I chose AMELIA AND MICHAELfrom over 700 short screenplays under consideration because I wanted to tell a gripping yet nuanced emotional drama of the kind that is rarely seen in British short films. Having watched every short film at the Edinburgh Film Festival videotheque in 2005 and 2006, I believe AMELIA AND MICHAELwill prove an affecting and distinctive short, because it addresses issues and themes on which short films – traditionally an arena for challenging audiences and pushing boundaries – have remained silent.
Against the background of a society that is becoming increasingly wealthy, yet increasingly polarized in its division of wealth, AMELIA AND MICHAELshows one couple whose need to sustain a lifestyle of affluence and success puts them at odds with the course of their own happiness. Filtering these themesthrough a poignant and arresting narrative, AMELIA AND MICHAELdraws on influences ranging from classic British films like BRIEF ENCOUNTERto the melodramas of Douglas Sirk, right through to modern directors like Pedro Almodovar. AMELIA AND MICHAELoutlines a bold cinematic vision and an emotionally-driven story that is both nostalgic and relevant.
In making the film, I wanted to look beyond the conventional narrative idea about character, where one overarching identity grows and develops in a coherent, linear way, and to look more closely at the way people live segmented, episodic lives and adopt different personas. I believe this theme –our individual struggles, not only to achieve happiness, but also for some real and coherent sense of identity – is especially relevant today. It is – it seems to me – no co-incidence that contemporary films have rediscovered the work of directors like Nicolas Roeg, who did so much to create a cinematic grammar for these ideas about the self.
We took a great deal of care with the production values – the lighting, cinematography and general mise-en-scène – which are essential parts in evoking the glamour, affluence and seductiveness of Amelia and Michael’s rarefied world. The decision to shoot on anamorphic 35mm – the format of the feature film and aspect ratio of the epic – was not only an expression of our ambition and intent but also integral to our story. Shooting in Scope allowed us to make more creative use of space to show the characters’ relationships to each other and to their environment – as is characteristic of the epic – which added another, grander, dimension to what is an intimate and restrained drama.
Beneath the importance of the glossy visuals, however, the motorbike in the opening scene signals that this is a film in which the emotional subtext – and the real substance of the story – is told through the sound design, music and the nuances of the actors’ performances. Sound becomes the means by which audiences can gain access to the interiority of a character, in a world that is based on the allure of exterior and surface.
I took a huge risk – personally, financially and artistically – to make such an ambitious film with such a big love of films and yet so little experience of filmmaking. I hope that the end result will touch and intrigue those who see it and, most of all, I look forward to having the film played before, and judged by, audiences in the cinema.
Daniel Cormack, Director, AMELIA AND MICHAEL.