Joe Shaw

Pre-production

The Echo started out as a story idea by a friend of mine – Alex Scrivenor (co-writer). It was an idea that always grabbed me and at the start of the year we sat down to talk about how we could make it into a short film. It’s difficult to talk about the plot here, because it relies on a couple of revelations and unexpected changes of direction that would be ruined by an in depth analysis. I will however, break down the script a bit in another post with spoiler warnings.

However, I can say for now that when writing the screenplay, the script was quite deliberately structured around these revelations/reversals in order to give the film a decent ‘skeleton’ or framework.

Alex and I both trained as actors at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art and this background helped tremendously in shaping the script, in particular the characters and the dialogue.

Originally the film was set entirely in a confession box, which was a really exciting idea – but practically was going to make the film much harder to shoot. The small space meant that shot selection would be greatly reduced, we would need permission to film in a church – which would be tricky given the heavy nature of the script and lighting would take a long time. I liked the idea and the challenge of trying to contain the whole film in such a tight location, but ultimately we decided that the cons outweighed the pros. This was after all, going to be a zero budget production.

The script went through a good number of revisions until we had a draft we were happy with. I then went about trying to find a good location for the film.

Location Scouting

I liked the idea of a decaying or other-worldly location and initially thought about Dungeness Beach. For those of you unfamiliar with it, Phil Bloom shot a great piece there. His film is here. Sadly the owners of the beach wanted too much money to film there. I considered just rocking up with a crew – but so much effort goes into getting everything in the right place, that I didn’t want to turn up and be kicked off the beach.
I looked at a good number of beaches, but none of them have that same decayed – almost alien quality. Other locations I found had too restrictive conditions or were too difficult to reach. I needed to keep within reasonable striking distance of London as I had to get the actors there and also cover peoples travel expenses.

I then thought about a railway station. I set about looking for stations I might be able to film on which led me to disused stations. Of which, I was surprised to find, there were a good many. Then I came across Folkestone Harbour Station. Disused for sometime and by the sea, it had a wonderful rusty, decayed feeling. The local film office put me in touch with the harbour master and I was told we could film there for free and with very few restrictions.

I went for a location recce and took a load of stills. I walked through the script, working out where I might set the various bits of action.

I had one concern, Sound. There were seagulls buzzing around the roof, squawking noisily and the wind coming of the sea at times was pretty strong.

On the whole I decided the location was too good to ignore, so I set a date, booked the location and started to panic…

Casting

When it came to casting, I was in the lucky position of having a willing agent with a decent client list. I sent them the script, they liked it and said they would think of some actors for it.

The Echo is a two-hander. A young guy and a middle-aged priest. Now, not everyone is going to be willing to do a no-money short in Folkestone, so this was always going to be a factor. Personally, I think short films can be a great experience for an actor – but for older actors, who have ‘earned their stripes’, if you like, there is no real reason for them to get involved – except for an interest in the piece. Therefore, if you want to know how to get good actors in your films – the answer is simple. Good scripts. The appeal of a great story or an interesting character is often all it takes to snare a quality actor.

My agent came back with a short list of actors for the older part – the priest. I knew a couple of the guys from their work – and I’d worked with one of them before. All of them decent actors.

Now, I think there is an etiquette with regards to casting an established actor in something like this. It’s not entirely appropriate to see a load of actors like any old cattle call. My tip would be, find an actor you really think can do it – then offer it to them. If they pass, then you can move on.

I looked at the list. One of the actors I liked was a bit older than the others, and I wondered how he would take to the no frills world of zero budget shorts. Another, I knew would not be right. But on the list was the actor Robert Duncan. I knew his work and I felt he had a quality that would be perfect.

Even knowing Rob’s work – I still thought it would be beneficial to hear what he did with the role. So I asked my agent if she thought he might read – or if he would be offended. She spoke to him and he had no problem reading, which I immediately took as a good sign.

I met Rob and we talked about the script a great deal. He struck me as a genuine and warm kind of guy who had some great insights about the character. We read a little bit and he was very much on the same page as me. I knew he would be great as Father Jerome and as important – he would be a good sport on the day.

I made the offer to my agent and he happily said yes.

Now I needed the younger character – Carlisle. For a young actor, doing a short film can be a great showcase, so all of the suggested actors were willing to meet and read.

I then encountered an unexpected problem. Finding a reasonable place to meet actors where they can wait somewhere comfortable, chat and read. As I said earlier, the script is a little – heavy.. So we definitely needed a private space. However, I soon discovered that even the dingiest, smallest room in central London was more expensive than I wanted.

Fortunately I managed to get into a theatre in town for a couple of hours and use one of their bars. It worked out great as the guys could hang around the stage door and the actual audition space was private.

They were all good actors – one, I knew from my time at LAMDA and he was exceptionally helpful in telling me where the script was hard to read. If you trust an actor – asking for their feedback in this way can be extremely useful. They are the ones trying to connect up the dots along this journey you have written – so finding out where they get stuck was very useful and ultimately lead to rewrites.

Amongst the guys I saw was Stephen Fletcher – an actor who I didn’t know. When we met, he told me he had come down from Liverpool especially for the meeting. (Which for those of you on the other side of the pond, is a good bit of travelling). No pressure I thought…

Fortunately, Stephen had something that none of the other actors quite had – weight. It’s hard to define what ‘weight’ is – you might call it presence or grounding. But it was vital for this character to have that earthy weight. And he really had it.

A call to my agent and soon after, he accepted.

Now I needed my crew…

Crew

My first port of call for crew was Phil Bloom. As an admirer of his work I had watched him rise from 35mm adapter pioneer to internet celebrity! I had previously contacted Phil about a project I was trying to get funded with council money. Ultimately that didn’t happen – but Phil had been willing to get on-board. Some time later, I sent him the details for this project and he again agreed to get involved.

I can’t say enough about his contribution to the filming. Not only does he turn up with a shed load of kit and a great eye – but he has a great attitude and a good sense of humour. As he setup in the freezing cold, standing in the middle of a disused railway track he asked what format I wanted to shoot in. When he offered full size VHS, I knew we would get on just fine.

I had a couple of old friends come and help me out – one, Laure, a script supervisor, which is usually a luxury on a short film. And the other, Adam who is just the best all round guy to have on a film set. My fixer. The rest of the skeleton crew were found through adverts on Mandy.com and shootingpeople.

I got particularly lucky with Steve the sound recordist. BBC trained and a working professional in the industry, he offered his help on the basis that he lived nearby the location. It never ceases to amaze me that people who have no need to offer their services out for free, still do so. And without them, people like me would never get a help up the ladder.