MICHELLE
2010
ALEXANDER PEACOCK
RUNNING TIME: 7 MINS
A gay male struggles with the decision to leave his self-destructive would-be gangster boyfriend before it’s too late.
BACKGROUND
Peacock was given the assignment of making a film with a three-way dialogue in his first year of film school. This became the first picture he sole directed while on the course, and due to the ambitious scope of his earlier works, it held a certain level of anticipation among his peers. It was also to be the first film where the primary technical roles were held by other people and the move from being a leading to a supporting actor. The idea was based loosely on a film he had planned to make after The Sketcher had he remained in Aberdeen, about the relationship of an abusive gay man to his more sensitive partner. The original title of the script was The 6 O’clock Boat.
DIRECTOR NOTES
This ended up being too cliché and silly. I didn’t use the camera in an interesting way either, the film takes place inside a single living room but the room isn’t used, just a doorway and a sofa. I really wanted to improve in dialogue scenes and in creating a complex melodramatic story but I failed in both regards. I haven’t seen the film since it was completed so I can’t remember many of the details but I do know I struggled to direct the police officer actor (who was another director) probably more than anyone else I’ve ever worked with, usually I find this is a result of bad writing rather than anything else. All that said this film has some ideas in it which may be interesting to explore in the future and I learnt the lesson that if I’m going to work with a crew I have to involve them, I ended up giving them no freedom and it meant I performed every role myself which created an unpleasant working environment.
CAST
Young Man: Michal Salansky
Gangster: Alexander Peacock
Friend: Joachim Vesely
Police Officer: James McErlean
CREW
Director: Alexander Peacock
Music: Iain Anderson
Camera: Kestrel Cheswick
Sound Effects: Derek Russell
Edit: Joachim Vesely
