Page 48 - Fujifilm Exposure_51_Expo Intl_Spring 2011_ok

“WE DECIDED TO SHOOT ATTACK THE BLOCK
ALL AFTER DARK, WHICH WAS VERY
IMPORTANT. WE THOUGHT
UK FEATURE IN FOCUS
OUTOFTHISWORLD
THATWOULD A
SXSW Festival, Attack The
IMMEDIATELY MAKE IT DIFFERENT FROMOTHER BRITISH MOVIES THAT TAKE PLACE IN A SIMILAR SETTING.”
Block pits “Inner City Vs
Outer Space” in new London- based sci-fi action adventure.
“From the makers of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz”. That punchline provides expectation enough. But when you then add the name of Joe Cornish as writer- director, the buzz among fans for Attack The Block becomes almost overwhelming.
Perhaps better known as one half of the popular comedy duo, Adam and Joe, whose shows have lit up Channel Four and BBC6 Music, Cornish’s feature debut is, in his own words, “a lean, mean action adventure movie that pits a teen gang against an invasion of savage alien creatures.”
And in an even more lip-smack- ing piece of PR, the film “turns a London tower block into a fortress under siege, and weapon-wielding teenage thugs into heroes. It’s inner city versus outer space.”
n audience favourite earlier this year at Austin, Texas’
Cornish, a graduate of Bournemouth Film School, and Adam Buxton first came to prominence with their eponymous C4 show, which ran from 1996 to 2001. One of the most popular segments was ‘Toy Movies’ in which they animated their collection of soft toys into hilarious and inventive spoofs of box office hits like Trainspotting, Se7en, Showgirls and The English Patient.
Cornish has also since directed the odd documentary and music promo as well as co-written Steven Spielberg’s latest film, The Adventures Of Tintin: Secret Of The Unicorn. He also made brief but telling cameo appearances in both Shaun Of The Dead, also contributing a video diary extra to the DVD, and Hot Fuzz.
Noted Tom Townend, Cornish’s DP on Attack The Block: “I think he was always ambitious to be a film director, and was not so much sidetracked as found a very lucrative streak as 50 per cent of a comedy duo. In terms of man hours, he
probably has as much time under his belt as do many commercials’ directors.”
To achieve the look and style he was after, Cornish needed a director of photography who knew his way around in the dark. He looked at a host of candidates but couldn’t find the right person for the job.
Until, that is, he was watching TV one night and happened upon a Virgin Mobile advert that saw its protagonist drop into a game of Halo. “It was brilliant,” says Cornish. “It was all at night and it was legible. It wasn’t grainy. We investigated it online, found out the name of the guy who shot it and gave him a call.”
It turned out the advert was shot by Townend who, up to that point, had shot just one feature- length drama, Samantha Morton’s The Unloved for Channel 4.
Says Cornish: “I met lots of DOPs but no one was as good as Tom, his work was never grainy or shaky camera or bleak. All those things that British films so often are.”
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