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in production
ANYWHERE BUT THERE
How they turned the Isle of Man and Cardiff into “Middle-of-Nowhere, USA”
for the new black comedy, Big Nothing
C inema’s all about illusion, and what
better kind of make-believe than trying to recreate a tangible sense of place from a patch-
work of rather unlikely stand-ins.
“Middle-of-nowhere,
USA” was how line producer,
CF1’s David Ball described
the setting for French writer-
director Jean-Baptiste
Andrea’s black comedy Big Nothing, which thanks to the vagaries of interna- tional film financing was actually shot anywhere but.
“Cinema’s about making people believe things are not for real so it was rather exciting to try and recreate this illu- sion,” said 36-year-old Andrea, who took his cameras to Isle of Man, Canada (Squamish, BC) and even Cardiff for his dark-edged tale of scam artists starring David Schwimmer, Simon Pegg, Alice Eve and Mimi Rogers.
“It’s actually meant to be set in Oregon but we never set foot in Oregon nor, for that matter, in the States at all for what’s a completely American movie,” added Andrea who knows all about film- ing in the US where he made his feature debut three years ago with the award- winning low-budget chiller, Dead End.
Dead End cost just $800,000; Big Nothing is ten times that, $8 million, but despite a more generous production budg- et, an extraordinarily swift pre-production period of just five to six weeks was still the order of the day once the project had been finally greenlighted by Pathé.
“I’d had a track record with Pathé because they distributed Dead End,” recalled Andrea. “They called me and asked what did I have next. I sent them a project that was too big and they said ‘probably not for us’. ‘Wait, wait’, I told them and mentioned Big Nothing which was in the last week of a draft polish. I told my co-writer to hurry up and finish it and then sent them the script literally a week later. I said that it was close to Dead End in terms of the dark humour but that it was in every other way a 100% departure because it wasn’t a hor- ror movie. They said, “That’s okay, we love it. Why not come to London?’”
The first thing to do was to choose a cameraman, as his first choice - Alex Buono, who’d shot Dead End - wasn’t available. “So I started looking around and couldn’t find anyone to whom I real- ly related. I remember I was at Pathé and checking IMDB [the internet movie data- base website] and I thought I’d have to stop looking at small films and hoping to get a DP who wasn’t famous. It’d have to be the other way round – looking at films I loved and then see who was available.
“One of the first films that came to mind was Shakespeare In Love. Not that I’m a huge fan of the film itself but I remember liking the cinematography very much and the way it was shot. According to IMDB, Richard Greatrex seemed to be available. I went to the producer and asked him to call Richard, to tell him it wasn’t a huge budget but that he might like the script. That’s how we’d managed to get everybody else on board so far.
“He was in Spain; he read the script and said he’d come in the following week. Suddenly I began to panic a little thinking, ‘he’s so experienced. Will he be a bit jaded? How do I work with a guy who’s like 55 and so much more experi- enced than me?’ I began to get a bit anguished about it all.
“Then he arrived and we got on imme- diately. He is as passionate as a 20-year-old starting off in the business and I enjoyed working with him immensely. It was rather like working with someone who has every- thing to prove and had no past.”
Big Nothing was the first time a fea- ture film had used the new Eterna 400T stock and Andrea said that he has been “pleased” with the results so far, adding, “we are very early on in post production but so far it looks really good.”
It was also the first time Andrea had worked with a British crew and he was
very impressed – “so much faster than the American crew I’d had before. On Dead End, for example, it took 20 minutes to lay down dolly tracks. On this one, it took three minutes.
“Because of the American experience, my first storyboard didn’t take that in to account as I thought I would only be able to use a dolly on important moments. I then talked to Richard about it and he said, ‘fine, it’ll be
three minutes.’ This was during ‘prep’. I said to him, ‘are you sure?’ He always delivered what he promised.”
The 32-day schedule included the Christmas and New Year period in less than clement conditions. “After the mad panic start,” said David Ball, “things came together very well. Everyone was up for it.” For this, he paid fulsome trib- ute to the director – “he’s got a great future; definitely one to watch.”
Producer Andras Hamori would con- cur with that. He recalled being first ‘pitched’ a script described as a “clever crime movie”. “I wasn’t particularly excited at that prospect since everyone in Los Angeles writes ‘clever crime movies’. Then I read it, and it was funny, smart and very enjoyable.”
Hungarian-born Hamori, who’s now based in LA and London, is certainly no stranger to filming in the UK having been involved here before with movies like Morvern Callar, The 51st State and A Room For Romeo Brass. “It’s a great com- bination living in LA where the business is, and London where there’s so much great talent,” he said.
One of the busiest producers around, he’s currently overseeing no fewer than four productions, with films now also shooting in Spain, Budapest and Toronto. He expects Big Nothing to be on screens early next year.
As for Andrea, he grew up in Cannes where he began to dabble with film at the age of 15 but it wasn’t until he moved to Paris and was able to watch a much greater range of films that his pas- sion was properly fired up.
“”I’ve never studied filmmaking official- ly. You learn so much while actually doing it as opposed to studying it in school. Many of the people I know who went to film school are now doing other things.
Photos: top Director Jean-Baptiste Andrea with DP Richard Greatrex BSC; right and inset; graphic showing main stars (credits not contractual nor images of stars from Big Nothing); Alice Eve on location; Director Jean-Baptiste Andrea with Producer Andras Hamori
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