rich characters, often where there is lots of internal conflict to explore.

With good internal conflict you can rely less on dialogue too and put more emphasis on performance, which I find really interesting. I saw Whiplash recently and it just blew my mind, it was wonderful written and masterfully performed, the tension completely came from within the characters opposed to plot or an external conflict.

I love performance and was blessed to spend two years at the NFTS with Cathy Brady, who I learnt so much from as she used so much improv within her short film work at the school. For me story and performance are the key, essential components that make up a great film. If you have a well-written film, performed really well, people will watch it, it doesn’t matter if it’s shot on an iPhone in one room. Then if you can take those two elements and then add rich cinematography and sound, locations all working to tell the same story then you have something really special. But it all starts with story and performance for me.

I also liked the idea of the discipline that comes with shooting on a format where you have limited stock.

You shot the film on 35mm – what made you choose this format and what do you think it adds to the look and feel of Charlie Says?

Alfie (Cinematographer) and myself had always envisioned the short being shot on 35mm with all our visual references being films and images that had mainly been shoot on film. These references had a unique look, often with a nostalgic feel, made through the choice in film stock and the texture, which comes from shooting film.

There was also the practical reason of knowing we’d be looking up at a world from the eyes of a thirteen year old boy, so we might have more sky and highlights to deal with than normal and film controls highlights extremely well.

I also liked the idea of the discipline that comes with shooting on a format where you have limited stock. However this, if we take financial implications out of the equation, was also the reason we debated the idea of film for a while. As Conner Chapman who plays Charlie, had never acted before. He was untrained and so I wanted the ability to shoot more takes then usual as well as recording rehearsals to ensure we got the perfect performance. We would have this freedom on digital but less so with film due to the cost implication.

However Alfie was superb and it was down to him that we ended up shooting film, as he cut deals on stock and somehow made it all possible so that we weren’t compromised on the floor. In the end Conner was so comfortable in front of the camera that we didn’t need to record rehearsals or over shoot scenes too, which helped manage the stock we did have.

You worked with Cinematographer Alfie Biddle again on this short, what is it about his approach that makes him someone you want to work with?

Sometimes you work with people in this industry and it just clicks, you end up having an unspoken relationship where you know what each other like and don’t like, you end up challenging each other to do better and to step outside of your comfort zone.

I had this with Alfie from our very first project together, which was a small exercise at the NFTS. When we ended up doing Echo together he pushed me hard to find the visual language of the piece very early on so he could build on it. He was the first person to suggest shooting that film on anamorphic lenses to capture the surroundings and environments to which Caroline operates her con within. So he really understands story and how to push it within the visuals.

We both also love doing lots of pre-production together and he is incredibly hardworking and generous with his time. All of these points coupled with the fact that he has also become a very good friend means when working together there is real trust, which for me is key in this industry.

Charlie Says is your graduation film from the National Film and Television School – what has your time at the NFTS done for your filmmaking?

For me after week one I came away having learnt so much, I just sat there wondering how I’d even got by before, it was so eye opening. The other key thing for me was that course enables you to grow as a filmmaker by giving you the opportunity to make three films back to back, learning from each experience and putting your failures and success straight back into practice. So you’re constantly growing and developing and I very quickly find out what my strengths and weakness are. I was also blessed with a very talented year group and I learnt just as much from my peers as I did from the tutors at the school.

I suppose the other key thing the NFTS does and did for me, was give you a platform to show your work to the industry. This is done during the graduation show at the BFI Southbank and I was very blessed to sign with a wonderful agent on graduating.

I sound like I’m on commission from the school but it really is this incredible and creative place where everyone is driven and hungry to prove themselves. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough to anyone who is working toward a career as a director, whatever age or background.

Your film had a healthy festival run – what made you decide to release it online now and how did you approach the online distribution of your film?

Many reasons I suppose but I think short film distribution has changed massively over the last few years, with online channels like Youtube and Vimeo giving filmmakers the opportunity to showcase their films to a much wider audience and giving the film a new lease of life.

So with Charlie Says we’d reached the year and half mark of pushing it to the festivals and Rob (producer) and myself wanted to get it online, whilst it was still fresh off the festival circuit. I’d also had success online with my previous short film Echo. We have had over 68,000 views of the film, with the help of Vimeo and their staff pick page, and this has also lead to it being picked up by a few more smaller festivals and also for the National Film Awards, so for me if you plan a good online strategy you can reach a huge International audience and get great exposure.

We hoped that by putting it on Vimeo it would be watched by an audience with an appetite for short films who would sit and give the film a chance.

Your film is 24-minutes in length and adopts a measured pace when it comes to storytelling, was the duration and delivery of your film a concern when it came to finding an audience online?

Yeah it was something that worried us in general, especially during script stage, as we wanted to keep the film as tight and get to the lie as quickly as possible. However we also knew that we needed to care and understand Charlie’s emotional state to believe where the lie comes from and why, and this wasn’t easy to do quickly.

So we ended up taking lots of scenes out as we developed the script and even within the edit sequences where trimmed down dramatically but it was always a constant battle as the more measured pace toward the front really helped, hopefully, to take you deeper into Charlie, and convey the emotions and feelings of the characters, beyond the dialogue.

It’s funny we had so many conversations about pace when we first started showing early cuts to people but as soon as Sarah Warne’s music and Peter Warnock’s sound went on, this helped hugely in taking us deeper into Charlie and somehow giving it more energy.

When it came to online though, we never discussed it. Partly as we hoped that by putting it on Vimeo it would be watched by an audience with an appetite for short films who would sit and give the film a chance, opposed to scan viewing it.

What are you working on next?

I’m currently in the edit on a new television show for C4 and AMC called Humans, which is with Kudos. It’s been a great job as the cast are incredible and the team behind it are so talented too. After this I’m going to spend sometime continuing to read and develop my own projects, with a few writers who I’m excited about.