tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

I'm a big fan of Jamie Bell, and Mr. Foe is definitely one of his most amazing performances as an actor. I know that his next movie Defiance will rock, but Hallam Foe (Mr. Foe) is his most significant role following Billy Elliot and Undertow. I just hope people get to watch and see how talented he is. So, we're bumping this post to give our viewers more info and insights into this amazing film.

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Hallam Foe, the new film by David McKenzie, is destined to surpass even our biggest expectations. With an exciting mix of sights and sounds, thrills and chills, and surprising twists and turns, it is a modern take on the coming-of-age genre that only McKenzie can deliver. With an amazing cast and an awesome soundtrack, it was premiered at the recent Berlinale to much acclaim.

A few years ago, McKenzie gave us the amazing Young Adam, featuring Ewan McGregor and the multi-talented Tilda Swinton. With its deliberately slow pace and a hypnotic and remarkable story, it is notable for the powerful and truthful performances of the actors. In Hallam Foe, we witness another film that has its own unique agenda and style. It’s like sitting down to watch the sequel of a story that still lingers up to this day. But don't get me wrong, Hallam Foe is a separate and totally engrossing film, surpassing Young Adam in many ways.

Short Synopsis: Set in Edinburgh, Hallam Foe is the story of a young teenager who recently lost his mother and is desperately trying to cope with the loss. Unlike other teens, Hallam has a unique and somewhat sinister hobby - he likes to observe those around him, using binoculars to study his neighbors and to investigate what he considers the untimely death of his mother at the hands of his father’s secretary, who is now his new stepmother.

“It’s sexy, adventurous, intimate and delightful all at once. The scene-stealing chemistry between Jamie Bell and Sophia Myles is sure to satisfy audiences everywhere,” says Magnolia Pictures’ head of acquisitions Tom Quinn.

View the movie trailer below [ courtesy of youtube ]:

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A Backgrounder: David McKenzie insights into filmmaking and the new film, Hallam Foe

While internet marketing for films is not uncommon these days, it takes a lot of time and dedication to really make a difference for a film promoted online.

Many of today’s new releases make use of popular sites such as myspace and youtube to promote their films, but for those few who want to go the extra mile, a blog provides viewers and moviegoers with exclusive insights into the making of the film - and allows them to participate in the process - well, to a certain extent!

tMF has followed the making of Hallam Foe via the blog launched especially to promote the film. Entitled ‘Get your People’, it features stories, news, videos, photos and tidbits about the film - from the director to the cast to it's premier and finally to it's run in theatres worldwide. Maintained by Colin Kennedy, the blog is both entertaining and engrossing, and it was David himself who gave us a truthful and honest look into the filmmaking process.

Says McKenzie:

When I first thought about doing a blog for my new film Hallam Foe, I immediately thought about all the creative opportunities it would allow to give access to the intense world of the film making process. My old friend Hugh Macleod has been pretty much in the front line of the blogging revolution and through him I have been able to watch the blogosphere blossom, despite being a little retarded on the techno front myself - I have written many screenplays (including the one for this film) but I can only type with 2 fingers and still can't get Torrent to work on my computer.

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I am now just one week away from shooting the film. Most things are in place but it has been a majorly torrid time to get here. Even at this stage there are many things that could go wrong and the whole house of cards that is every film could collapse - not for the first time I might add. My film Young Adam collapsed 3 weeks before shooting and it was only the resolution of my lead cast Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton to keep loyal to the project that allowed us gather up the pieces and start again 7 months later. Naturally this was a scary and unpleasant time for me and everyone else who was fighting to get that difficult film financed - in a brutal commercial world that couldn't understand a film about loneliness, sex and grief. But we got there in the end and I am very proud of the result - not that I wouldn't make a couple of changes!

The point is that the whole infrastructure of financing, casting and crewing a film is an incredibly delicate thing. In my ideal world I would like to blog about the crazy adventures that have taken us to the point of being about to shoot Hallam Foe. Over the last few weeks, myself and my friend and assistant Colin Kennedy have been gathering material for our blog and getting excited about the whole idea of being able to expose the inner workings of our machine. I like to think of myself as an honest kind of guy who speaks candidly and openly about anything I want - even if it involves uncomfortable truths. But I have begun to realise there are certain things that I can't really speak about in this blog. Not because anyone is telling me I can't - I can and it is enshrined in my contract that I am allowed to - but because I have a responsibility to walk carefully in this fragile little ecosystem we are building and if I don't I could destroy the whole thing.

This means that the Hallam blog cannot promise its readers the total open access that it could have in a more robust environment - although I bet it is a whole bunch more open than any other attempt to do a blog for a film. But I can't say some things about things like the processes of negotiation that have got us to this point, because I need the continuing support of my producer, my team, my cast, my financiers, my sales agents, my distributor, my agents and a whole host of other people. For example, a major executive decision was made by one of our key financiers today that has significant ramifications on the film, for better or for worse who knows. But I can't tell you what that was right now.

Colin sees all the things happening around him with wide and curious eyes and has loads of ideas to put on the blog. But, much that they are dramatic and incredibly fascinating, a significant amount of them are simply impossible for any of us to comment on. There are no go areas I am afraid and I want to be honest about this - particularly at this stage where we are closing the finance, which is a massive legal undertaking with literally hundreds of contracts needing to be negotiated by everyone involved, especially the eight organisations that make up our financial structure, and which will affect all elements of the film. This affects various creative decisions that I have to make - not in a cowtowing kind of way, more a rolling with the punches kind of way.

Gary Oldman was once quoted (I think) as saying after his amazing film Nil by Mouth was made that directing a film is like rescuing your favourite things from a burning a burning house. I can totally empathise with this. In a way everything is about compromise and the trick is to compromise as cleverly as you can.

But this is a film in which the director (me) has much more control than most films. It is being made by my own company. The producer Gillian Berrie (who I hope will be contributing to these pages too) is an old friend of mine and not the cigar munching exploitative kind of c**t of producer cliches. I have written the last four drafts of the script and am free to adjust it as long as I don't destroy the schedule or budget - both of which are incredibly tight, so in truth I can't suddenly decide on a helicopter sequence or stunt. It is not a studio movie (although we have BVI/Disney as our UK distributor and Film Four as one of our key financiers) so I don't have a team of executives telling me what to do. I am sure that I will get some pressure down the line from some of the financiers to adjust the edit in one way or another (most likely to make it faster or to play with the ending). But contractually no individual body has the right to force these changes.

In the world of film-making, unless you are making self-financed movies, this is an incredibly rare and special thing. I had a horrible experience on my last film where various elements of the edit were forced upon me by a particularly foolish Hollywood executive, in my opinion to the detriment of the film. So I have fought very hard to be allowed control of the edit of this film. If I am honest I haven't totally won the fight. But, in the spirit of necessary compromise, I am in a much stronger position. At last resort, if there are disagreements on the film's final cut, we resort to a committee of three - myself and one person from 2 different financiers. Of course this means I can still get shafted, but not without the opportunity to put up a major fight. It ain't the holy grail of final cut, reserved for only about 10 directors in the world I think, but it's a lot closer than most directors get to go to it.

Over the course of the next few weeks we will be reporting from the frontline of the film shoot and we will carry on right until the film is finished and out on the screens. I hope there will be juicy things that are added daily and that it will be a blog worth returning to. It is a very full on experience directing a film, so please excuse me if I don't contribute as much as I would like. But Colin will be passing on my thoughts all the time and I will do what I can. Don't expect every wart to be here on these pages, but I do promise you that if you keep reading, you will get an open and honest account of the slings and arrows of making this film with as many warts and all as I can give without breaking the toy.

Welcome to the beautiful nightmare.

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Hallam Foe report by Kathleen Sydenham, with excerpts from David McKenzie's post at the official movie blog, getyourpeople.com

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