Shortlisted director Lucy Campbell tells us of the crew and creatures that brought lunchtime to life

“It was fantastic to hear that The Friend Catcher had been shortlisted for Virgin Media Shorts. I heard we were being considered a little while ago, and then it was a long wait to hear if we’d made it. Now we’re here, life is wonderful!

The crew (five of us) have just graduated from Contemporary Film and Video at Manchester School of Art. Our short The Friend Catcher is about a new boy at school and his worries about his packed lunch.

I wrote the film over a few months. I have this thing about packed lunches - they are a little piece of home that goes to school or work with you, something comforting, even cosy in a little box. But, by being something personal and from home, its contents can be intimate, revealing, embarrassing, smelly or odd.

I had this idea of exploring the symbolic nature of the items in a lunchbox. A biscuit may not be just a biscuit, but an item of warfare. I wanted to replace the actual items with non-food objects, as if a shell from a holiday might be in there, or a voice from home, or something placed there by a much loved dog. Then I wanted to take it to another level of surrealism, where the holiday shell might actually be the sea in the lunch box, with sand and seaweed, and even a pirate ship. The actual dog could be hiding in the lunchbox to keep you company. In a darker moment, angry voices from home scream at you from your lunch box. A bully takes out your pet mouse, dead. Lunchtime at school is a time to escape, and enter a world of play, to have magical adventures.

When Claire Molloy came on board as prop designer, the lunchboxes literally came alive, and the film took off from there. She added to the script, creating lunchboxes that I hadn’t even thought of, and designed the props with imagination and supreme ingenuity, sourcing the boxes from eBay and customising them herself. She is a writer-director in her own right, and also crewed as second camera for the shoot, as well as sharing the task of sound design with me.       

I contacted a local school in Manchester and the whole Year 5 class took part, some bringing their pets to school for the shoot which was pretty crazy and chaotic. They seemed to enjoy making the film, the most exciting part for them was the underwater scene in a local swimming pool. I asked them to keep their eyes open underwater, and some of them did, which is more than I could do!

Carrie Wemyss as production designer attended to the detail of the school interior, designing and making appropriate wall pictures with sand, paint and collage. She created the underwater scene, transforming a swimming pool to look like the deep sea with seaweed and creatures. Carrie has worked as production designer on a number of short films. Her uncompromising artistic vision and attention to detail are invaluable, and she is currently working on a feature film. carriewemyss.tumblr.com

Tom Doran, Director of Photography, managed a complicated multi-camera shoot, which seemed like a good idea, but was actually quite complicated. We knew we had to capture the children in as few takes as possible, and manage the pet situation before it got out of hand. Tom works as freelance video director for Don’t Panic and moved straight into a media job on leaving uni, working for Jungle Media in Salford,  It was a bad moment (though Tom was pretty cool about it) when his 5D died during the underwater shoot – we’d used an old SLR water housing which caused the camera to overheat.

Dan McPake worked as camera assistant, stills photographer and, most vitally, as editor of the film. Dan is a talented editor and technical wizard, who can do anything at all extremely well. He co-owns Stake Productions (with Stephen Melling, who recorded sound in the school scenes. Dan edited the film with exceptional speed so we could make the deadline. It was an all-nighter for Dan, Claire and me; finishing the film, exporting and uploading it in time for the Virgin Media Shorts cut-off point. We made the film especially for the competition, aiming for the 2m 20 seconds length, but it was still too long and we had to cut out some great bits of underwater swimming.

I worked on the film as writer, director, producer, and co-sound designer. I spent around £500, the main cost being lighting rental and renting a second 5D after Tom’s camera broke. And the butterflies bred for release were quite expensive!  The school was very accommodating and relaxed about the film, not batting an eyelid when pets arrived for a day in school and when the dinner hall was taken over by the set design.

Making The Friend Catcher didn’t seem like work at all. I have made a few short films by now, and never ‘got this far’ before. In fact I entered Virgin Media Shorts a few years ago with a version of Hansel and Gretel. It’s a bit arty maybe, and it didn’t get anywhere! Check it out, with my other work on my Vimeo page.

With The Friend Catcher, I realise I have left ‘depressing’ films behind me!  All my future films will be a combination of magical realism, comedy and surprises, with dark undertones maybe, but amusing and entertaining.

I’m in pre-production at the moment. Tigerish Waters is set in the teenage surfing community of the West of Ireland. It is a bitter-sweet black comedy, with some surreal elements, something like The Friend Catcher. I hope it will take you to places you didn’t expect.”

Lucy Campbell

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