Mark Jenkin talks to Mark Kermode about Bait | BFI Q&A

the initial idea was written about 20 years ago just after the Eclipse of 1999 with a whole world I went to Cornwall and saw some clouds yes and Nick dark who's there's a little dedication at the end of the film to I pitched the idea to him this idea of a film about sort of like a civil war that broke out during the summer holidays but between the locals and the incomers and it was supposed to be sort of allegory and it ended with this huge battle where the military came in and just carpet bombed the whole place and then that was mine and then you drew that back yeah that was the hypothetical filmed a hypothetical budget and then I come up with an idea that it was about this fisherman who had had an affair with somebody to come down on holiday he'd realized that he wasn't gonna have anything to do with them because they'd gone back up country you'd kind of written himself like rather pathetically out of that out of their story but he borrowed a video camera and was gonna make a video diary of his life so that he could send that videotape to his unborn child when they were old enough to understand what it was that he did and so he starts filming for a summer gets out video camera to record his way of life and then realizes that his way of life doesn't exist anymore always being compromised then the camera also operates as a catalyst for everybody in the community to come and give their point of view to him so it's effectively a found footage film up until about ten years ago and then the idea of a camera being something that people would be drawn to you know something unusual kind of died when the iPhone came out so the whole can concede was gone about the same time I started thinking or started moving back to working with film again and this project was on the shelf effectively and I was looking for a new project kind of hooked up with early day films Lyne way and kate Byers we're looking for a project I thought this would be a really inner Pro pria film to make in this way because it's a video diary film or the script I did a video diary further dialogue and lots of dialogue is a nightmare for me in the way that I work so I rewrote it according to how I would make it shot on film and so the whole premise the whole world of the film really changed but the theme stayed the same and the theme survived this 20 year development that I think was the thing that gave us all the confidence to think there's a there's something at the heart of this that isn't just about a little village in in Cornwall and what for you is that central theme can you well it's about alienation I think and I think that's why it may have struck a chord at the moment that when people feel they've got no power and a bit alienated what you know it manifests itself in in in sort of unpleasant ways with horrible results there was reviewing the Guardian after the film plane in Berlin in which I think Peter Bradshaw sort of explicitly said there's a kind of you know it is of our times and that it is a film about at the moment I have to say that I think that one of the things that that works about it so well is that it actually feels fairly timeless I think you can tell that story at any you can read into it whatever you want but the fact that it was a 20 year gestation kind of makes sense yeah and when we had the prep when we had the North American premiere in New York a woman came up to me at the end of the screening who was a New Yorker and she said you've made a film about my dad and he was a fisherman in Barbados all of his life so that that was that was a nice moment do you think you know you're not making a porochial little story on the coast of Cornwall yeah tell me something about the the technical side of it because I mean obviously the whole film is is shot on 16 millimeter and it's shot completely silent right so every single sound is post synched yes yeah so it's a Clockwork camera same age as me 1976 it's incredibly simple it's incredibly idiosyncratic so depending on how the camera feels on the day it will run at whatever framerate I can I can dial in a frame rate but the the final decision rests with the camera that depends on how much we've used it that day that humidity you know whatever and if the frame rate really does change yeah weaves around a little bit you can hear it you know I'll be doing a shot and like the cameras right next to me and the pitch will go up and down and I think this is gonna be a fun bit to do the ADR for and then so it makes a hell of a lot of noise as well see you can't record dialogue and I love you know not recording not recording any location sound was born out the limitations of the camera but what it then offers in the edit suite is this complete freedom so having worked with low budgets and recorded location sound in the past and done live mixing a lot of the post-production work you do a sound is fixing stuff which is it which i think is a terrible starting point for a creative process to go in to do the sound design which is at least 50% of the film argued more to start on day one going right what we got amend which aeroplane have we got you know which scene we've got removed the airplane from what you know what scene are we can remove the remove the fridge sound from stuff so to have nothing it's great to add stuff in so the signature sound bed for martin's kitchen is a fridge so actually added a fridge in it's the first thing I did and then I lifted it and lower it and control it in order to raise the tension within the scene and then yeah and then that I mean the big thing is replacing all the dialogue which is done kind of late late on but it's extraordinary because you cut the film you'll it read the silent footage and you edit it basically as a lip read silent film that you then go but I mean it you it would be impossible to think of a more complicated way of doing this yeah if you if you do think of one let me know I'll do that next time yes I have a version of the film that's silent and the sound beds are in but there's no dialogue but because I can lip read really well I can now yeah so careful um so I got all the voices in my head not in my head in the yeah I can hear all the voices of the characters while I'm watching it silently and then I'll you know as we mentioned earlier I'll then do an edit there will be an edit where it'll be mostly my voice voicing all of the characters to get the rhythm of dialogue scenes which is I always say is is personally my favorite but I mean so presumably every member of the cast then has to go in and and re-sync themselves to silent and that's not something that everyone can do they can okay no cuz they're brilliant cuz the thing is I mean one thing that they all know that's going to be the process and some people are more nervous about it than others but the thing is we're quite limited in the way that we speak because of the shapes of the inside of our mouths and the way our lips move and all that kind of stuff so it's actually quite difficult to say something in your voice and make it sound different in two in two takes look that make sense so they come in and you know there's most of its huge close-ups so they can see what what is being said and it's and I think I mean I'm speaking for the actors who might be sending no it was an absolutely nightmare but we didn't I spoke them before they said it's absolutely not right were they all out so yeah you know I think what what what is actually told me is how little you can adjust the performance okay the first time I did this with Broncos house there were a couple of scenes that we rushed and I just I said to a couple of actors if you fluff a line on this take just keep moving your mouth and I'll sort it but actually what happens is the cut the lights go out in people's eyes and so the the whole intonation and the whole meaning of the dialogue the whole subtext of the dialogue is done with the eyes and see and you can't mess with that really you can there's a couple of moments with Ed Ed's scenes where we had to sort of make it slightly more menacing or slightly less menacing within the dialogue but there's a tiny little margin that you can operate within really because the the performance is set physically on the day which I was a bit worried about when we came to voice it I realized it couldn't tweak it but then also well it's great because it just shows that actually everything is set in that moment when the camera is running when everybody's energies are concentrated and that was really reassuring to know that you were tweeting pictures of boxes of fogers each reel of film is how many minutes about two and a half minutes of use of all five so and you tweeted this picture of like a crate with all these different they I think when you maybe when you just finished doing the shoot and it just looked like a monumental undertaking and the thing that's lovely about the film is you can start watching it in terms of almost looking at it as a piece of animation and being staggered by the amount of work that goes into it but you can also completely forget that and because I know it's interesting this is the third time I've seen it now but it's the first time I said it projected and I think it is a different experience projected projected the narrative that's different oh just different because the no I mean I think it's you know I think it's wonderful I think it's a masterpiece I think you've you know you've excelled yourself I think it's it's a really really important piece of work congratulations have I blown enough smoke up your ass I really really loved the film so just sorry pardon the pun but wasn't fishing for that though my wife one says about me she said you don't fish for compliments you trawl for them no I love I love it but I think what's interesting is that is that it was more narrative this time the story was because the first couple times I was watching I was just so it astonishing I love how textural it is I mean it does fit you can feel the filmmakers fingerprints right down to the fact that I asked you did you put any of those scratches in deliberately or is that literally just how it came out yeah no and I said no that's my best effort processing it as clean as possible there's I watch it now and I this there's some rolls of film there's some shots that I know are from a role where I clearly was wearing a woolly jumper on the day that I processed it because I can see the clothes fibers there's another bit where the the shots are the fish you know an efficient plastic bags and hangs them on the door those shots got this sparkly glittery thing on them and when I when I looked at that I saw what the hell is that and was really a bit disturbed I didn't know why that had happened you know can't be something doing wrong in a camera was it a rogue roll of film but it seemed and then I realized that it was a roll that I'd hung up to dry and I'd left the door at a studio open and its pollen has come in and will forever be in the emotion of the film so what I do like yeah you know you I think you could probably literally see some fingerprints on that and and the whole film you developed in your studio in newland yeah yeah yeah in a in a small rewind tank hundred feet at a time winding a backwards and forwards for about three months is it possible to say anything about you know who you've been influenced by I know you become friends with Andrew cotton Butler that's kind of you know after the fact who are the people that influenced you it's difficult to tell who influenced me and who I now think influenced me based on what people have told me in question and answer sessions so police or say oh I can clearly see wrestle well I would say rests on actually I know yeah I just said it that's right yeah press on no breslin's always I mean the two people I always think about and it's really cliched and pretentious but is press on and Tarkovsky and I think I take a bit from both of them but I think if they I think they would both totally reject this film you know if they check the ego out I've just imagined a situation with breasts on and Tarkovsky aside but I think for you know Tarkovsky wouldn't like the editing breasts on wouldn't like the nonlinear you know you know the tricks enos of it and Nick Rogues a massive influence obviously but I think you know I think Nick rogues just pure film so I think Nick Rogues and influence in the same way that my subconscious is a influence it's interesting because we're playing this tonight I think don't look now is one of the other screens tonight and there is certainly the beginning when you get those flash forwards when you see a whole bunch of things that will happen later on yeah and that is very very much like the beginning of don't look now in which the whole story is told in yeah I mean that's you know six minutes at the beginning of donut now that's it I think they should be you know we have loved film studies degrees there should be a degree to an undergraduate degree with three years on the first six minutes of no because it is just all there its first six minutes have done it now in the last 12 minutes of large on restaurants last film I'll be fine what was the what was the most difficult thing and and do you wait what are you most proud of about it then I think the most difficult personally and I know other you know Kay and Linda producers will have other ideas what the most difficult thing was like me raising money to make a film like this in the first place which is which i think is quite tricky but just getting to the end of it and watching it with a handful of people and realizing that it worked that was the sort of I mean that's not answering your question but that's that was the moment where the pressure kind of yeah it was released I had a moment in in Berlin I mean it was 20 years sort of you know I didn't work on this every day for 20 years no she will crazy little justice he's been in my head for 20 years in that time we lost Nick dark who was my great mentor also the film's dedicated to Laura Hardman who was to produce a very good friend of mine who was the producer and died very suddenly when we were almost ready to make it in in the old incarnation and I'd you know hadn't I wasn't thinking about this all the time but I think that combined with coming from a shoot where everything's very surrounded by people and support and then going into a dark studio for three months alone of my thoughts and the rewind tank winding it backwards and forwards every time I lift the lid off of the tank thinking I hope this rolls come out because you know we don't have a film with we haven't got it all you know so to get to the end of that and go to Berlin and have the world premiere in at 660 seater theater and then get the response the next morning I was in the hotel room and I was getting ready to go out and do an interview you know which this was all new to me and my iPad Twitter was just notification after notification people I didn't know commenting on the film and I just read this one tweet from this German guy who had like 15 followers or something and he just written this tweet and sent out to the world and it said something like you know if you're gonna watch one film in Berlin watch bait and they had this little summary of it and Mary my partner was in the room next door and she said what time you gotta go and I went to speak and I grit this tween I couldn't talk and she and she said you're right I said yeah I'm I feel happy and I could see myself in the mirror I said I feel happy I look sad and I think I'm about to cry and she walked in and I just cried for about five minutes like a baby and it was like the relief of just thinking all of the amazing support and collaboration of all these people coming on board and given their time for you know everybody was paid but ash a huge amount of energy for not a lot of money working really long hours for this batshit crazy idea of how to make a film I you know we're gonna monitors or anything like that I looked through the viewfinder I'm the only person who knows if we've got the shot or not can turn around to somebody and say do you think we got that you know I'm shooting a close-up and I turn around somebody no monitors they go I don't know I was looking a wide shot you know they you know said that I think the pressure I didn't realize the pressure that I think I was putting myself under presumably you don't shoot a lot of coverage because you've got two and a half minutes of film you shoot the shot and if you've got it you move on I I watched the film in my head beforehand and I just shoot those shots that I see and so that yeah there's no coverage there's one take and one safety and then I get in the Edit and some things work and some things don't work but the beauty of shooting like this is I have a bit film at the beginning of each role that may or may not have been fogged when I loaded the film so I don't waste that but I also don't want to shoot anything important on it so if I was shooting a scene with me and you chatting I'd shoot a cutaway of the bottle you know a couple hundred extras who are here you know it shoot a few things then at the end of the roll our might have five feet left which isn't enough to do another take yeah but again I don't throw it away so I might get a shot of your shoes on my feet or something like that and then I will try and work those cutaways into the scene to make the scene work which is why the film looks like it looks like that the figureheads in the pub they were shot at the beginning and end of roles right they weren't in the script I didn't notice them when we record the pub but when we were getting ready to shoot I just go get a shot get these close-ups and suddenly when I was looking the rushes I realized and this is an and recoating expression I think he got for me and Sinclair the Angels have happenstance have turned up and they help you out and I realized that there were doppelgangers everybody in that scene in a figure head around the pub if I wasn't making a film and quite stressed I think I proved would have been quite freaked out by it it was just it was all there you know and also like a random cutaway can suddenly turn a scene into something else so when when a head butts Tim outside the house and does a runner yeah it cuts to a wide shot the police car to set up the fact that she's been arrested I also had a close-up that I just shot on the end of a roll of handcuffs being put on so I could have opened that scene of her being arrested with the handcuffs going on but it kind of ruined the reveal of the police car which worked much better but because I've shot on filming we know we've paid for that beer film the film's been through the camera I've heard it go right past my ear and then I I put it in my hands and I process it up hung up to dry like I said I don't want to throw it away it's not a virtual thing it's an object so I then try and cut that in so then that shot the handcuffs you're being put in I thought well that it could go later in the film and be a flashback and that has one meaning you know to remind people or the context might slightly change so it takes on a slightly different meaning but I dropped in as a as a flash-forward and then it means something else so then that moment it's it becomes for me anyway it becomes sort of metaphorical it's it signifies her being trapped being trapped yeah and and all that kind of stuff and I never would have done that if it wasn't shot in film and I never would have shot it unless I was shooting hundred foot rolls that I have these beginning as an end so I need to use their Angels happens sense thing is I do think it's a brilliant idea and I think that the when you look at that kind of film you see those chance moments which is whether the real magic of it lies I think you do have to believe in some kind of you know movie God or movie fate would you make another feature in the same way or are you done with that now what's know the next one we're doing the same he said 87 minute horror film and done in exactly the same way can you tell us something about the its color this time it's about a woman who is alone on an island off the Cornish coast in 1973 and she's there as a volunteer to monitor a very rare flower that only grows on this island in the waist of a tin mine that used to be there and the only other thing on the island is a standing stone and it's the island is called Stone Island or in Cornish Ennis men and it's about her relationship with this stone that may or may not be gradually moving towards her house and you know and you've begun production on it already or no we're just developing it at the moment and so the scripts in development sort of I'm Way out of my comfort zone here that sort of finance packaging is being packaged in a finance way I'm gonna pull you back into comfort zone in that case and though this sounds like an ask question can you say something about Cornish nests and what that means to you well it goes back to Nick dark really my Cornish is growing up was something that was certainly I wasn't particularly aware of proud of or and it wasn't something that was celebrated really in the sort of 80s when I was young and then I moved away to go to college and I went from being not very Cornish and I know as soon as I stepped over the border I became the most Cornish person in the world and I know it's there are other people from Cornwall in London and Bournemouth where I was living who were also just as Cornish as me and they they'd become Cornish through being away and and I think Nick was the one who's kind of promoted the idea of Cornish nests is a progressive thing not as an isolationist kind of thing and and and you know the word nationalism which is is worse and worse connotations but kind of pride in where you're from and a celebration of the different different nests different and the ish is the important thing I was told whether your call nish we've got an ish like the Scottish and the Irish and the Welsh they don't need one so do you think that the film is about identity about Cornish identity orgy because the thing is what's what I think is fascinating is quite popular I do genuinely think it's a brilliant piece of work and I'm not alone in thinking that I mean I've seen so many rave reviews now I think it's been embraced in Cornwall particularly as an authentic piece of homegrown art because heaven knows there have been enough inauthentic it has been embraced as an authentic piece of art but nobody's seen it in Cornwall yet so that's based on the trailer and what people have said a bit like yourself you know mentioning bate whilst reviewing fishermen's friends the idea that there's something you know not to I'm not slagging that film off a talk I've seen it's done very well and got good reviews but there's a a tradition and it's not just in Cornwall it's in a lot of the regions where you use a specific location as a backdrop for somebody else's story and it's usually a story where somebody who is troubled arrives and they don't realize they're troubled but through this interaction with simple folk they realized that they were troubled and they simplify their life but on a slightly different level than the simple folk who are not aware that they're simple that can be done well I mean a local hero for example which is just you know protection yeah but there are and I was asked this in a in a early Q&A you know what the how important the portrayal of korma was and I said I wanted to bring the Cornish people to the foreground so rather than being in the background and being a shortcut for sort of simplicity or stupidity or you know everybody's related and they cousin marrying sort yo cause and all that kind of stuff I said really important to get rid of that bring the Cornish characters to the front next question somebody said how did you cast the film and I said well my partner plays Sandra her son Isaac who's here plays Neal Neal's dad in the film is played by his actual dad whose son firstly place Andrews Mary's ex-husband and then you've got the sword his best man there when they got married place that cab driver you know and then you and I was going on and then answer was fizzing uh-oh and then this you know the woman comes down to stay with the baby she still she's my partner's niece and so everybody except for Simon Shepherd I think who's also here I think everybody in the film is related so it's definitely is difficult to do but I think that's you know mr. strength of community is it interesting thing though about you know that the portrayal of Corman on film because I did a thing recently that you'd commented on to it I'd gone up to um you know tall noon solemn insulted where the house where Straw Dogs was filmed and of course Straw Dogs on the one hand is that absolutely classic you know we go somewhere and everything it is all that sir but there is still something about straw dolls because used I on the way that I always get lost when I try and find that house I've somebody came running towards you across the field he came running waving but in a kind of weird slightly threatening that maybe not threatening way but there is whatever whatever else that film gets wrong it does get something right about the landscape about that feeling that you are in a different place even if you grew up there it still feels yeah and the West pen with more is something something else there's something going on out there you know spend Berlin the great artists who spent his later years in the new forest and spent his mid period in in Snipes he wrote the book the dark monarch which is about you know dark monarchist to think that he thinks lived at Con Galva out on the moor there is something really strange out there and we're going to that's where we're gonna shoot the the horror film and so it's gonna be set on an island but it will all be using West Penn with Morton and we keep discussing possible locations and then it's it's quite funny as you say what about that cottage up by you know what by that tour and they say yeah it looks great one look at photos and gonna have a look and then some people say oh but I've got the curse of so-and-so on it you look into when you go oh yeah that five people did die after that after they talked about that the cottage and so it's there's definitely a lot soups and I'm incredibly anybody who worked on the film know how superstitious I am I mean that the timings for the developing of the film the temperature was 21 degrees the developer in the time in the developer of 17 minutes and that's based on my to lucky numbers not based on any science oh well so there's you know I've got another superstition where you don't we don't cast one of the characters until about 10 minutes before we need them and then get somebody in version look at a new moon through glass what were you talking about that because you can't do that's very bad luck that's an Iron Man thing right well my grandfather did it we'd never look at a new moon through glass he would go and stand out and turn a walnut over in his pocket to stop him getting arthritis he would give you know yeah and never had arthritis never had arthritis that's right absolutely so it perfectly worked well the previous film Broncos house was it wasn't set in mauza but I shot the whole thing in Mazal and what happened was I were we pissed everybody off when we were shooting it and then when it was finished some people took it as a as a comment on Mauser and maybe even projected themselves into different characters so this time I was really keen to do something that a composite and actually not named where it is I mean we Cornwall isn't even named in in the in the film and I keep saying that in queue days now I did notice that he does a petition that says corn on a practical level Charlestown is set up to be a sort of film like a filming location so Kate and Lynn got a great deal through the guy who owned the harbor at the time to use the outer hull because what as you know people go to Charlestown to film the Inner Harbor and you can dress it as whatever period you like and there's the tall ships in there and all that kind of stuff that's what companies go and pay a fortune for and what we wanted to what we wanted to use was the contemporary modern outer harbor so most people go there and shoot the inner harbor and hide the outer harbor and we and we went there and shot the outer harbor and hid this amazing Inner Harbor because we you couldn't have a nice family drama going on you can't have the audience going on what's that tall ship in the background and there is actually a reflection in in the wheelhouse window at one point of a tall ship but nobody sort of said they've noticed it yeah so it was it was a practical thing really and then all the other places it just you know a lot of it was shot in Penzance Senen a bit away from the harbor at Charlestown but we kind of built the art pond built a fake front door that we could have on the harbor side so it was it was practical reasons really and we had the we had the beach as well so we could we could close the harbor effectively and and have access to the beach and thank you ever so much everybody for coming along thanks to the BFI for showing the print which looked really fabulous the 35 mile per in didn't it and please join me in thanking mark and indeed everyone here from the cast and crew of thanks thank you thanks very much [Music]

Channel: BFI

Views: 29,261

Keywords: British Film Institute (Publisher), British, film, institute, films, movie, movies, cinema, BFI, culture, Cornwall, society, Brexit, gentrification, seaside, rural, countryside, Mark Jenkin, Mark Kermode, drama, Britain, politics, film review, review, broadcasting, Kermode and Mayo's Film Review, Kermode & Mayo, radio

Id: HLgIFyCvlUc

Length: 31min 4sec (1864 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 28 2019