Showreel 2020

Andy Hague// Showreel 2020

The Midnight Beast, Warp Films/ Channel 4
Daddy My (short film), 246 Films/ Sunday's Film
The Backseat (short film), Hidden Art Films
Figure it Out - Orla Gartland (music video)
Settlers (short film), 246 Films
Albert (short film), Stathi Twins Productions
Run it Off (short film), Creative England/ iShorts
Berberian Sound Studio (burn-out sequence), Warp Films

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace is the filmed document of a performance of gospel songs that Aretha gave over two nights at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles in 1972. Production of the film was abandoned at the time due to technical issues - there were no clapper boards used during the shoot and the task of syncing around 14 hours of footage to the sound recording with no sync points proved impossible using the film editing technology of the day.

It wasn't until 2008 that the footage was all finally put together with the sound rushes and an edit could be made and yet the film was delayed a further 10 years by ongoing legal issues and Aretha's refusal to approve it's release.

The perseverance of Producer Alan Elliott (who was 7 years old when the original shoot took place) pays off as the completed film is absorbing and utterly mesmerising. The Queen of Soul gives a powerful, impassioned performance yet remains calm throughout, eyes mostly closed, as she lifts her vocals to a higher plane. You can feel the heat in the room as the intimate crowd are whipped up into a frenzy and it's their reactions and those of the Southern California Community Choir, along with the colourful MC Rev James Cleveland that make the film such a pleasurable watch.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

It's no surprise that Netflix approached Charlie Brooker to offer him the chance to be the first filmmaker to test the interactive capabilities of their software, seeing as the theme that runs through all his stand alone Black Mirror episodes is new technology and it's effect on society. Black Mirror is mostly set in the near future or an imaginery parallel present but for his interactive episode Bandersnatch Brooker decided to go retro, setting it in the world of 1980's computer programming where he began his career, (he started out reviewing games for the computer magazine PC Zone).

In the style of a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' computer game viewers are asked to make decisions throughout the drama of varying significance, from choosing which breakfast cereal someone should eat to choosing whether to kill off a main character. Each decision takes the viewer on a different route through the narrative thus making the viewing experience for everyone a unique one.

I found the experience of watching Bandersnatch interesting yet stressful and ultimately frustrating. It reminded me of how a film feels from within the cutting room, a constantly moving story with endless alternative scenes and possibilities. I can appreciate how hard it must have been to shoot and put together but for me it highlighted the fact that when I’m watching drama I don’t want to control it, I want to relax and for someone else to have already decided where the narrative is heading.

The Clock

Christian Marclay's installation The Clock is a montage made up of hundreds of film clips from scenes that have clocks or watches in them. The piece is 24 hours long and edited together so that every clock you see on screen shows the actual time.

Watching it for any amount of time is hypnotic and strangely addictive. The fact that it is never ending (unless you go to one of the special 24 hour screenings and watch it all!) means you can fully immerse yourself and, bizarrely, given that it makes you so hyper-aware of time passing, it causes you to relax and not worry about time.

The Clock is showing at Tate Modern until 20th January 2019.

Showreel 2018

Andy Hague// Showreel 2018

The Midnight Beast, Warp Films/ Channel 4
Daddy My (short film), 246 Films/ Sunday's Film
The Backseat (short film), Hidden Art Films
Settlers (short film), 246 Films
Albert (short film), Stathi Twins Productions
Run it Off (short film), Creative England/ iShorts
Berberian Sound Studio (burn-out sequence), Warp Films

Yn Mor

I have just locked my latest short film Yn Mor directed by Zoe Alker. Shot on location in Porthleven, the film explores the relationship between a fisherman (Martin Savage) and his grown up daughter (Jenny Jope). It's a great little film with impressive performances from the leads who speak to each other throughout in Cornish, a language rarely heard on film.

Cold War

Cold War is a joy to watch from start to finish and well worthy of all the critical plaudits it has received and the best director award Pawel Pawlikowski won at Cannes.

As with Pawlikowski's last film, the equally stunning Ida, the sumptuous black and white photography by Lukasz Zal is presented in 4:3 ratio and the narrative style is simple and unfussy. It's great to see a film that covers a significant timescale (15 years) do so in a lean sub 90 minute running time proving that a film can be epic without having to be long. Pawlikowski trusts the intelligence of his audience to be able to fill in the blanks as the film makes several leaps forward in time.

Tomasz Kot is excellent as Wiktor but Joanna Kulig steals the show as the force of nature that is Zula. The scene where she comes to life in a club, drunkenly dancing to 'Rock Around the Clock' by Bill Haley & His Comets is superbly executed, bringing to life the excitement the new sound of Rock 'N' Roll was causing all over Europe in 1954.

Daddy My

Settlers is all finished and ready to hit the festival circuit. In the meantime here is the first film I cut for director Matt Chambers in it's entirety, Daddy My with a touching performance from Rory Kinnear.

Daddy My

You Were Never Really Here

I often find films that make the most lasting impression on me are those that blur the line between dreams and reality and Lynne Ramsey's You Were Never Really Here is one of the very best examples that I've seen.

It's a masterclass in economic film-making, with most scenes covered by just 2 or 3 camera setups but every shot a powerful and necessary piece of the puzzle. The flashbacks in particular show just how much information you can impart to an audience in a short space of time.

Ramsey's film has echoes of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (a film that he once likened to the feeling of almost being awake) particularly the scene where Joaquin Phoenix's Joe stakes out Governor Williams campaign headquarters and his bloody crusade inside the brothel where he finds Nina. 

All the action in this last scene is shown through CCTV cameras and Ramsey makes it all the more mesmerizing by choosing to time cut the diegetic music along with the picture, a haunting Angel Baby by Rosie & the Originals - one of a handful of interesting song choices that compliment another fantastic score by the prolific Jonny Greenwood.

Settlers

I'm very happy to be working once again with director Matt Chambers (Daddy My) and actress Victoria Emslie (Run it Off) on a brilliant new short Settlers, a film I've been looking forward to cutting since I first read the script 18 months ago. It's a dark comedy about a marriage proposal shot on the Isle of Portland which, coincidentally, is where I proposed to Clare almost 8 years ago. I can't wait to watch this one with an audience.

Lady Macbeth

2017 looks like being the strongest year yet for the BFI's iFeatures scheme with both Lady Macbeth and The Levelling receiving terrific reviews and God's Own Country, due for release later in the year, also hotly tipped.

Lady Macbeth is a fresh and original period film by first time director William Oldroyd adapted from Nikolai Leskov’s 1865 novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District transplanting the story from Russia to the North East of England in the 19th Century.

Everything about the film has an exacting quality. The script is tight, the sound design intelligent and every shot is carefully considered - the static, precise photography of the interiors contrasting sharply with the handheld exterior scenes (shot in a blustery Northumberland) that share common ground with Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights.
 

The supporting cast are all excellent but the film is dominated by an astonishingly brave, strong performance from Florence Pugh in her first leading role.. definitely one to watch.

John Baldessari

A smart and snappy short doc about the artist John Baldessari by directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman who went on to make the acclaimed documentary Catfish in 2010.

A Brief History of John Baldessari

Cassius

A simple yet very effective idea for the Cassius track Go Up featuring Cat Power & Pharrell Williams, directed by Alexandre Courtès, juxtaposes two unrelated shots to create new meaning using a simple splitscreen.

Cassius// Go Up ft. Cat Power & Pharrell Williams

Free Fire

Proving once again that any Ben Wheatley film is well worth seeing, his latest offering throws the rule book out of the window and goes to show that a well acted and cleverly cut film can be wildly entertaining with the bare minimum of storyline or character development. Wheatley shows that less is more by focusing the film's entire running length to a single set piece that plays out in real time; a shoot out in a warehouse after an arms deal goes wrong. Without any complicated plot details to be thinking about the audience is given time to revel in the details; the sharp dialogue, the fantastic gun sound FX and the surprising use of John Denver on the soundtrack.

Showreel 2017

Andy Hague// Showreel 2017

The Midnight Beast, Warp Films/ Channel 4
Daddy My (short film), 246 Films/ Sunday's Film
The Backseat (short film), Hidden Art Films
Run it Off (short film), Creative England/ iShorts
Albert (short film), Stathi Twins Productions
Corniche Pictures Ident, One of Us
The Soloist (synaesthesia sequence), Dreamworks
Berberian Sound Studio (mash-up sequence), Warp Films

Run It Off

Run it Off directed by Liam O'Hara, a short film I cut for Creative England's iShorts initiative, is about an unlikely friendship that develops one evening when a long distance runner introduces an unhappy young woman to the cathartic power of running. 

I think the film looks fantastic. Top marks to DOP Kia Fern Little and Dirty Looks who did the grade. And with great performances from the two leads Victoria Emslie and Zephryn Taitte I'm hoping for a strong showing on this year's festival circuit.

Run it Off is showing at this year's Encounters Film Festival in Bristol on September 22nd as part of the Creative England showcase.

How Does an Editor Think and Feel?

I've written before of my love for Tony Zhou's video essays at Every Frame a Painting.

This one does a very good job of explaining how an Editor decides where to cut from one shot to another, something that is very hard to put into words:

How Does An Editor Think and Feel?

Related Posts:

Every Frame a Painting
The Art of Silence

Two for the Road

At the end of 1967 Audrey Hepburn decided to stop acting in order to spend more time with her family. She didn't take on another role until Robin and Marion in 1976 and then only acted occasionally, starring in a further four films before her death in 1993 aged 63.

Two for the Road, one of two films Hepburn made in 1967 before her semi retirement, is not particularly well known but it's one of her best. Teaming up once again with Singin' in the Rain Director Stanley Donen who had directed her in Funny Face 10 years previously, the film is notable for the many striking and outrageous outfits Hepburn's Joanna Wallace wears designed by the likes of Mary Quant and Paco Rabanne.

Charting the relationship of a couple, Joanna and Albert Finney's Mark, over a 12 year period the film leaps backwards and forwards in time charting the ups and downs of their courtship and marriage through various road trips and holidays all very cleverly stitched together.

The film's non-linear narrative structure was pretty ground breaking for the time and has been heavily borrowed since by the likes of Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine in 2010.

Karni & Saul

Here are a couple of stills from a short dance film that I am cutting for the directors Karni & Saul. Check out their work here: www.sulkybunny.com.

Showreel 2016

Here's my latest editing showreel:

Andy Hague// Showreel 2016

The Midnight Beast, Warp Films/ Channel 4
Daddy My (short film), 246 Films/ Sunday's Film
The Backseat (short film), Hidden Art Films
Albert (short film), Stathi Twins Productions
Corniche Pictures Ident, One of Us
The Soloist, Dreamworks
Berberian Sound Studio, Warp Films

Feel free to share and contact me if you are looking for an editor, all budgets & formats considered.