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new talent, new media
SItephanie Hardt
f you saw The Royal Tenenbaums or The Count Of Monte Cristo at the cinema earlier this year, you’d have probably clapped eyes on Stephanie Hardt’s work. The short preceding both films, Brush Stroke, directed by Perrin Sledge, featured her cinematography.
A 7th Kodak/BAFTA Short Film Showcase finalist, Brush Stroke is a comedy about a painter’s assis- tant sent to decorate a morgue in his boss’ absence.
Hardt and Sledge, together with producer Nick Goldman, have had such a good response that they are planning to stay together for future projects. They met after German-born Hardt arrived in England to study pho- tography at the University of Westminster and changed to film- making before gaining a place at the Northern Film School to study cinematography.
“I changed to filmmaking because I just loved working with a director,” says Hardt, 26. “When you’re a photographer you’re only one person and you have to make all these decisions I didn’t enjoy. I wanted to work with a director who would deal with all the actors and that sort of thing, so I could concentrate on the technical side of things.”
At the NFS she won the Arriflex trophy for best camerawork and
lighting on Wolf In An Arran Sweater in the final Fuji Scholarship Awards.
Hardt and Sledge will now be bound by more than film though – they got married last month. “We definitely want to continue working together and hopefully that will include feature films in the future,” she said.
AT n d r e w G r e e n
wenty-one year old Andrew Green admits his rapid rise from film student to fully- fledged feature director has been “far too quick and scary” but that he’s “incredible happy” with the resulting movie, Nine Lives.
The £2million psychological horror (described as “Peter’s Friends meets Event Horizon”) is about nine friends stranded in a remote English country house with a malevolent spirit and stars a young cast including Amelia Warner and Paris Hilton.
Penned by Green after he graduated from USC’s film school last year, it was financed by November and finished shooting in May. British-born but brought up in Bermuda, Green sounds every bit the seasoned West Coast pro but confesses to liking his birthplace so much that he has moved here permanently and plans more films set and filmed in the UK.
“Working in LA is not for me. It’s so much more enjoyable working in Britain; I had fun every day and British crews are top-notch. We filmed in one place, with nine crew members, and finished a day early well under budget.”
Currently editing Nine Lives, Green is already thinking about his next project and enjoying his success. “I’m used to what I call ghetto film-making where you have to improvise everything, using wheelchairs as dollies and stuff. I’m not used to having someone around to bring coffee. It was nice being pampered!”
JEulie Rutterford
ven if Hollywood or the Oscars beckon to Liverpudlian scribe Julie Rutterford she won’t be winging her way out west due to a chron- ic fear of flying.
“It’s so bad that I wouldn’t fly anywhere on my honeymoon so we went for two weeks round the Outer Hebrides in a camper van,” she confessed.
Rutterford, 40, recently mar- ried director Brian Percival, her partner on last year’s BAFTA short winner, About A Girl. But it was no whirlwind romance – the duo have been together since Percival met Rutterford working in a jeans shop at the age of 18.
Rutterford had always written but was encouraged to take it more seriously when she moved to Manchester with Percival and joined a writers’ workshop. There she was asked to write some material for comedian Arnold Brown. The gig led to work as a storyline writer on Coronation Street, scriptwriter on Brookside and more recently, for Channel Four’s Teachers.
Having written full-time for about 11 years, she’s honest about the source of her inspira- tion: “Mainly from fear of produc- ers saying ‘why haven’t you done it yet?’ There’s that old say- ing that goes ‘why doesn’t a writer look out of the window in the morning? Cos he’d have nothing to do in the afternoon.’ That’s very true!”
About A Girl has already opened up doors for Rutterford and she now has numerous proj- ects on the go, two of which are working alongside Percival again. “We didn’t argue on About A Girl so we thought we might as well try it again!”
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talent spotting
Focusing on tomorrow’s generation of movers and shakers compiled by Jane Crowther