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The Film Industry: AS Media Studies Study Notes Unit G322 Section B Audiences and Institutions
The Film Industry: AS Media Studies Study Notes Unit G322 Section B Audiences and Institutions
The Film Industry: AS Media Studies Study Notes Unit G322 Section B Audiences and Institutions
Study Notes
Unit G322 Section B
Audiences and Institutions
Part 8
From Script to Screen
My Summer of Love
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Pre-Production
Pawel Pawlikowski's acclaimed My Summer of Love won the Alexander Korda Award for
the outstanding British film of the year at the 2005 British Academy Film Awards.
Released in October 2004 as a follow-up to Pawlikowski's previous feature, Last Resort, it
also won the prestigious Michael Powell Award for Best British Film at the Edinburgh
International Film Festival and went on to premiere internationally at the Toronto Film
Festival where Focus Features picked it up for US distribution.
Set in contemporary Yorkshire, it charts the
relationship that blooms one hot summer
between two very different 16-year-old
girls, Mona (Natalie Press) and Tamsin
(Emily Blunt).
Mona is working class, rebellious, bored
with life and with the newfound religious
convictions of her ex-con brother Phil
(Paddy Considine). Tamsin is well educated,
spoiled and cynical. Each girl is wary of
each other's differences when they first
meet, but this coolness soon melts into
mutual fascination and attraction. Adding
further volatility to the summer heat is Phil,
who tries to impose his new found religious
fervour upon his sister Mona.
Film magazine Screen International called
My Summer Of Love a 'freewheeling
evocation of the emotional neediness and
spiritual emptiness that briefly bind the girls
to each other.'
In July 2002, Pawlikowski was looking to
make his next project. He'd read and been impressed by Helen Cross' novel My Summer Of
Love and suggested to his producing partner Tanya Seghatchian (Harry Potter) that they
develop it as his next film.
Seghatchian says: "It was clear that he wanted to make a film the following summer and that
he had a strong instinct for the sort of film that he wanted to make. The film was going to be
loosely inspired by the book and would include two characters from the novel, some of the
plot and a newly invented character, sourced from Pawel's imagination and a documentary
that he had made ten years previously."
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"That's a very untypical way of developing a film," points out Seghatchian. "Conventionally
you would approach financiers to option the novel and commission the development of a
screenplay. The producer, screenwriter/director and possibly a script editor would then
develop the screenplay from the source material. That would go through various drafts. And
then, when the financiers and the development group decided it was ready to go into preproduction, a casting director would come on board and the film would move onto a different
level."
From the very beginning, however, Pawlikowski and Seghatchian knew they were going to
develop the project differently. "For Pawel, making the film was contingent on his finding
the right actors to embody the central roles. He was interested in finding actors - preferably
unknowns - who he could then hang the film on. He had worked previously with Paddy
Considine, and wanted him to play the character of a newly converted born again Christian
in the film, but he was also adamant that he would like to uncover two originals to play the
young female leads," explains Seghatchian.
Casting
A casting director was hired and given a set of character breakdowns for the two girls. The
casting director then approached agents and began to arrange a series of open calls around
the country in drama schools, youth groups and local theatres.
"It was a long process and took far longer
than normal," says Seghatchian. "But
Pawel wanted to get it right. Finding a pair
that would work well together was key."
In the end, it took about eight months to
cast Press and Blunt in the lead roles.
The initial casting process was further
staggered because limited funding was
available early on. "We didn't have very
much money - at that point we were
paying for the development ourselves,"
says Seghatchian. "We paid for the option and for the initial casting director and searching
fees. We were discussing the possibility of a development deal with the BBC, but had to keep
the momentum going if we were to shoot the following year, so we were prepared to take the
risk of financing the initial development ourselves whilst still in the early stages of
negotiation."
Last Resort, came on board and broke down the shooting document in order to budget it and
outline a potential production schedule.
Again, this is a very unusual way of developing a film. Film financiers normally insist on a
fully developed screenplay to give them a complete understanding of the picture they are
investing in. However, because Pawlikowski had made The Last Resort in a similar way, the
BBC, who were now on board as the development financier, felt confident of moving
forward with the flexible detailed outline.
Financing
Armed with the two girls, Paddy Considine, a detailed shooting document, a budget and a
schedule, the team went out to raise the rest of the finance.
Says Seghatchian: "We went to all the usual suspects of UK financing sources and came out
with interest from the Film Consortium, which had a deal with the UK Film Council and the
tax partnership Baker Street. The Film Consortium also owned the sales agent, The Works,
so we were able to get them to generate the sales estimates that would dictate the overall
financing risk for the parties involved."
It took three months to sort out the legal documents to allow the financing to fall into place.
"Deals take that long," points out Seghatchian. "Because so many parties were involved it
required everyone to sign off on everything and to work out what their investment and
recoupment schedules were. The legal documentation for these three party deals can be
complicated and we enlisted the support of our solicitor Jeremy Gawade at legal firm Lee &
Thompson to help us put the financing together."
Production
Whilst the financing was being sorted out, a crew was also being assembled. Pawlikowski
was keen to crew up with people he had worked with before and so they brought on many of
his previous collaborators Ryszard Lenczewski (director of photography), David Charap
(editor) and Julian Day (Costume Designer). The production designer who Pawel had
worked with previously wasn't available so John Stevenson - who'd worked with Collins on
Tomorrow La Scala - was hired. Hair and make up artist, Tara McDonald, completed the
individual departments.
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A first assistant director was also brought on board. Pawlikowski hadn't used one on Last
Resort and Chris Collins had doubled as a first, but "we decided we did need a first assistant
director on this film as it was a more complicated shoot," says Seghatchian. "But we kept to
a relatively small crew for as long possible and brought people on a daily basis when we
needed more manpower."
The Shoot
And then production began. Originally the plan
was to shoot the film chronologically. But as the
film started shooting, Britain was gripped by a
mini-heatwave. Wanting to take advantage of the
wonderful weather and fearful that it might not
hold, a decision was taken to move all the
exterior shoots to the first week.
Unconventionally, the Producers had also built
into the production plans at the outset the
opportunity for a split shoot - which would give
Pawlikowski more freedom to experiment and reflected the looseness of his desired
development and filming processes. Two thirds of the film was shot, then edited together,
before the final third was filmed.
PR firm McDonald & Rutter were hired to take care of production publicity during the shoot
and a unit photographer, Suzy Allnut, was brought on board to take Unit stills. "We'd decided
we didn't want much production publicity, so we agreed to limit location reports to one
feature. Andrew Pulver of The Guardian wrote a piece which came out whilst we were
filming in August 2003," says Seghatchian.
During editing, attention turned towards music for the film. An Edith Piaf track 'La Foule'
was already scripted in, but the idea of using Goldfrapp emerged during the editing process
when Pawel decided to use their track 'Lovely Head'. Whilst clearing that track for usage, the
team approached the band about writing some original music for the film as well.
Post-Production
As soon as My Summer Of Love was completed, the search began for a UK distributor. The
BBC, which had UK rights to the film, held a special screening and invited UK distributors
to come along. ContentFilm soon acquired the rights. "They wanted to release the film this
year which was something we wanted to do to," says Seghatchian. "We didn't want it to wait
on the shelf for a long time. We felt it was a summer film and that it would be good to release
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Q1. What was the final box office gross for My Summer of Love? Considering its
success with critics and at award ceremonies, do you consider it to be a successful film?
How does the story of its development illustrate what youve learnt about the process of
film making in previous sections of this booklet?
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