Abbie interviews Sam Toller about his film “Alan” which is being premiered at the Winston Theatre on the 2nd May.
First of all, can you give a brief summary of what the film’s about?
The film is about a 17 year old who thinks he’s peaked in life, and it’s all downhill from there. He’s a straight A student, has had some short stories published and has this wonderful girlfriend, but the film begins when all of this greatness seems to be falling apart. So the film’s about dealing with that sense of ‘Woah, life is going in a different direction and I don’t like it’ but learning to deal with that feeling. It’s been quite therapeutic editing the film in my final year of Uni – I think that feeling happens to people multiple times in their life, it’s not just a quarter life crisis.
When did you start working on the film?
I wrote the script when I was about 17, so when I was going through a similar time. I was taking ridiculous things that happened to me, adding stupid things I’d done and making them even more stupid to create a bit of a ridiculous, pretentious, melancholic and idiotic character. I thought that I might like to actually shoot the film one day, so I made sure the script was quite simple, focusing on acting on dialogue rather than expensive action scenes or lavish locations. I kind of forgot about it after that. Then in the summer of second year I thought, ‘If I want to make this film, this is when to do it’. So I started filming around this time last year, shooting a few scenes each month or so, meaning it wasn’t too stressful and I could do it around my degree and life in general. So in terms of filming, just the last year, but the project as a whole began quite a few years ago.
Do you think young people will find it relatable?
Yeah, I think they really will. I often describe it as Skins meets Woody Allen; there’s parties, girlfriends, a sense of young rebellion against the adult world, but with this ridiculous character who’s an old soul, he’s got the weariness of a 50 year old, which is a funny contrast, and then I’ve also taken a lot of visual cues from Woody Allen’s simple, effective, often beautiful cinematography. But a lot of the writing comes from when I was that age. For instance that question that all adults ask – ‘Where are you going for Uni? What’s your plan?’ and you end up with this rehearsed speech that you spew out overtime someone asks. There’s a lot of news stories these days about the pressure we put on young people during their education, and although it wasn’t intentional during writing, I think it’s a really important theme of the film. We see Alan fall apart under all these pressures, and its always with an element of humour, that ‘If I don’t laugh I’ll cry’ kind of thing, but he gets through it and he realises that it doesn’t really matter too much what other people tell him he has to do, it’s about him doing what he wants and enjoying the ride. I really like the relationship between Alan and Em, his girlfriend, too. All she wants is space, and in his oblivious, almost endearing trauma he tells her he understands her wishes, then smothers her even more. Space is really important in a relationship, but we often forget that – I’ve seen 30 year marriages falling apart because of similar problems, so it’s not just a film for young people.
What are the biggest challenges when it comes to directing your own film?
If you’re doing multiple roles, as I was – writing, directing, acting, and editing (I’m a DIY fan) – you really have to be able to swap hands well. To write and then forget that you wrote it and come to it and analyse it, or to edit a scene that you’re acting in and not get caught up in whether your own performance is any good, but focus instead on your job as an editor and editing the best film you can. It’s hard, but it’s important to separate those jobs and put on different hats. As I said, I kept the cinematography quite simple; I’m a fan of letting actors act, in the hope that when you trust actors with that they make the most of it, draw people in with a great performance and you use those great performances to tell the story, as opposed to the direction. Bristol has such a great pool of talent, so that wasn’t too difficult to do. But then one of the biggest challenges was directing and acting simultaneously. It’s a bizarre feeling being in a scene, doing your fifth take with another acting, and half of you is completely in character, in the zone, giving a good performance, but there’s a little bit of your brain going ‘This is good. This is a good take.’ You’re always slightly aware as the director when the scene is going well. And conversely, there are endless bloopers of me launching into a scene and cutting within seconds because I know I’ve delivered a line really badly. So acting and directing at the same time can be complicated on the brain, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s challenging, and I’m always looking for a challenge.
Who are your biggest cinematic inspirations?
First of all I’d like to say Edgar Wright, who is the director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. He’s one of the few directors who manages to create humour simply in the way his films are directed. I really admire that, and I’ve used a similar style in my other work, but for Alan I wanted to move away from that and focus on a more poetic, subtle form of humour. For this project, Woody Allen was a big inspiration. He’s a controversial man, but his films are well shot and often capture some really big ideas in a humorous way. But there are all sorts of references in the film. Just like Edgar Wright, I love to pepper my work with references to other works of art, literature and film. I’m looking forward to seeing how many people can spot. I still haven’t counted how many zombie references I’ve sneaked in there. I take my inspiration from everywhere, really. Whenever I watch a film, even one I think is really bad, I’ll be analysing and seeing what works and how. The best education as a filmmaker is to watch great films and try and pull them apart. People like the Coen brothers, Tarantino, even Damien Chazelle; you watch their films and you can see the films they’ve watched, their cinematic education and how it inspired them. I think the film lovers make the best film makers.
Where can people watch it?
It’s premiering at The Winston Theatre in the Bristol Student Union on the 2nd of May. It’s free entry with an optional donation going towards festival submissions. Festivals can be quite iffy if your film is online for free, so I can’t put it up quite yet, but I’m planning to have another showing in Bristol at some point. And eventually it’ll be somewhere to watch – follow the Facebook and twitter I guess!
Do you have any advice for people wanting to take on an artistic project like you have?
Stop saying ‘I want to be a [writer/filmmaker/actor] and just do it. Get out there and start making films, even if it’s on your phone. I’ve been making films since I was fourteen, each film building on what I learnt from the last. You don’t just go and make a feature film; I did this after years of experience and boredom and thinking what haven’t I done. But the first step is just doing it, getting hooked on it, and then naturally you can’t escape and it takes over your life. Which is a good thing, I think, finding work you love and immersing yourself in it. Also, try and get as many people involved in it as possible. I did way too much myself…I learnt a lot, but there was a lot of pressure doing multiple jobs at once. Get a good crew, get some people you can trust and you know will give you their all, and work together. It’s a lot less stress, a lot more fun, and everyone gains experience, which is so important these days. As Alan would say, there’s not much point in doing anything these days unless you can stick it on a CV.
Check out the Facebook page for Alan here.