From “This Is Terrible” to 33 Awards, 88 Festival Selections and a BAFTA Longlist
Why You Should Stop Overthinking and Start Creating - Written by CenterFrame PRO Member ALI COOK.
Which novel did Mark Twain call his best, his very best work? You’re probably thinking The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, right? It’s often considered the greatest American novel.
But… no. Twain actually hated it. He was commissioned to write it and, allegedly, had little interest in it.
In fact, as my old screenwriting teacher, Michael McCarthy, once told me, Twain believed his best work was Joan of Arc. Ever heard of it?
Exactly.
Michael’s point? Get out of your own way and just start creating. That was his mantra.
It’s a cute, motivational story, but at the time, I didn’t quite buy it. After all, Huckleberry Finn is a very good "write-to-order" job.
Then one day, I found myself in an applicable scenario.
My friend Zoe Dobson, an esteemed documentary maker, called me up:
“There’s a Director’s UK short film contest. The theme is magic – you know a lot about magic. Write me a story.”
“Okay, cool. Sounds fun. When’s the deadline?”
“Tomorrow.”
Ah. Of course. All the usual thoughts ran through my head:
“What should I write?”
“Can I write?”
“Is it any good?”
“It has to be in by tomorrow!”
“It’s going to be terrible.”
“I don’t have time!”
But then I thought, “It’s not going anywhere. No one will see it. I’ll just bang something out and send it.” So, I did.
And... we won.
What?
Now, we actually had to make it. A short film in two days. With complex VFX and farm animals!
Surely, we should back out…
But we didn’t have a choice. ARRI had provided lights, insurance, and most importantly, they could only work with us on those specific dates. So, we pressed on.
Luckily, we had a bit more time. Five weeks to hone and refine. And so, we did – repeatedly refine.
In the end and under a lot of pressure, we came up with a fantasy film about a lonely farmer wandering the Welsh countryside collecting dead animals. But what he had in store for them was beyond anyone’s wildest imagination...
Trailer for The Cunning Man:
Of course, this brought with it a lot of complications. Our initial quote for VFX was, err £17,000! I got it down to £750!
Obviously in shorts we have to try and say so much in so few shots because we have so little time.
*Spoiler Alert* Basically, we had to show a pile of dead farm animals coming back to life. We went from a shot of all the animals coming back to life; all the way down to one sheep slowly opening her eyes with a lot accompanying sound design to imply the mass resurrection.
The other thing about using animals and only having two days is that we went in with a meticulous shot list and also minimised dialogue in all scenes where possible so that we could shoot very quickly and efficiently. We let the shots push the narrative not the words.
We also had another major problem – how do we create a pile of animals? Well, we had a lot of taxidermy and above all a lot of old suede rugs that we stuffed full of hay!
We also padded that pile out with almost anything else we could find. Old tyres, old sacks even bits of an old car! Thank God we were actually shooting on a farm with a ready supply of bric-a-brac.
The shoot went relatively well. We shot a twelve-minute short in just two days and finished it in about three weeks.
The result? We were long listed for a BAFTA, won 33 awards, and played at 88 festivals. Not to brag (okay, maybe a little), but more to highlight a lesson: I almost didn’t bother. On paper, it was a ridiculous idea—an award-winning short film created almost overnight.
However, I think it worked because it was so out there and original. Programmers responded well as it added a novel refreshing story in many festival line ups and played both drama and genre festivals.
It made me wonder how many great ideas I’ve talked myself out of over the years.
That was the lesson I learned: We talk ourselves out of projects way more than we should. (Dionne Warwick famously told her label that “Walk on by” was a terrible song 😬.)
So, the next time a short competition comes my way; I’m going to trust my instincts and enter. After all, the worst that can happen is nothing happens and, that’s what was happening anyway!
Here is the end result. Our twelve-minute short: The Cunning Man:
Written by CenterFrame PRO Member
