Page 32 - Fujifilm Exposure_42 Cheri_ok

“BIGGEST LACK B
the first to admit he needed
OF KNOWLEDGE WAS THE CAMERA DEPARTMENT – WHICH IS WHY CHRIS [SEAGER], WHO I DIDN’T KNOW BEFORE, HAS BEEN SO GREAT.”
plenty of expert help when it came to making his feature debut with Wild Child, a new
$20m teen comedy from Working Title boasting an attractive Anglo- American cast led by Julia Roberts’ niece, Emma Roberts.
A hugely experienced editor in his own right, Moore, who was BAFTA-nominated for The Full Monty, said that his “biggest lack of knowledge was the camera depart- ment – which is why Chris [Seager], who I didn’t know before, has been so great.”
The Wild Child in question is spoilt Californian rich kid Poppy (Roberts) whose father (Aidan Quinn) decides in desperation to send her as far away as possible from her natural habitat to an Eng- lish boarding school in Yorkshire. Which is where, as it happens, her mother (Natasha Richardson) had also been many years earlier with good and beneficial results.
Since starting out in the cutting room 25 years ago at Elstree – where, coincidentally, Wild Child, was shooting some interiors – Moore has over the past decade cut a num- ber of films for Working Title includ- ing Notting Hill, About A Boy, Love Actually and Nanny McPhee.
Directing was always in the back of his mind, and Working Title knew it. To prove he could actually do it, he and his producing partner shot a “meet cute” short comedy, which
PRINCESS
FROMMALIBU
PUBLICSCHOOLTALESOFAWILDCHILD
seems to have proved a useful ‘audi- tion’, as it were, for bigger things.
“They brought me this and I was asked for my opinion. The thing that I particularly liked about it was the ‘fish out of water’ element. I had felt a bit like Poppy when I first went to America to live, and I also happened to go to a boarding school in York- shire, too. The emotional side ap- pealed to me as well.
“It had been written by Lucy Dahl then re-written by an American woman and it had somehow lost the English flavour. I read Lucy’s first and last drafts to see what her journey had been and then I asked if I could work with her on re-injecting the Englishness back into the script.”
Line producer Diana Phillips, an American resident in the UK for the past 10 years, is certainly backing Moore to make the grade. “He’s a storyteller – that’s what editors are, and this is material he felt con- nected to from early on. He’s been great with the kids and they’ve really responded to that.”
“Any crises?” said Moore. “Time always seems to run away from us. All those questions? Diana told me that I had to get used to answering the same question as if it was the first time I’d been asked it.”
QUENTIN FALK
Wild Child, released in the UK on August 15, was partially originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA Vivid 160T 8543
ritish director Nick Moore is
30 • EXPOSURE • THE MAGAZINE • FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE