MY BROTHER TOM

FilmFour in association with Film Council with the participation of British Screen presents
a W.O.W. Production in association with Trijbits Productions

JENNA HARRISON
BEN WHISHAW
ADRIAN RAWLINS
JUDITH SCOTT
RICHARD HOPE
JONATHAN HACKETT
PATRICK GODFREY
HONEYSUCKLE WEEKS
PETER ENGLAND

Directed by DOM ROTHEROE
Produced by CARL SCHÖNFELD
Director of Photography by ROBBY MÜLLER

INTRODUCTION TO THE FILM

MY BROTHER TOM marks the feature debut for award-winning documentary director DOM ROTHEROE (‘A Sarajevo Diary’) and stars exciting newcomers JENNA HARRISON and BEN WHISHAW (‘The Wrong Blonde’, ‘The Trench’) in the lead roles. Co-written by DOM ROTHEROE and ALISON BEETON-HILDER, the film was produced by CARL SCHÖNFELD (‘A Sarajevo Diary’, ‘Bush Dreams’) and executive produced by PAUL TRIJBITS (‘The Young Americans’, ‘Boston Kickout’).

Internationally acclaimed cinematographer, ROBBY MÜLLER, renowned for his work with directors including Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Lars Von Trier (for whom he recently shot the Palme D’or winner ‘Dancer in the Dark’) used a small state-of-the-art digital video camera to capture the intimacy and energy of the story.

MY BROTHER TOM is a raw but tender account of the intense love which develops between two teenagers trying to escape the confines of their difficult home lives.

SHOOTING THE FILM

MY BROTHER TOM was shot entirely on location in Hertfordshire, north of London. The six week shoot began on 17 July 2000.

The film was shot using a Sony PD 150, the latest DV camera in this range which had become available a few weeks before shooting started. The key advantage was mobility - the whole camera kit was able to be carried in one bag, with set-up changes taking minutes instead of hours. “Shooting with such a small camera is a balancing act,” Schönfeld comments. “There are a lot of implications for the team. It is easy for the camera departments to move to another position but to make use of this freedom, we usually had to dress and light for 360 degree camera movement which had dramatic implications for the art department. We sometimes did 5 camera set ups in 15 minutes, which is unheard of when you are working in the traditional way. But on other occasions we found it rewarding to give the actors more time to explore the possibilities.”

Director Dom Rotheroe adds: “I'm very glad I shot this on DV rather than film. It helped to create a more intimate environment on set. It allowed us to work with fewer lights, no grips and on occasion to just push the on-button and run with it. The speed is doubled - our top day was when we completed 35 slates.”

Rotheroe admits to a certain anxiety about being a first-time feature director, and the transition from documentary to fiction was clearly an artistic challenge for him. “Frankly the differences are massive,” he explains. “On one you're telling people what to say, on the other you can't. On one you're maybe a one- or two-person crew, on the other you're 30/50, although shooting on DV makes it less of a difference. But you're still trying to tell a story that affects people. You're still looking for something that feels psychologically real and not made up, you’re looking for the details that really illuminate people’s characters.”

“I felt very confident in Dom,” says Ben Whishaw, the young actor who plays the lead role of Tom. “I found him really willing to listen to people’s ideas, so I felt very comfortable from the word go.” In developing the character of Tom, Whishaw and Rotheroe felt it was important that he should have a sense of fun. “I think that was something Dom really encouraged,” explains Whishaw. “We both felt that there is a lightness to Tom - I think that’s because he doesn’t wear his pain on his sleeve, it’s not something he shows off to people, it’s something he likes to hide so when he plays jokes he tries to cover his true feelings”.

Similarly, newcomer Jenna Harrison, who plays the central character of Jessica, felt at ease for her acting debut: “Dom was very supportive - understanding that I was learning all the time and giving me the time I needed. Being the first film for the both of us we had an added bond, which I feel made the shoot very new and exciting.”

Due to the intimate and intense nature of some of their scenes it was critical that the two young actors felt at ease with each other. “Ben was brilliant. He was an inspiration and great to work with,” says Jenna Harrison of her co-star. “The journey that we shared getting into character made us great friends. There was complete trust between us as actors meaning we were uninhibited and had great fun bouncing off each other in performance.”

The smallness of the digital crew and the camera were crucial for the filming of the two abuse scenes. These were filmed in documentary-like long takes. Says Rotheroe, “They aren’t voyeuristic and little is seen - the timescale is the point. We experience the scenes that change Jessica’s life the way she does - the first as a confused reaction to the molesting of her where her shock focuses on the telling details at the edges of the action; and the second from the restricted view of a chink in the curtains where what she is most concerned about is the reaction on Tom’s face.”

THE LOOK AND THE SETTING

A key aspect of the look of the film was the minimal lighting and handheld camerawork enabled by the decision to shoot on digital camera. “It’s a film seen from Jessica’s emotional perspective and all the intensity that that involves - of love, confusion, pain and rebellion,” explains Rotheroe. “It’s not neat, it’s not smooth - it’s handheld, it’s shot digitally. This gives it the energy, immediacy and rawness it deserves.”

Cutting-edge cinematographer Robby Müller had clear ideas of how he wanted to exploit the differences between film and digital. “Robby decided to make use of the auto focus because of the unpredictable nature of the filming - the actors not having marks – and it not being the kind of camera you can have a focus puller on. It was a practical decision and we didn't mind if it went out of focus sometimes,” recalls director Dom Rotheroe.

“Robby Müller is an artist in his own right,” continues Rotheroe. “He relates to the story, the script as well as the cast & crew, very much with his own instinct.”

Ahead of joining the project, Production Designer ISOLDE SOMMERFELDT compiled a book with images she had assembled to give a visual idea of Tom and Jessica’s world. “Tom lives in this townscape on a down market private estate,” she explains. “Jessica lives in a nice house on the outskirts, close to the fields and woods. Yet both homes have their own particular feeling of suffocation. Tom’s is haunted by a dead mother - spartan yet oddly shabby too, as if stuck in the past. The decor, like Tom’s clothes, is early eighties, but lacking colour. Jessica’s more comfortable home is weighed down by false projections of family life - it has more colour to it where Mum has been decorating, yet this is offset by Dad’s darker antique objects.”

“The woods, of course, are the contrast to all this,” says director Dom Rotheroe. “Jessica and Tom’s real home is the cosy makeshift one they put together in the burrow. Yet the woods are not naturally the ones of fairy tales and myths.” In order to create this burrow over 800 sq feet of brambles were brought in.

Due to the technical parameters of the DV camera used, Sommerfeldt worked closely with digital consultant from Visual Impact with regard to colours and designs to be avoided. DV cameras react differently to film cameras when it comes to strong colours, particularly oranges. This was used with positive results also - for the rave sequence in the forest Sommerfeldt hung silvery strips of metal from the branches to catch the coloured lights that had been shone onto them. Through the DV camera the light reflections turned into sparkles giving a magical effect.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

“MY BROTHER TOM is about obsessive love and the sacrifices it can lead to,” says director Dom Rotheroe. “When Ali Hilder, my co-writer, first told me the basic story I knew I had to turn it into a film. The savagery, tenderness and power of the love story wouldn't leave my head and Tom and Jessica were characters I knew I'd want to be with for the next few years.”

“I've always been drawn to obsession and extremity and the tale of these two teenagers was stuffed with both. I wanted to explore their attempts to overcome their pain together, the tragedy and sacrifice of such bonding when one changes and the other can't, but also the cathartic redemption of intense passion.”

“For me it was always a film in close-up. I didn't want to step back and observe so much, but to get involved and intimate which is why I opted to shoot it on handheld DV. This allowed us to physically enter the action more, to improvise more with camera and performance, and to give the actors more time to inhabit the role on camera by running scenes in their entirety.”

“Above all, I've been aiming to make a film that is raw and emotional, something like the documentaries I made on Hi-8 in places like Sarajevo - something that communicates ideas by putting the audience up close to the characters and not pulling punches. The fundamental thing in MY BROTHER TOM has been to make the central relationship as vital and involving as possible.”

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Director DOM ROTHEROE and writer ALISON BEETON-HILDER became friends at film school in Harrow in the early 1990s. When Beeton-Hilder told Rotheroe the story behind her final year super 8 symbolic short, he knew straight away that this was a script he wanted to work with. “It was the love story that got me instantly,” he remembers. “I didn't want to go into social realist territory - I wanted to concentrate on the magic that these two created to try to get through their pain, the extremity with which they did and, above all, their obsession. Obsession and extremity have always been at the front of my short films and, to some extent, my documentaries, and here it was in a story that felt far more real and heartbreaking, yet somehow uplifting. It's the beauty in the feelings involved that transcends things and here it was in spades.”

The original story had been inspired by writer Alison Beeton-Hilder’s long-term work with disadvantaged and disenfranchised people, mainly involving drug and alcohol work. “I’ve been privileged to be closely involved with people who’ve been through the most extreme of experiences,” Beeton-Hilder explains.

CARL SCHÖNFELD, Rotheroe’s long-time producer and co-founder of their production company W.O.W. Productions, was presented with the first fragment of the script in 1994. “There was a special quality about the relationship between Tom and Jessica right from the scene where they first meet, when Tom jumps out of the burning tree,” recalls Schönfeld. “From that moment on, this was pure drama: pain and danger; but also courage, warmth and support. The scene has hardly changed from the first fragment I read 6 years ago.”

Schönfeld knew from the beginning that the writing collaboration between Rotheroe and Beeton-Hilder would be a winning formula: “Ali is good at observing people and has a very sure gut instinct about their qualities. Writing is often about making choices, decisions. She can distinguish immediately what is bullshit and what is genuine. Her understanding of the human condition gave the script its heart. Dom is naturally drawn to extreme characters, but he also has the ability to tell a story and thus take an audience into this strange, obsessive world.”

Schönfeld guided the script through the development process working with the EAVE workshops and with development finance from Filmboard Berlin Brandenburg and Media II in Brussels. He then sent the screenplay to leading cinematographer ROBBY MÜLLER who immediately expressed interest in the project. “Robby said that MY BROTHER TOM was his favourite potential project for 2000. We were very lucky to get him, as he is one of the best and most imaginative cinematographers working today. His vision, the way he catches the intimacy between Tom and Jessica, is crucial for this film to work.”

As the script reached the final stages of development Rotheroe and Schönfeld began the discussion of what format the film should be made in. Their production company W.O.W. had always pioneered the use of digital technology and Schönfeld felt that the success of Dogma had inspired industry confidence in new ways of making films. “MY BROTHER TOM was originally written for film, but for me it was always a film in close-up and DV seemed perfectly suited to that,” says Dom Rotheroe. “I wasn't after conventional beauty but the emotion on the human face. Some people think close-ups need to be used in moderation or they become like TV. I didn't want to be moderate. I didn't want to step back and observe.” Schönfeld adds, “We felt it would be inappropriate to tell such a raw love story with too much detail and nicely balanced colours. A conventional sharp and brilliant 35 mm picture would distract from the characters and their feelings.”

Executive Producer PAUL TRIJBITS came on board at the beginning of 2000 to help put the financing in place. FilmFour Lab, the cutting-edge low budget arm of FilmFour, had expressed an interest in the project but were concerned to see how the film would look, given that it was to be filmed digitally. The British Film Institute’s “No Limits” scheme offered the production a loan which enabled them to shoot a pilot scene over one weekend.

“ROBBY MÜLLER flew in from Amsterdam to personally operate a small DV camera,” explains Schönfeld. “We knew doing the pilot was taking a risk since these scenes would have to be completed on a shoe-string, and lack of money could have easily underminded our creative ambition.” He of the independent cinema’s most prolific and celebrated cinematographers, Robby Müller is a longtime collaborator of Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Lars Von Trier. Beginning in 1969 with ‘Alabama: 2000 Light Years’, Müller has photographed both feature films and television for Wenders, including ‘The American Friend’, ‘Paris, Texas’, ‘Alice in the Cities’, ‘Kings of the Road’, ‘Beyond the Clouds’ and most recently, the Amsterdam segment of ‘The Buena Vista Social Club’. For Jarmusch, he photographed ‘Down by Law’, ‘Mystery Train’, ‘Dead Man’ and most recently, ‘Ghost Dog’. Müller has collaborated with Lars von Trier on ‘Breaking the Waves’ (for which he was awarded the 1996 prize for Best Cinematography by both the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics) and ‘Dancer in the Dark’ which was awarded the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000.

However, when the result was screened at FilmFour, the feature project was given the green light. An early lottery application also resulted in the film receiving additional funding through the newly formed Film Council.

This article was courtesy of CARL SCHÖNFELD (Producer of ‘MY BROTHER TOM’)

Visuals Group Technical Department.