Interview with Director Ged Hunter (A Complicated Way to Live)

If I’m completely honest the FEEDBACK I received from the WILDsound Festival on my film brought a small tear to my eye as it was amazing that people on the opposite side of the world got it and related to the situation, its great to know that people understand such a dark piece of social realism and I haven’t confused them or left them asking the wrong questions.

– Director Ged Hunter’s reactions on the Audience Feedback video he received for his short film “A Complicated Way to Live”.

Watch the Audience FEEDBACK for A Complicated Way To Live:

A Complicated Way to Live was voted Best Performance at the May 2015 WILDsound Festival.

Matthew Toffolo interviews Director Ged Hunter:
http://www.harthunterproductions.com

Matthew: What motivated you to make this film?

Ged: We are always looking for real life social realism situations, and in the uk compassion towards people suffering from mental illness is at an all time low from a governmental viewpoint.

Its a subject that we feel very strong about due personal situations and felt that we had the right insight and knowledge to bring the plight of are societies most vulnerable to the screen.

Matthew: From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?

Ged: We were lucky enough to receive funding from the BFI (British Film Institute), but due to this governmental funding the process took a little longer than it usually would for one of our shorts to go from script to screen. It was around 9 months from the initial idea up until the BFI/Creative England signed off the final cut and allowed us to start submitting to festivals.

Matthew: Talk about your cast: The main performance was truly exceptional! How did you find this actor and what type of process/rehearsals did you have?

Ged: Due to having worked in the industry for the past 17 years me and my producer Dave Hart have built up a good circle of contacts, and Rob was some one we always had in mind for the project.

He is a super talented actor and is always in demand in the UK so when we aproached him we didn’t think it was likely he would be free, but Rob had seen are earlier work and was really impressed with are style storytelling so agreed immediately.

Rob went out of his way to meet with a mental health proffesional and researched a lot of different ways to approach the illness, was he bipolar, was he autistic and so on picking small nuances to build Mr Ellis into the person we see on screen.

The other exceptional actors we used we chose from our pool of contacts and luckily everyone we asked agreed, we didn’t hold any auditions at all but scheduled enough time into the shoot to run scenes enough to get the right performances out of the actors, risky but fun.

Matthew: What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?

Ged: When working on such a delicate subject we walk a fine line of maybe going over the top and becoming unrealistic, performance and editing were the main obstacle in creating the right tone to bring the audience into this world and not lie to them, also convincing an audience that things that happen such as the end scene are not just for shock value but of relevance.

Matthew: How is the film scene in your city and country?

Ged: The few times the film has screened in the UK the response has been great as people understand and relate to the situation our country is at the moment, also a large percent of us can relate to walking past the needy in the street and doing nothing to help so audiences have mentioned how it makes them think twice now and question their own morality.

Matthew: What film have you seen the most in your life?

Ged: Gummo by Harmony Korrine.

Matthew: What is next for you? A new film?

Ged: Of course the main aim for any filmmakers is to make features and we are working towards that, but we have a few more shorts we would like to get done first , we are currently producing another short for anther director with shoots in July in titled ‘Holes In their Souls’
http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/holes-in-their-souls

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Deadline: FEEDBACK Toronto Film Festival:
http://www.wildsound.ca/submityourfilm.html

– FULL FEEDBACK on your film from the audience. Garner an audience feedback video on your film.