When Chris Morris’s name was announced as winner of the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut last night, who was it but Adeel Akhtar, along with his Four Lions co-star Nigel Lindsay, who accepted the award on his behalf.
Click here to see a backstage video interview with Adeel and Nigel Lindsay: www.bit.ly/4LionsBaftaBackstage
Ted Hope posted a list of “No-Budget Commandments” on Truly Free Film yesterday, which he put together with his colleagues when his production company, The Good Machine, was starting out. It’s interesting to see how many of these we abided by when making Stranger Things without ever having encountered the list or even many people who think along these lines.
Adeel Akhtar (Mani) between takes, STRANGER THINGS
Bridget Collins (Oona) on location, STRANGER THINGS
Some of the principles we followed included writing to direct and writing for what we knew and what we could obtain. Writing for our location and for our actors also helped us enormously with co-directing, as we hadn’t imagined up vastly different versions of the characters or locations from each other. We knew we had to be flexible filmmakers and we always wanted to make an intimate film, so that one came easily. For anyone planning to make an independent film without a huge amount of money behind them, I would definitely recommend checking out the full list of commandments.
Chris Morris’s debut feature film, Four Lions, comes out today in the UK. It received a great review in The Guardian from Peter Bradshaw. Adeel Akhtar plays dim-witted Faisal in the film.
Click here to see the Four Lions Trailer.
This poignant video piece by photographer Briony Campbell reminds me of our main character Oona with her voice recorder. It’s part of Campbell’s photography project The Dad Project, in which she recorded the last few months of her father’s life — very touching, personal filmmaking.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2010/apr/13/briony-campbell-father-cancer
Amazing news! Eleanor and I are very happy and proud to announce that Stranger Things has won the IFP Narrative Lab’s Finishing Grant! The award is a package of services worth $45,000, including post-production services from Goldcrest Post New York, post-graphic services from Edgeworx, Inc., legal consultation from Gray Krauss LLP, publicity consultation from International House of Publicity, test screening space courtesy of The Tank, and promotional materials from 4over4.
This award make an enormous difference to us in finishing Stranger Things. We’d like to say a huge thank you to all the grant donors listed above, Rose Vincelli, Amy Dotson and everyone at the IFP, and the grant jury members: producer Lisa Cortes (Precious); Warrington Hudlin, filmmaker and founder of DV Republic and Black Filmmakers Foundation; and filmmaker Paola Mendoza (Entre Nos).
We also wanted to congratulate Rebecca Richman Cohen whose documentary War Don Don won the Documentary Lab’s finishing grant.
Our fellow finalists for the Lab Grant were Russell Costanzo and Mellisa Miller with The Tested and Amy Seimetz with City on a Hill, both awesome films.
The IFP’s Press Release can be found here: http://www.ifp.org/ifp-presents-90000-in-grant-packages-to-independent-filmmaker-lab-alumni/
The holiday season is over and it’s straight back to work for independent filmmakers. Ron and I have just returned from London where we caught up with a lot of people and got the new year off to a great start with a very successful ADR session / get-together with some of the Stranger Things cast.
Record quantities of tea and crumpets were consumed!
We would like to thank Bridget, Adeel, Keith, Victoria and Taran for their wonderful work.
Wishing all of our supporters, fans, cast and crew a fantastic new year. Thank you all so much for your support over the last year. We’re looking forward to exciting new developments with the film in 2010.
Adeel has sent us news of what he’s been doing out there in the world since shooting Stranger Things and we’ve updated his bio on the website, so check it out. Not only did he sport a dashing turban in the Bollywoodized version of Wuthering Heights (which toured the U.K. for six months this year, ending at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith) but he recently finished work on Chris Morris’s new film Four Lions, which is a satire based on a group of Islamist terrorists in the North of England.
STRANGER THINGS is the debut feature film from Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal. Find out about the latest news here, or visit out the official STRANGER THINGS website at www.strangerthingsfilm.com
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