Interview

N i c k   O ' M a h o n e y

www.BudgetFilmMaker.com:  Thank you for agreeing to do this interview with us about

                                                   your short film "But Then She Spoke" Tell us a little

                                                  more about this film with a brief synopsis.

Nick O'Mahoney: The film is about a bored video store clerk's view towards an attractive

                            mystery female customer who enters the store one night. After a tiresome shift

                            seeing this girl really perks him up and he begins to think of ways to introduce

                            himself and make a good impression.

BFM: What is the moral behind this film, and what made you think making a film on this

            subject ?

NM:  The whole moral is about not judging a book by it's a cover, just because this girl has a face

          like an angel, it certainly doesn't mean she is one.

BFM: I wrote the script based on past experience, something I do with the majority of my

           shorts.

NM:   I was a 'till gimp' at Blockbusters in Nottingham for over a year and wrote this several years

          back after a similar incident with a colleague of mine.

BFM:  What lighting equipment do you use for lighting your film ?

NM: We used a simple 3-point lighting set-up using some industry standard 'red-heads' acquired

          from the University equipment department.

BFM: What hardware and software did you use to edit your films on ?

NM: I'm a huge fan of the Sonic Foundry Vegas editing software, which has now been bought

        out  by Sony and goes by the name of Sony Vegas 5. This is a piece of editing software

        that's real simple to use, does anything you'd ask for and is something I used for over four

        years.

BFM: How did you get into making films? What are your influences?

NM: Well I've been a writer since I was 12 years old, got into scriptwriting in my late teens due

         to my huge passion in films. After writing a series of short scripts, I gave up trying to find the

         perfect director and decided to helm my own projects. Since 2001 I've wrote and directed

         five short films, edited the feature film 'Quiet Storm' and made a music video for the rock

         band Bosco (www.boscoband.com). The Coen Brothers highly influenced my work, films

         such as Raising Arizona, Big Lebowski and the Hudsucker Proxy all made a big impression

         on me.

BFM:  How do you fund your filming projects? Do you get funding from external groups

            and how you recommend other filmmakers go about getting funding for their

            projects ?

NM: Funding is and always will be a nightmare for film-makers, from people looking to make their

        debut to established directors, money is always hard to get. I recently was in pre-production

        for my debut feature film which had to be halted 2 weeks before shooting due to an investor

       backing out at the 25th hour. (See http://www.close-upfilm.com/filmmakers.html) Overall my

       advice is try and make films that can be shot on a shoe-string budget, my first three films didn't

       cost me a penny because I borrowed a camera and just went out there and filmed. Yes, the

       films didn't look to professional but the experience I gained was priceless. 'But then, She

      spoke' cost us sixty pounds and that was to pay the wage of the actual video-store clerk who

      agreed to stay behind after her shift for a few hours to let us film. The actual equipment we

      rented for free due to us being students of a Film production degree and our course includes

      unlimited equipment hire.

BFM:  Name your top ten films of all time?

NM: Fight Club, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hudsucker Proxy, Rules of Attraction,

        The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Office Space, Swingers, Ed Wood and Being John

        Malkovich.

BFM:  How long did this film take to produce from start to finish?

NM: Well the script was written in 2001 during my Blockbuster days, I 'un-earthed' it late last

        year and we shot it over two nights at a video store in Stafford, the edit took around two

       days and after a week we got some original music composed by a friend of mine.

BFM: What is the next topic you want to cover in your next film? What is your next

            project you are hoping to complete ?

NM: Well with my feature film currently in re-development, I'm currently working on a TV series

         called Class of 95. Which is a concept sitcom in which each episode is split in half, the first

         being 1995, the 11 year old character's first day of secondary school and the second half in

         the present day, the character now 21 has just finished University and has entered the real

         world.

BFM:  What Camcorder did you use to shoot this film? Plus what other equipment did

            you use during production?

NM: We shot the film using the good old Canon XL1, three 'red-head' lights and a Steinhauser

         rifle microphone.

BFM: Where did you get your cast/crew for this film?

NM: Luckily two members of our film crew are part-time actors, so that fulfilled our clerk and

        female customer. For the other two speaking parts I used 'regulars' from my previous short-

        films, that being Gazz Wood (the moron customer) and Steve Fisher (the pervy customer)

 
BFM:  What difficulties have you come across during the production of your film?

NM: Our main problem was with the sound, the shop had a series of refrigerators which gave

        off a constant hum which was unavoidable. Basically we had to tweak it in post-production,

        however you can still notice it on a very high volume.

BFM:  Oh yes I had the same problem with my short film Vincent... ADR is the way I

            believe!  Anyway in your eyes what makes a successful film?

NM: I'm a firm believer that a good script will make a film great, even if its shot on 8mm, people

        will pay good money to see a clever script well executed.

BFM: How did you go about promoting your film?

NM: Like our other projects, we placed them on our website www.gangstafish.com, as well as

         this we entered several film festivals and at the moment it's been short-listed in Miami.

BFM: How could you of improve this film if you had to make it again?

NM: Improve the sound problem by using radio mics, shoot in 16:9 and adjust the lighting in some

         scenes.

BFM: Will you direct from your own script again or someone else's?

NM: At the moment I'm very comfortable working from my own script, that way I know the story

         inside out and what to achieve. However I'm definitely considering adapting some of my

         favourite books for the screen in the distant future.

BFM: After you finish your film Nick, were there any obstacles during the course of

           making this film that with hindsight you could have avoided ?

NM: The whole shot ran extremely smoothly, which is a rarity in this trade. Mostly it all came

        down to the planning, we had the entire shot sequence laid out minute by minute and this

        helped us use our time efficiently and gain enough coverage.

BFM:  Finally what advice would you give anyone getting into to Budget Film Making?

NM: Stop worrying about funding, find a relative or friend with a camera, learn to edit and shoot

        your film. Yes, it will look very amateurish at first, but the lessons learnt our extremely

        valuable and much cheaper than any 'film school' would teach you.

      Nick O'Mahoney's film 'But Then, She SpokeMnemosyne' can be seen in the 'Films' sections of www.BudgetFilmMaker.com.