Synopsis

In a near future world, economics has taken such control that artistic expression is outlawed. Underground groups gather together in the dark corners of Britain to listen to illegal music, while trying to remain one step ahead of the police. Alan Osborne is an accountant who stumbles into this world but once he is on the inside he must decide whether or not to take a stand.

Director's Notes

Press Play was conceived on Christmas Day 2005 by Michael Stanmore during a long night shift at MTV. He was going through the Britfilms list of short film competitions and came across a collaboration between the Raindance Film Festival and Cacophony Music. With submissions for the competition closing only eight weeks later, everything had to be prepared very quickly. The film was plotted over the remainder of that night shift, and written the following night. It was a tale about a future dystopian Britain in which musical pursuits have been branded a distraction to progress, and banned. It was this interesting subject matter that attracted the cast and many of the rest of the crew to the production, which by the early stages of January was frantically being prepared for shooting.

Props were bought and John Condon started work on production design. Chris Patterson, who has worked as DOP on a previous Stanmore film in Australia started scouting locations while Michael started meeting actors. The original actor cast to play the lead, Stuart Packer, had to pull out over a conflict with other work. The cast turned out to be a truly international affair with Welshman Michael Gerard stepping in to take over the lead, New Zealander Brian Moore fleeing the authorities as the fugitive musician, Canadian John-Christian Bateman playing the head of the police brute squad, Nigerian blue-blood Anthony Shittu as the unflappable underground leader, and the cast rounding out with Belgian Geneviéve L’Olivier, Australian Kevin Magee, French Jean-Christophe Leger, and Brits Paul Harding, Lee Johnson, James Lowe, and Sam Loggin.

Shooting began at the end of January at MTV Studios in Camden. This was our one day to shoot in good facilities with access to changing rooms, office space and all the other amenities of a film shoot, before heading out to face the elements on location. Although it took a while to get started and find our rhythm, we eventually got an enormous amount of setups shot on this first day with 1st AD Romy Blower keeping us on schedule very well.
 
Day two saw us heading out into the freezing winter morning on Fleet Street, London, where we were joined by Dominic Bond, who helped KC Thiruchelvam with the difficult task of capturing usable sound with police helicopters circling overhead. It was here that we shot the prologue of the film, a chase sequence climaxing in the destruction of a violin, which was a very tense moment during the shoot, as we only had the one violin to destroy. All went well, though, and we got some very tough scenes shot in pretty dreary conditions. After we wrapped we all went back to our day jobs for two weeks before the second shoot in the middle of February.

Day three started at Portobello Road markets in London where we shot a scene that unfortunately never made it into the film, but was great to film and an example of outstanding camera operation from Chris Patterson, and his team, Claire Dunn and Lutfi Hady, negotiating the crowded markets for a long tracking shot of Michael Gerard searching for earphones. We then travelled to the next location, an underground carpark, which would be the scene of a melee between the police brute squad and the underground musicians. Because we had so many shots to get in such a short time, we had to shoot with only practical lights, and Chris managed to produce excellent shots anyway. Everyone got very involved with this scene, giving everything they could for the stunts and action in the scene, including Paul Harding’s firewalk, and Paul throwing Geneviéve L’Olivier across the bonnet of a yellow corvette, John Condon and Michael Stanmore in a major fistfight, and KC Thiruchelvam smashing Michael Stanmore’s head into a fire hydrant cabinet. This sequence was without a doubt the most fun shoot of the film.
 
Day four, our last day of shooting, was the only day hit by misfortune. Rain and tube delays caused massive problems shooting the first scenes. It was lucky that we didn’t have as much to shoot in the afternoon, and the final scenes were fairly straightforward. We finally wrapped that evening and went to the pub to celebrate.

Editing had to happen quickly, with only two weeks left until the delivery date. It was fairly easy going though and after sound mixing and a final grade, the film was ready to go. 

Press Play was chosen as a finalist and was screened to an audience of film and music professionals at the Cargo bar in London. It was one of five finalists out of sixty-five entries, a great achievement considering how little time and resources we had to work with. It was received well by both the judges and the audience and although it didn’t win the competition, it was very encouraging for all of us who worked so hard to see our film up on the big screen. Enjoy.