Lance Daly
Kisses was brought to the attention of movie audiences and critics last year when it played at the Toronto Film Festival.
Capturing the hearts of movie lovers Kisses will be released nationwide this week and I caught up with director Lance Daly to talk about the difficulties of the project and what now lies ahead for him.
- For anyone who hasn't seen Kisses yet can you tell me a little bit about it?
Well I think it's a, give me a moment to get into gear it's my first conversation of the day after a long weekend, it's a really simple small story about two kids who run away from home together.
- What attracted you to the two young leads Kelly and Shane who had no previous acting experience?
Well we saw thousands and thousands of kids for the part, we went around all the schools in Dublin, Kelly really stood out, there was a shortlist of five or six girls that really stood out, and Kelly was the one that I thought was a little more unpredictable than the others, we had some potentially professional actors in there.
But Kelly had some spark and some magic in her, which is very evident in the film, and we just saw little hints of that. She was a very odd character that came into the audition compared to the rest and she really stood out. She was a messer, do you say messer here? All her teachers told us not to cast her so we knew that we might be on to something.
Then Shane was the only boy we saw that we were all interested in him because he's such a handsome little fella. He was the only on that was able to stand up to Kelly.
- So how difficult was it directing then on set? And how did they cope with having no experience was it a help or a hindrance?
I think it definitely helped the performance but it probably made it much harder to make a film with them because they didn't know how to behave. They had never seen professional actors help the crew along so they sort of did their own thing, a lot of the time they were playing when they should have been helping the people around them.
But in terms of performance it as brilliant because they never thought about acting and they never thought about what performing from the very start I tried to teach them just to be there in the moment and react to things as they really would react to things.
It was like they hadn't picked up any of the bad habits, as an actor you become very self conscious and as soon as you do your acting suffers, that hadn't happened to them so it was great.
- How did that change you as a filmmaker having to deal with these two young kids who didn't really know what they were doing?
Oh it completely changed my yeah, I basically had to reinvent the process of how to make a film and find a process that suited them. You can't keep them waiting around like you can adults if they are in a good mood you need to start working because they don't have the patience an actor has to wait for lighting and stuff and changing lenses.
I kind of had to really rework the machinery of how to make a film and the crew and everyone else had to relearn their own jobs because they weren't able to do them in the way that they usually would.
Everybody had to be extremely flexible sometimes something great would be happening and we would just have to start shooting while other time the kids just wouldn't want to work, they wouldn't feel like working or have a little diva moment and Kelly had about three diva moments a day.
But it was quite frustrating for the crew, I was seeing what footage we were getting and that we were making a good picture, but for the crew it wasn't the usual way they were used to making films I think they thought it was going to be a disaster.
- You filmed in Dublin, which is where you are from, so how do you find shooting in your home city?
Yeah I have made three films in Dublin. I think that I can have an interesting take on it sometimes and show it in a different way. It's funny because when I shoot somewhere I almost feel that I can't even go back there without a camera.
If I walk down a street that we have shot a scene on, it's always so difficult, you think so much about a place so anytime I walk back it feels a bit haunted I get a shiver and I don't feel so good about that place anymore, it's strange. So I'm running out of location in Dublin after three movies so I'm going to have to start thinking about filming somewhere else.
- You also penned the script so what is the writing process like for you? And what about the idea for the story?
The writing process is very difficult,I think it's the most difficult part of the whole process, because it requires an awful lot of discipline to sit down everyday and get through it. You are stuck with only yourself, there's no one else to blame as it's just you in a room, so I think it's very difficult.
The story evolved very quickly and it's funny because you write a story and you try and do something that's personal and makes sense to you and years later, even now, just last week I remembered an idea that I had of running away as a kid. I just remembered it last week and I was like god there's all those things in the back of your head that you are not even aware of that you are writing into a script without knowing.
- Visual style and lighting plays a big part in the film so was that something that you incorporated into the script or was it just something that just happened?
Yeah the colour and the colour changes it was written in the script that it would start in black and white and change to colour. So it was always part of the idea but I think I'm predominately a visual filmmaker anyway so that's always going to be a large part of what I'm doing.
- Kisses has been very well received on the festival circuit so how did you find the whole Toronto experience?
Toronto was really brilliant and brilliant for one reason alone that every screening was absolutely packed out, they were really really enthusiastic audiences, and they were five or six hundred seater screens, even in the morning screenings.
I think the reason that Toronto was brilliant is because the audience was brilliant, they are huge audiences that are really interested in film. It's a bit industry festival so it was good for me I managed to get some other projects started.
- Bob Dylan's music features very prominently in the movie so why did you choose his music and how did you got about getting clearance for it?
Yeah Bob was a part of the story during the script and while I was writing it I met Stephen Ray at a Bob Dylan gig in Dublin, and it did strike me that there was a remarkable physical similarity between them. We got clearance but it was quite lucky that we got clearance because I actually wrote it, shot the film and edited it without any permission at all. Only then did we go to Bob Dylan's manager and say 'what do you think and is there any chance you would give us the rights?'
It doesn't hurt that we refer to Bob as a folk and musical god twice in the film, I think it's very respectful of his legacy. His manager Jeff Rosen was very kind about it, he liked the film, and we managed to work out a deal.
There were two points to the deal; one was we weren't allowed to say what we paid for it and the other was we had to make sure that the poster that explains about Bob, the tribute act, the poster about who he really was we had to extend the shot to make sure that the audience would be very clear that it wasn't really Bob, because Bob doesn't give kids beer.
- Other directors that I have spoken too who have made small budget movies have said that getting distribution was one of the most difficult elements of the movie. You have been picked up by Focus Features so how did all that work out?
Well there were some industry rumbles after the first screening in Galway, we won a feature prize there, and then it was Toronto. I turned to Focus because they had heard about us and wanted to see it and I was having a screening for the London Film Festival and Focus came along and wrapped it up that day.
They just fell in love with it and it was nice because it was entirely on the film's merit, there wasn't anyone pulling strings of anything, they just really wanted to sell it so they took it to sell internationally, which is great.
- Kisses is your third feature so how did you get into the industry in the first place?
I went and made a film for very very very little, I didn't make any shorts I just made a feature film called Last Days in Dublin that I had spent many a year writing as a young fellow. We raised a few thousand from literally going into the shops on the street and asking them to sponsor the film in return for us putting their shop in the film.
So we got £50 her and £50 there so we had no benefactor and we scrapped the pennies together and made the film. We ran up huge bills, I owed £30,000 at the end of it which was a bit of a shock to me as a young man, but then we got some completion money from the Irish film board and we just put it together. People reacted well to it and then embarked on the long and painful process of making a second and third movie.
- Finally what's next for you?
Well I'm not sure but I have a few things; I've got a small movie which is a tale of murderous jealousy between two lovers and then I'm doing another picture called The Day I Tried to Live with Orlando Bloom. There are some other things as well but it's hard to know what will boil up first so you just have to keep them all on the heat and see how they come together.
Kisses is released 17th July
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Kisses was brought to the attention of movie audiences and critics last year when it played at the Toronto Film Festival.
Capturing the hearts of movie lovers Kisses will be released nationwide this week and I caught up with director Lance Daly to talk about the difficulties of the project and what now lies ahead for him.
- For anyone who hasn't seen Kisses yet can you tell me a little bit about it?
Well I think it's a, give me a moment to get into gear it's my first conversation of the day after a long weekend, it's a really simple small story about two kids who run away from home together.
- What attracted you to the two young leads Kelly and Shane who had no previous acting experience?
Well we saw thousands and thousands of kids for the part, we went around all the schools in Dublin, Kelly really stood out, there was a shortlist of five or six girls that really stood out, and Kelly was the one that I thought was a little more unpredictable than the others, we had some potentially professional actors in there.
But Kelly had some spark and some magic in her, which is very evident in the film, and we just saw little hints of that. She was a very odd character that came into the audition compared to the rest and she really stood out. She was a messer, do you say messer here? All her teachers told us not to cast her so we knew that we might be on to something.
Then Shane was the only boy we saw that we were all interested in him because he's such a handsome little fella. He was the only on that was able to stand up to Kelly.
- So how difficult was it directing then on set? And how did they cope with having no experience was it a help or a hindrance?
I think it definitely helped the performance but it probably made it much harder to make a film with them because they didn't know how to behave. They had never seen professional actors help the crew along so they sort of did their own thing, a lot of the time they were playing when they should have been helping the people around them.
But in terms of performance it as brilliant because they never thought about acting and they never thought about what performing from the very start I tried to teach them just to be there in the moment and react to things as they really would react to things.
It was like they hadn't picked up any of the bad habits, as an actor you become very self conscious and as soon as you do your acting suffers, that hadn't happened to them so it was great.
- How did that change you as a filmmaker having to deal with these two young kids who didn't really know what they were doing?
Oh it completely changed my yeah, I basically had to reinvent the process of how to make a film and find a process that suited them. You can't keep them waiting around like you can adults if they are in a good mood you need to start working because they don't have the patience an actor has to wait for lighting and stuff and changing lenses.
I kind of had to really rework the machinery of how to make a film and the crew and everyone else had to relearn their own jobs because they weren't able to do them in the way that they usually would.
Everybody had to be extremely flexible sometimes something great would be happening and we would just have to start shooting while other time the kids just wouldn't want to work, they wouldn't feel like working or have a little diva moment and Kelly had about three diva moments a day.
But it was quite frustrating for the crew, I was seeing what footage we were getting and that we were making a good picture, but for the crew it wasn't the usual way they were used to making films I think they thought it was going to be a disaster.
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