Every year, if we’re lucky, we’ll encounter a short film at a festival which just blows us away. The affordances and limitations of the short movie medium provides so many opportunities for filmmakers to showcase their ideas, making them render these ideas in an economical manner, but nonetheless – if successful – weaving a story which indelibly stays with the audience. This is very much the case with a short film I encountered at this year’s Celluloid Screams Festival in Sheffield, UK. Hang Up! takes a very simple idea – that of someone making a mobile phone call by accident, just like we all have – and takes this idea forward, escalating the tension in a series of hand-over-mouth shocking ways, as husband Gary finds himself listening in on a conversation his wife, Emelia, is having about him. It turns out that his happy, stable life is anything but – and his wife doesn’t feel about him the way she has been enacting over the years. It’s a plausible, everyday set-up – and director/writer Richard Powell develops this horrid, believable framework in an engrossing manner.
I was fortunate to get to talk to Richard about his film; our interview follows. And, if you get the opportunity to support Hang Up! or any of the other ventures up and coming from Fatal Pictures, have at it. You won’t be sorry.
WP: So my first question…where did the idea for this short film come from?
After working on several considerably more expensive short films over the years, I realized I just wanted to keep working and creating without all the intense cost and time restraints which a larger, FX-driven horror short would entail. I wanted to go back to the basics of filmmaking. I wanted to do something where all we had to rely on was my writing and direction and the performances; no flashy FX or cinematography, just meat and potatoes filmmaking. So that’s what I set out to do, then I had to conjure up a suitable concept – and out of the ether came HANG UP!
WP: As with many good short stories, in film or in print, Hang Up! takes a straightforward idea and plays it out in an increasingly shocking way…did you always have a firm idea of how far you were going to take the plot? Or how you were going to end the film?
I know I loved the simple set up of a butt dial you keep on listening to. I had that, but not what would be heard on the other line. All of the hack ideas came to mind first; a kidnapping or a murder or the like but all that stuff which comes easily to me was ignored because it comes easily for a reason. I sat with the idea until the concept of a disgruntled wife hiring a hitman to kill her husband came up. That was better but still a bit too obvious, but the kernel of a maniacal wife stuck and grew into Hang Up!
WP: Something really impressive about Hang Up! is how you create so much empathy for Gary, who finds himself listening to his wife’s real thoughts about him. Yet he doesn’t really speak. Similarly, Emelia, the wife, communicates an incredible amount of hate and duplicity without even being present in the film! How challenging was it to achieve all of this?
I don’t think it was difficult at all. Relationships/marriages are inherently dramatic and relatable because we’ve all been in them at some point. We can all understand the horror of Gary’s situation, the sheer unexpected shock of it. I also think many filmmakers overestimate what it takes to grip an audience and entertain them. Give me an interesting actor or two and something with some kind of truth in its message, campy or not, and I’m sold. I don’t need much more than that and I don’t give much more than that in Hang Up! and that was exactly my aim. I’ve got kinetic, off the wall ideas up my sleeve but I’m as much in love, if not more so, with quiet human stories.
WP: I think one of the reasons this film really landed for me was how it showed how even our closest relationships are often rather tenuous. Not to the extent described in Hang Up (hopefully!) but certainly, we might think we know someone, but not really know them at all. Was this something you aimed to explore?
To be honest, this theme is something I’m starting to realize I’m subconsciously obsessed with. I have four short films and two feature length scripts that explore this material in some form or another. The idea of a hidden or suppressed self and all the ways that can implode or explode is fascinating to me. I guess it stems from my feeling that most of the conflict and trauma in our lives doesn’t come from external forces, but from internal ones. In the case of Hang Up! Had Emelia simply voiced her frustrations early to her husband they wouldn’t have warped and twisted her into the thing she has become as our film begins.
WP: How have responses been to the film? Personally, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut by the end – pretty impressive for a film a few minutes long…
The response has been great! I think the film is unique, especially in today’s short film climate. I’m asking an audience to wait and listen and be patient, and that isn’t something they are used to in the short film medium. I think that alone creates a rewarding experience. I’ve watched people watching the film and it holds them, despite how static and paced it is; there’s a kind of perverse voyeurism in spying on Gary as his life falls apart while spying on his wife. You feel like you’re hearing and seeing things you shouldn’t be and there is a thrill to it all. I also think the film is darkly funny which makes it palatable considering where it ends up going. I just love that I can have a theatre full of people watch what is essentially a 14 minute monologue and be entertained and disturbed with words and acting and careful shot selection!
WP: Where next for Hang Up! – where else is it going to screen?
Who knows! We will keep sending it out and getting screenings around the world with some kind of eventual release on Blu-Ray, iTunes or Youtube. The film will be touring our home province on Ontario, Canada as part of the Blood in the Spring film Festival next however. We will make sure to post all the information about that and what is next on our social media pages including Twitter. You can find us at @fatalpictures for more!
WP: And finally – what next for Fatal Pictures?
Fatal Pictures is ready to start making feature films, so hopefully you’ll be seeing news of a FAMILIAR feature film based on our short film of the same name soon. We also have plans for a smaller, self financed micro budget feature in the vein of Hang Up! This project will have a similar tone, style and intention as Hang up! but on a larger scale. It’s tough to say what comes next but I’ve got a lot of writing done and to do. I can wait to start getting into the world of feature films where I can really stretch my legs creatively and play with the medium in new and fun ways!