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P roducer-director Maikl Hap proved extremely interesting and was
very rewarding.”
The dozen actors – “in roles of
equal importance,” says Hap – are Caroline Burns Cooke, Tina D’Cruz, Suzy Harvey, Daniel Jordan, Peter Lochburn, Paul Lockyer, Joanna Mansfield, Maria Mortensen, Martine Niven, Deanna Pepperell, Heidi Salander and George Still.
Hap paid special tribure to his associate producer, Joe Dunton BSC, who provided all the camera gear, the grip and plenty of good advice.
If the project sounds intriguing then it’s no less so than Hap him- self. Of Greek Cypriot origin, Hap, born Michael Hapeshis – the sur- name has been shortened to make it more screen friendly – is an experi- enced architect who turned to his “second great love, filmmaking” in his spare time.
Now it has become his main activi- ty especially since he set up his pro- duction company Archistudio in 2001 to write, produce and direct shorts, documentaries and features.
describes his first feature film, Shootout, as “an intelli- gent comedy about the complexities and contra- dictions of teamwork.”
More specifically, it concerns a group of young filmmakers
on the first day of their shoot. But who are these twelve people, how did they come together and how do they react with each other?
Nothing is quite what it first seems, including the experimental way in which the 35mm anamorphic film was actually made. It was, explains Hap, “fully improvised by the actors.
“I gave them a page each with 24 points of story structure and we worked for months beforehand to develop the character with each actor. When the actor finally turned up on set, he/she knew exactly who they were and what they were doing there.
“Our main work went into devel- oping character, not the plot or the story which then evolved out of the interaction of the characters. It
32 • Exposure • Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video
feature in focus
THE
THE
POWER OF
POWER OF
TWELVE
TWELVE
How a dozen actors improvised the script for Shootout