Behind the Scenes
Production Notes
Kite was an idea Sam came up with while at college for his final major project. In the end it was considered too ambitious given the constraints imposed on the students, so he shelved it with the intention of returning to it later. That "later" proved to be seven years later. After various false starts and aborted attempts that saw the change of management of a key location, cameras finally rolled in the autumn of 2012. Following Sam’s previous short Life Is A Stage, which had only a dozen set-ups of two men standing in a dark room talking, Kite threw caution to the wind, putting the production in the hands of the film gods by shooting mainly exterior locations in the unpredictable British autumn. Happily the weather was glorious, with wall-to-wall sunshine and warm temperatures.
The one-hundred and twenty shots could only be accomplished in a single day’s shoot because the director had opted to record no sound on this mute production, dubbing ambient noise over the production later.
Knowing a physical kite would be needed for the hero to interact with, Sam decided to shoot as much of the kite in motion in-camera as possible. The kite was constructed with two small rings at either end so it could run on a fishing-line, given motion with a throwing-a-paper-plane wrist action courtesy of the Assistant Director. Clean plates were then used to remove the wire in post-production.
The powder-pink colour of the kite was chosen so that it would photography well against the green of the trees and blue of the sky without being a strong as red.
Director's Statement
I first attempted to shoot Kite in 2010 with Ben Sherlock as producer. I had decided that it had to be shot in summer or autumn to make use of the leaves on the trees, as this was going to be a primarily visual story.
Things were going well for a time, but when we contacted one of the key locations and showed them the scene we wanted to shoot there it became clear it was not going to be straight-forward. Their concern had to do with how their clients may perceive the action on screen. I did my best to explain this is not a documentary, and no one watching it could mistake it for reality, but their position was final. Because of difficulty contacting the location after that with our proposed changes to the script we lost the weather and the production had to be postponed for that year.
The following year I was in the teeth of the Electric Lantern Festival and in no position to try to resurrect it. Knowing how long it was likely to take to get clearance to shoot in this location, I made first contact in March 2012 to discover there had been a change of management. Months went by with little or no contact until I was finally able to pin down the right man in August, after I had already written off shooting in my mind, to discover he was extremely helpful with only a few stipulations.
The most fun I had on this shoot was directing "live". As there was no sound being recorded I could sit by the camera and cue the actors in real time. This was especially useful with the youngest cast member, Fran, who was extremely responsive to the process and yielded some lovely results.
Given the story is about obsession driving a man to self-destruction, maybe I should have taken the hint and abandoned Kite a long time ago. But where would be the fun in that?