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FEATURE IN FOCUS
BLOOD, SWEAT&TEARS
RECREATING THE EIGHTIES IN CLUBBED
nce you’re in, there’s no way Oout” proclaims the excitable subtitle for Clubbed, a tough
new low-budget film which its
debutant director Neil Thomp- son says he always envisioned as “a British Goodfellas, without the guns.”
Set in and around the violent world of Eighties’ provincial club- land, It’s based on Watch My Back, the bestselling 1995 memoirs of fac- tory worker-turned-bouncer-turned BAFTA-winning writer Geoff (no rela- tion to Neil) Thompson.
The film project actually began with producer Martin Carr who said, “I read the book and thought it was astonishing. It is about a man who is scared to death, who has every card dealt against him.”
Adapted by Thompson from his own book, this semi-autobiographi- cal odyssey through a colourful un- derworld of clubs, boxing, drugs and gangsters, co-stars Mel Raido, Colin Salmon, Shaun Parkes, Scot Williams, Ronnie Fox and Maxine Peake.
Said Neil Thompson: “I wanted it to be glossy, quite American in style and big in scale. I thought that if we were going to do a movie, and we had all this blood, sweat and tears raising the money to make it, then let’s at least try to make something
Photo main: Colin Salmon, Scot Williams,
Shaun Parkes and Mel Raldo in Clubbed; l-r: various scenes from Clubbed including Director Neil Thompson and DP Kate Stark
that might compete with lower budget American films.”
Added Carr: “I was really partic- ular about the look. We spoke to a lot of directors but they didn’t quite get it. Neil had done a lot of pop pro- mos and commercials, so he was perfect. The art department team were fantastic and all came in on budget. The costume budget was tiny but they somehow worked with it. The crew was phenomenal in get- ting the look just perfect.
Shot partly in Birmingham, the main focus of all the film’s design teams, including DP Kate Stark - making her feature debut for Thompson after working on a cou- ple of shorts with him - was the glitzy Valhalla nightclub set. This was built in a warehouse just out- side Three Mills Studios. Literally outside the gate. The production also utilized the studio facilities and did most of the re-shoots in the studio itself. QUENTIN FALK
Clubbed, set for a January 16 release in the UK, was originated on 16mm Fujicolor ETERNA 500T 8673 and Super F-64D 8622
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