Director Also Eying Adaptation Of Toby Litt’s Sci-Fi Novel ‘Journey Into Space’
Remember the rom-com David Mackenzie was shooting on-the-fly at the Scottish music festival, T In The Park, which follows the lead singer of an indie Scottish band who finds himself handcuffed to the vocalist of a big US rock outfit? Well, believe it or not, the film is in the can getting ready to unspool and we now have the first official look at leads Luke Treadaway and Natalia Tena (‘Harry Potter‘ franchise).
“It’s now quite a polished movie,”MacKenzie said in an interview with Scotsman. “I think people will be amazed when they see it that we shot that in four days because there’s so much good cinema in it, so much good acting. Now that it’s been shaped and we’re working on the sound, it’s going to be a big movie. It’s pretty nice to be able to spend some time polishing it up.”
“What’s nice is the lightness of the material mixing with the grittiness of the way we shot it. It is able to avoid being too fluffy, which makes me a lot more comfortable about it. What I hope you get from the movie is the sense that you’re there. Watching it is making me want to go and hang out at music festivals. I hope we get free tickets next year. We might get to see some bands!” The film did, however, take the opportunity to incorporate the artists at the festival into the film with reported cameos by The Proclaimers, The Prodigy, Biffy Clyro as well as singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner and actor Gavin Mitchell (who plays “a mad American band manager”) which is noted by Mackenzie as one of the funniest in the movie.
So does Mackenzie recommend the same challenge of shooting on-the-fly at a music festival? “It’s a great method. There’s something about throwing everyone into that environment that unifies everyone. Somehow forcing oneself into a live environment and shooting very quickly is a liberation. You don’t have control of the environment but as long as you’re able to think on your feet and everyone is cool and able to roll with the punches, you can get incredible stuff.”
“Somehow the process of making movies conventionally can dampen creativity because you’ve got to wait in line to do everything the way it’s supposed to be, particularly with actors who are just hanging out waiting for the call. In this case, even the actors who weren’t in every scene were off with the second unit doing other stuff. Everyone was constantly occupied. That keeps the creativity flowing.”
After somewhat flopping with his Ashton Kutcher-starrer “Spread,” Mackenzie added that he was hoping for another opportunity to prove himself in Hollywood but for now has “various projects in Norway, Sicily, Boston and London, including a sci-fi adaptation of Toby Litt‘s novel ‘Journey Into Space’” in the works. The novel follows the story of two characters, August and Celeste, who are traveling in spaceship on an interstellar voyage, one that takes generations to complete. Certainly sounds like an ambitious undertaking; here’s the Amazon synopsis for that particular novel.
A vast generation ship hurtles away from a violent, troubled Earth to settle on a distant planet orbiting an alien star. Those who set out on this journey are long-since dead. Those who will arrive at their destination have yet to be born. For those who must live and die in the cold emptiness between the stars, there is only the claustrophobic permanence of non-being. Life lived in unending stasis. Then the unthinkable happens: two souls – Auguste and Celeste – rebel. And from the fruit of their rebellion comes a new and powerful force which will take charge of the ship’s destiny. Journey into Space is science fiction at its most classic and beguiling: timeless, vast in scope and daring in execution.
“You Instead” — which also co-stars Kari Corbett, Sophie Wu, Ruta Gedmintas and Matthew Baynton — premieres at the Glasgow FIlm Festival this month and will surely make it way around the globe later this year.