Shooter Ben Crowe decided film would suit his story best. He needed that graininess, that film noirish look of an earlier era would create the right feel, the right mood, so film it had to be. Of course there wasn't that much in the pot, so he sold his Mandolin and bought a camera - a Super8 camera. And, with a little help from his friends and some just past sell-by Kodachrome film stock, he made a film that got selected for the Palme D'Or at Cannes, for just £400. Go for Gold Ben, you deserve it.

How did you get started in filmmaking Ben?About three or four years ago. I was working in a full time job, but I wanted a change to get into something else. I had been writing a lot of short fiction and the idea crossed my mind that I could try and make one of these into a short film. I had no idea how to do that, except to try and get some equipment together and film it myself. So, I left my job and went freelance as a researcher to pay some bills. With a bonus I got a couple of years ago, I went out and bought a little digital camera and started to experiment, to see how you actually tell a story in film.I know you have a passion for photography ? does that influence the way you make films?Yes, it does. I have always enjoyed photography. It has fascinated me since I was a kid, so that has probably informed my filmmaking quite deeply. I have got a way of using images as a means of representing people ? things and objects - so for me, photography is an incredibly colourful medium for representing certain trends and characteristics. Of course it can also be used in a negative way as well. That?s all from a kind of socio-political analysis.What was the idea that you pitched to Channel 4 that they greenlit?That was in February-March last year. It was an idea for what at that time was known as ?The Slot? ; a short film of three minutes, weekdays, just after Channel Four News. It?s now called ?Three Minute Wonder.? It was coming up to Easter and I have got some interest in this area. I pitched an idea to look at some modern day dilemmas that Christians have. For example, one was about a gay Christian in a relationship with a Muslim man and how he reconciled his sexuality with his faith and also how he perceived the attitudes of the Church towards himself and people like himself. There was also one on IVF treatment involving a Methodist Minister and another about a Christian who has a degenerative illness and what they thought about the idea of euthanasia. We pitched them at a meeting and got a green light and started making them with a friend of mine Daniel Wilson, with Faction Films. We co-produced all three and I directed the two about the gay relationship and euthanasia and Daniel directed the one on IVF treatment.Some pretty thought-provoking, sensitive stuff then ? was it easy to handle?It was very interesting. We spent a lot of time actually finding the right people to be in the film, actually talking to them and winning their confidence. We had good responses back from all of them; they were happy at the way we had dealt with the subject and that we had treated them fairly sensitively and got quite a lot out of it in terms of portraying some of the real issues and the dilemmas people face.

Rumour has it that the idea for The Man Who Met Himself came to you when you were working as a bouncer for GNER ? tell us more!I had a temping job and this was a job at King?s Cross as a floor walker. Basically it is customer service and you walk about the ticket foyer and the concourse, helping people.It?s often mostly about trains running late, wrong tickets, so it?s sometimes more about people giving you grief, so they sent me on conflict resolution training as part of a conflict prevention strategy. It was pretty interesting actually, because I had never had to do any of that sort of thing before. The original idea for The Man Who Met Himself came to me at work, walking about. The title - The Man Who Met Himself ? is presumably a Doppelganger reference. Can you explain for us what a Doppelganger is supposed to be?Well the title was actually my co-writer?s idea, Preti Taneja. We had a title which we were not completely happy with and Preti came up with the new one it as we were putting the film together. The doppelganger idea ? I?ve not researched it too closely- but I think it has a tradition in Scottish Enlightenment Literature; things like Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde. The idea that a person can have their own double, somewhere in the world. What doppelganger mythology speaks to, is our idea or sense of ?self? ? our identity, which is very important to us. The doppelganger idea challenges that sense of self, challenges that sense that we are unique individuals.What?s the story of The Man Who Met Himself?It?s quite enigmatic in terms of how it ends, but it is the story of a private detective called Austen Petersen played by Dan Crowe and he gets a call from an anonymous client to take a job, which he initially refuses, he doesn?t work for anonymous clients. The fee gets raised and against his better judgement he takes the job on. He has to follow a person through the streets of London and identify who that person is. During the investigation he discovers that the person he is following, is supposed to be dead. The target?s family all confirm that he is dead. And it ends up? well, the strap line for the film is, One suicide is never the end of the story?Sounds like quite a premise to cover in? what, fifteen minutes?Yes, it is quite a lot, in er? ten minutes, yes, it is quite a complicated premise, but it?s one of those things where there are quite a lot of clues, even from the very start, visually, dialogue-wise and you can come to your own understanding by interpretation. That is one of the things I was really keen to try and do for this film, because I was conscious that a lot films make things quite obvious. You know, lead you down a particular route and then give you the pay off : you know ? there you go? That can be very entertaining, but I was interested in film as a medium for raising questions and almost interrogating the subject matter and leaving room for open interpretation on the part of the audience. I didn?t want to feed the audience any particular message or any particular thing.A stretch and stimulate rather than titillate approach?Well, yes, I wanted people to walk away thinking ?What the hell have we seen?? and walk away talking about it and thinking about it.Preti Taneja was your co-writer, what were the practicalities of the co-writing?I came up with the original idea and I jotted that down and wrote it up when I came back off my nightshifts and finally wrote it up into a full script. At that point I wanted to work on the dialogue and work on some of the characterisations. I really needed someone to help me develop the script because I appreciated this was just a first draft. I had worked with Preti before, because she had had a look at some of my short stories. I asked her if she would like to come on board and help me write it, so it turned into a co-writing relationship, where over a period of about two months or so, we went to about nine drafts, changing the dialogue, changing the characters a little bit, tweaking it, that kind of stuff, but also a couple of structural changes came though from that joint development process. Working with Preti was quite integral to getting the script we ended up with.How long did the film take from first concept to first day photography?It took about three months I reckon. You had just a small cast and crew ? apart from your brother in the leading role ? how did you find them?Many of them are friends, people we knew. Siubhan Harrison, one of the lead actresses, I met when we were both doing call-centre work. I told her I was hoping to make short film and she told me she was an actor, so I promised her a call and she was able to partcipate and she?s fairly chuffed with the final film. Many of the other cast were people we knew and we auditioned for some parts, primarily the voiceover parts where the actor never appears in vision. There are some really great voiceover talents out there.

How important were your locations to the story?They are very important to the story. I have lived in London for about four years now ? I?m from the North East ? and to find my bearings here I like walking around quite a lot. The places we used are familiar to me, from walking to work, from walking to the cinema. So when I was writing the script, there were quite a few places that popped straight into my head. I think that the architecture of London -and some of the shots- are really important to set the mood.Your publicity mentions brutalist architecture ? what do you mean by that?There?s a place called the Brunswick Centre in Russell Square - which I think is under re-development because it seems a little run-down ? which is concrete and shaped like a typewriter and it is an example of brutalist architecture. It does bring a lot of harsh and hard qualities to the opening shots of the film. You shot on Super 8 ? why did you opt for that?I had never worked with Super 8 before and I went out and picked up a cheap camera. I chose it because I wanted to make a film where the sound and the pictures didn?t have to be in sync all the time and I wanted a filmic look. I wanted it to be grainy, I wanted it to hark back to film noir-ish urban thrillers. Super 8 is the cheapest format probably to be able to do that particulary if you want to re-create something and then tweak it later on, because digital?s got its own qualities and characteristics which can be used to do their own thing. So if I wanted to shoot it in a film medium, Super 8 was the choice. And then the idea of non-synchronous music and dialogue, that was also informed by the choice of using Super 8. That also meant that when shooting, I could really focus on the images ? sound was to be dubbed later.What can you tell us about the Super 8 camera you used?It?s called the Canon 10-14 XLS. I?m not really a technical person, but I had to study the camera quite a bit.Was this the first time you had used a Super8?Yes it was. I went into couple of shops that sell these cameras and asked for advice on how to use it, and to get help to figure out what all the little knobs and dial meant. They were all very helpful. I downloaded a pdf version of the manual and then I did some camera tests. I shot a reel of Kodachrome 40 to make sure the camera actually worked and ensure there were no problems with it. I shot in different conditions; 20 seconds in the morning outside, 20 seconds inside the house, went out later in the day? all that sort of thing. Each time I meddled with the different settings and noted that down each time I exposed film, then when I got the film back from Switzerland ? Kodachrome 40 goes off in those little yellow pre-paid packages and you get them back a week or two later ? I was able to project it onto a wall and look at the results. Then I could say, if I go out in these sort of lighting conditions and use these settings, this is what is going to happen. That allowed me to develop an understanding of how the camera and film stock were capable of and what their limitations were. From there we were able to decide, right, we are going to film in the mornings, if possible for its strong light. Those kind of decisions came from learning about the camera.That was a very thorough series of investigations you went through?That is one of the reasons we were able to make the film quite cheaply. The budget we made up was, well, James the producer and I, put in like two hundred quid each. We said, all right, if it goes up a bit more, we?ll negotiate that as we go along. So that covered things like the film stock and the telecine process and that was the film, basically. If you can find film stock that has just gone out of date, you can get a hell of a discount on it. So, I went around some of the shops looking at the Kodachrome 40?s and in particular, the sell-by date. I would make a note of that and say well if I go back in about a month?s time, I?ll negotiate for a dozen of them?for half the price effectively.That?s helpful advice! And Is it true you sold your mandolin to buy the camera?Yes, I did. I kind of think? it?s a bit much to purchase things without working for the money to do it. So I suppose it was a trade-in, virtually.A penance for your indulgence, perhaps?Yes, it is James! Well now, you had a 500 budget for starters, but surely with Cannes duplicates, press screeners, language dubs - you must have passed the five hundred quid mark long ago?Oh yes, but that has only just started now. We made the film and burnt it on DVD on my computer and mailed it out. But since then, when we heard we had got in to Cannes, it was like ??YES!!? We were totally amazed. It did not dawn on us for a day or two, when we started investigating what we had to do, that there were going to be some serious costs associated with it, just to get the screen version done. So what do you think your final budget will have to be then?Well, if you do a proper film budget, where you break down people?s time ? obviously we had cast and crew who worked for free- and we didn?t expect to get this far really... and we didn?t expect to make any money from it. If we do make a little money out of it, we?ve covered our basic costs, so we will try and spread that around a little with the people who have been involved. I mean, they went into this with that kind of attitude as well, but it would be nice to be able to give them back something. What we haven?t really done is break things down into people?s time and that is something we are going to have to do very quickly. So it might come in up in the thousands, maybe one, two thousand, I don?t yet really know.It is certainly going to come in at more than five hundred quid though, isn?t it?Oh, yes, particularly with all these dubs and stuff. We have been very lucky in that we have managed to get some funding, some grant from the British Council and Film London have been able to provide some financial assistance for some of the technical things like transfers and stuff, so that is pretty well covered. Then you have costs of publicity material and getting over to Cannes and accommodation. They?ve been able to help with all that sort of thing because of the need to make the most of this opportunity.

You have all got daytime jobs - what was your shooting schedule like?What we tried to do was? we probably tried to film over about five or six weekends and that was probably over a period of about three months because there were interruptions when people were away on holiday visiting parents, things like that. So we tried to shoot on weekends only, scheduling say, a Saturday/Sunday, maybe a week in advance. We would call up and say ?We are going to do this scene Saturday morning, meet at 0800 at X Place and then we would watch the weather, because we did not want to shoot if it was raining, or if it was overcast. Once or twice it did rain, so we had to call it off and re-schedule it - that?s why it takes more time doing it that way. What about continuity, things like cast costume over an extended period ? any problems there?Preti pretty well covered that. She made continuity notes throughout, so we are all right with it.No sound-in-camera I presume ? did you dub sound separately?Yes, we had a sound design session at the house of our sound designer/composer Oliver Bartlett. He did an amazing job, particularly with music. We set up the film on his computer and being a musician and composer he had a couple of microphones, so we spent a day doing it.But you didn?t actually record any sound on location?The shooting was silent, yea, but Oliver also came out with a Minidisc a couple of times to get some sync-ed up sound and some atmospheres and then afterwards we laid that all down and underlaid or overlaid it. Cast of four, but also four additional off-screen voices and original music and you telecined to digital for edit ? can you talk us through how you dealt with all this in post?When we had shot all the footage we wanted to for a scene and had it covered and when we had all that footage back from the processing lab in Switzerland? I had chosen Kodachrome 40 partly because that is a reversal stock so when it comes back it is a positive print and you can project it immediately. That allowed us to check to see if all the shots we needed were there and OK, before we went to the telecine process, which we had to pay for and could not afford to waste. I watched it on a projector playing on to my bathroom wall. I then filmed it off the bathroom wall with a little digital camera, filming the projection of all the reels. I then imported that into my computer and did a rough cut of the digital copy, filmed off my bathroom wall. So that was a rough edit of the projected footage, which was more or less what the final film was, although there were one or two minor changes in the final version. Structurally though, the film is pretty much what that rough edit was. That made sure we had enough footage to cover the story because we had a shooting ration of about 4 to 1, which is a very low shooting ratio and that helped keep costs down. We now had forty minutes of Super 8 footage to make a ten-minute film and I didn?t want to take forty minutes of film through telecine because you pay by the half hour! So, I borrowed a Super 8 splicer from a friend and manually spliced out the bits I didn?t want to take to telecine. That was another way we were able to contain our costs. I stuck all the bits I wanted back on one reel and took that to telecine and we were able to go from there. You are a revelation on how to save budget using Super 8, I must say. You could get a job with Kodak any time! Will you go on from telecine?Well, we got the telecine done. There were a few problems there, in terms of the colour of it and also some focus problems. At some point in the process, or at some point in the handling of the film ? and at present I?m not able to determine exactly where ? something was wrong. I have my suspicions and it could have been something I have done inadvertently, so I had to have that bit had to be redone, but the telecine people were fine. I took it along and they said, ?Right, we?ll re-do it cost free and we?ll sit in and make sure that the colouring is fine,? because there had been quite a significant change in the grade. Maybe that?s what happens when you telecine stuff, I don?t know, but I was not expecting it and I had not been notified that this might happen. So, we went back and had it re-telecined. From there we went to a digibeta version of all the footage and a mini-DV version. I edited using the mini-DV stuff imported into my computer. We did that edit based on the rough edit I had done already with the bathroom-projected footage. I took that mini-DV edit and burned that onto a DVD, which is what we sent off to Cannes. Since then, since Cannes told us we got in, we have had that on-lined and now we have the telecined, digibeta, on-lined version making a sort of quality jump!Destined for higher and greater purposes, eh?Well it is really important if it is to be seen on the big screen, because mini-DV when it is blown up to that size, ain?t that good, whereas digibeta blown up ain?t so bad. It has been a very interesting process and quite a learning experience!What was the point at which your sound design came in?We did the sound edit when I was doing the mini-DV stuff, over a number of edits. Oliver Bartlett had sent me a CD-ROM of his music and I would go back to him every month with one or two changes arising from edit and we went back and forth like this until the final session when we were able to finely tune the music and that is what is now on the on-line digibeta version of the film.

Do you think more filmmakers should explore Super 8 as a film medium?I don?t see why not. After all, everybody has the right to make the films they want to make and to choose what medium they want to make them in. Then it is really a case of thinking through what the options are. There?s no reason to shoot in Super 8 if the story doesn?t lend itself to it.As a film medium it has its own qualities and characteristics. So, people can explore and go out and experiment with these things, why not?A legacy technology, but it still has its uses you feel?Yes, definitely.What would you say was your one great tip for filmmakers ? your ?must do??Unquestionably, getting a good team together who all want to work on the project. People who will work well together in a collaborative effort. A good team brings lots of skills and talents with it. Filmmaking is not something one individual can do. There is no way this film could have been made without everyone involved in terms of crew, but principle people like Preti and James and my brother Dan, they were there practically, at all times, helping me to make it. So number one is getting a team of people around you, who want to work on the film with you. Ideally, if they are friends, which everybody is, so much the better, because you can have even more of a fun time - and enjoy the process of doing it.What comes up for you after Cannes?I don?t know yet. I have got a few short ideas and others in the team have got some ideas as well. So hopefully, I?ll be writing those up in a treatment and pitching that sort of stuff. To tell you the truth I don?t quite know yet exactly how the system works. Preti has a good short film which I have read and which is brilliant and I know she wants to direct it and I would love to shoot it for her? and James has also got some good short film ideas. So, we are all in it to make a couple of more films.So you want to keep the team together, keep it rolling as it were?Exactly, James. That?s not to say we are not going to do our own individual projects if we get the opportunity to, I mean in film you can do that, but I think we would all like to work together again in the future, because we have had such a great time this time around.If it works well, why fix it?Well quite. I think next time we could maybe shift roles around and let people do what they want to do. I mean, I?m quite happy just to be behind a camera lens and let someone else direct, all that kind of stuff.Will Shooters be seeing you at their Beach Party at Cannes?They will, yes. That?s excellent ? I?ll break the news...Cool?Congratulations Ben and your team, from all of us at Shooting People - We will be watching with get interest and cheering from the sidelines for you in the Palm D?OrThanks James and thanks Shooters, very much.

How did the news about selection for Cannes come to you?I got a call on my mobile when I was at work, from the Film Department at Cannes, a guy called Christian Jeune. He said we had been officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival. I was really shocked. I really can?t remember much of what he said past the point where he said we had got into the competition! I was seriously trembling, I was very shocked. He then went on to explain why we had such a late notification. They had a short list of nine, one of which was for some reason withdrawn. So, they had to look for another film for the selection list. He said some people argued very strongly for our film to be selected, which it was. Christian spent a long time making sure I did not feel as though we were a second best, saying ?Look, it is a great film, but we just did not select it for the first nine, now it is, so congratulations!?There were another 3,000 films entered, so even second time around, you must have something they thought was worth-while, surely?Exactly. I?m happy we got through.Life must have been pretty frantic in the few days since the news came ? can you give us some idea of what you and your team have been through?It has been frantic. James, my producer has been working practically full-time by jiggling a morning off, or an afternoon off, to work from home. I had some flexitime owing and now my work has been kind enough to allow me to take the next two weeks off. Preti has actually just finished a contract at the charity Children?s Express, so she?s been able to give us a little time. We all got together last weekend to plan out just what we needed to do. It has been an avalanche of things: we had to get a screen version done, which is being finalised now as we are talking; there was all the issue about deciding if we had to go to 35mm and whether or not we can do a high definition version; there?s been press and publicity; translation of the scripts, subtitling; transfer to DVD, Betacam SP for the Cannes Film Archive; accommodation, travel?.oh, a huge amount of things?People like me ?phoning you up?Oh, yes, James, but it all helps.What other festivals were on your short list apart from Cannes?A load of them. We registered through Without A Box, the central registration service and sent out to a number of festivals in the US and Canada and Europe, including Edinburgh.Now of course, they will all want to see it?Hopefully, yea. Well, we have already paid our fee for that you know!That?s it, get your money?s worth Ben! Anyone else accepted your film yet?Winnepeg International Film Festival was the first to accept it.Good for Winnepeg ? was that before or after Cannes?Oh, it was before Cannes? I was blown away by that!Then definitely well done Winnepeg ? trendsetters!