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FEATURE IN FOCUS
FROMHELLTOPATERNITY
RECREATING THE HARROWING TRUE-LIFE STORY OF BEST-SELLING WRITER KEVIN LEWIS IN THE KID
“IN THE END, I USED ONLY ETERNA 500T BOTH FOR DAYLIGHT (WITH AN 85 FILTER) AND INTERIORS. I THOUGHT THE RESULTS WERE GREAT.”
s a way of escaping to a better Aworld, away from the reality of
his abusive parents in their crowded, rundown Croydon home on a deprived council
estate, Kevin Lewis, as a child, used to make-up stories writing on bare walls with whatever he could find.
Nowadays, at 40, Lewis is rich and famous having authored two best-selling volumes of autobiography, the first in 2003, followed by fictional thrillers, which have earned him one top magazine’s testimonial ‘The Future King of Crime’.
That’s a bit ironic in view of the fact that his life story, which has now been turned into a new feature The Kid, just also happens to cover a period of Lewis’s troubled teenage lifw when he was actually caught up in London’s criminal underworld.
The Kid, the second feature, following Telstar, from actor turned director Nick Moran, who also assisted in Lewis’s screenplay, follows our hero from his early life when beaten and starved by his monstrous parents, he is also ignored by the social services and also bullied at school.
At the age of 17, he started flirting with crime and the world of bare-knuckle fighting where he was known as ‘The Kid’. However, it’s clear that the tale in which Lewis seeks some sort of redemption for all the indignities he’s suffered in his
young life is ultimately life-affirming. As one critic put it when the film was shown recently in competition at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, The Kid “somehow manages to take you from the very depths of the gutter to the edge of the sun as it plays out.” Theses days, Lewis is also a happily married father of two.
As well as William Finn Miller, Augustus Prew and Rupert Friend , who play the three ages of Lewis, the film also stars Natascha McElhone, Con O’Neill, Ioann Gruffudd, Bernard Hill and Jodie Whittaker.
Another key collaborator with Moran was DP Peter Wignall, who also filmed Telstar. The experienced Wignall, who tripled up with Steadicam, operating and lighting on The Kid, had arrived very much last minute on the project and was quickly caught up in a lightning schedule involving an average of 25 to 27 set-ups a day as well as one or two daily unit moves.
“It was,” recalls the phlegmatic Wignall, currently preparing to work as 2nd Unit camera operator on Matthew Vaughn’s megadollar, UK based X-Men prequel, X-Men: First Class, “beyond hectic.” QUENTIN FALK
The Kid, set for release in the UK on September 17, was originated on 16mm Fujicolor ETERNA 500T 8673
Photo main: Rupert Friend as the adult Kevin in a moment of triumph; below (l-r) various scenes from The Kid far right: Director Nick Moran
32 • EXPOSURE • THE MAGAZINE • FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE