Hi
James, your career as a director doesn’t keep you firmly in one genre, you span
quite the spectrum, including factual programmes and docu-dramas including Oil Storm (2004) which you also wrote
for Wall to Wall Productions for FX which looked at the scenario of what
America might be like if it ran out of oil, to Who Killed the Honey Bee? (2009) for New Black which looked at the
apocalyptic demise of the honey bee.
What
is it about factual programmes that you love so much especially from the
viewpoint of director?
James:
I like fact and
fiction. What I like to do above all is apply the skills of each genre to the
other… so when making fictions, I’m interested in setting them in truthful, at
least on an emotional level, situations, with context drawn from real world; in
factual storytelling I’m interested in bringing dramatic devices. My most
recent film Pantani: The Accidental Death
of a Cyclist, being a case in point, where I took documentary footage and
built it into a dramatic structure, and then dramatized what didn’t exist as
documentary footage according to principles of fictional story telling, setting
reconstructions in almost dream-like, or hyper-real, situations.
Where
did you go to University to train as a Director and how long after gaining
qualifications did you land your first directing job?
James:
I went to Oxford University and actually read law, or jurisprudence as
they call it there. I wasn’t much of a lawyer – and began to write and make
short films while I was there. I actually won a competition called The Lloyd’s
Bank/Channel 4 Film Challenge for a documentary idea I wrote that got made by a
professional team (Simon Beaufoy who went on to write The Full Monty and Slumdog
Millionaire and directed it) and shown on Channel 4. On graduation, I
applied for a BBC Trainee Scheme and won the golden ticket I guess. Within
three weeks of joining the inestimable producer and presenter Daisy Goodwin let
me direct my first one-minute pieces on the series Bookworm fronted by Griff Rhys Jones. I got a lot of lucky breaks
and got to work with very brilliant people from then who really championed me,
including Nigel Williams (writer of Elizabeth and many other award-winning
shows) that didn’t make it easy. Every show is tough, but it shone a light into
the darkness of confusion that we call ambition.
You
directed Torchwood: Random Shoes
(2006) Series 1, Episode 9, featuring the life and death of Eugene Jones,
reading through your cv list of documentaries, was it because this story featured
the character narrating the story very much like Kevin Spacey in An American Beauty or was there another
reason?
James:
Nope. That’s reading too much into it. I’d be canvassing Richard Stokes,
the series producer who I’d worked with previously to hire me on Torchwood when
he took it on. When I finally got the call, I said, Yes to the series. The fact I got such a brilliant script was sheer
good fortune. I do think it suited my style of film making though, as I’m very
attracted to strong single perspectives, and also have a bit of an obsession with
exploring what I pretentiously call The
Curtain between Life and Death.
I’ve
just viewed a 20 min clip of From The
Ashes on YouTube and it is a wonderful film that I’d love to watch from
start to finish. Tom Hardy has the
perfect voice for narrator. I liked how
it wasn’t just about cricket and the Ashes but also about life during that
period, with the strikes, and Thatcher and a Royal Wedding. Not only did you direct but you also wrote
this, how long did this film take to put together and what was the most
enjoyable feature of this?
James: Don’t watch it on Youtube!!! That’s breach
of copyright. It annoys me that YouTube continues to carry copyright material
without censure. It’s wrong and should be stopped. You wouldn’t steal a car –
don’t steal a movie!!! Lesson over. A year in the making but really six months
of that was raising money before producing for six months. The most enjoyable
bit – the premiere.
What
got you into directing?
James:
The possibility of
telling a story in three dimensions, I suppose, after I first got to see a
director in action. I’d thought I should be a producer or writer and that
directors needed to be able to draw. I think actually that’s the least important
skill for a director, it’s about somehow drawing the best out of talents be
they writing, acting, camerawork. It’s like being the head of a company really,
so, really the answer is an egotistical desire to control the world, or at
least create my own world.
If
you were able to meet your 12 year old self, what advice would you give him?
James: Creativity is an achievement in itself.
Can
you tell us about your new film The White
Room?
James:
The
White Room is a magical
real thriller about a man who comes to believe he can see the future in people’s
birthmarks. It’s an exploration of isolation, madness and belief set in the East
End of London, and stars the incredible Spanish actor Oscar Jaenada and
legendary Scottish actor Bill Paterson. It’ll be in cinemas this Christmas.
Battle of the Sexes
(2013) is yet another sports documentary this time featuring the tennis match
between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, what is it about these types of
documentaries that hook you?
James:
I’m interested in the
impact events have on lives. The moments we suddenly find masses of people
willing the same thing and what impact it has on their lives and the society in
which they live. It’s something quasi-religious, how often can you find tens of
thousands of people together thinking the same thing, dreaming the same dream.
Surely that has power? Sport has the power to enthral. It also has the power to
open us up to new ideas. That’s what I’m interested in – moments that unite us,
because so often we are alone.
Out
of all the programmes, films, documentaries that you have directed and /or
written, which have been the most enjoyable and which have been the most
challenging to date, in terms of anything?
James: I loved making Torchwood and Robin Hood,
it was great to be communicating to that audience and have the support of the
BBC in making action-packed stories. But each film is a new challenge and I
love and hate each one equally in the end. I don’t watch back films. I hate
sitting in the cinema or in front of the box watching films I’ve made – not because
I can’t handle it (though I see the flaws more clearly than the audience), but
because they are finished for me, I’m on to the next one. One of the great joys
of TV and film is seeing something for the first time, because that’s how the
illusion plays best. Our eyes only see 10% of what they can see, our brains
fill in the rest, so when we’ve seen it before, we’re influenced by the memory,
not just what we see. I’ve seen them too many times and lived every shot, I’m
not seeing the film, I’m seeing parts of my life.
When
you were 12 (you can tell I watch CBBC) what were you like, what were your
interests and were you involved in filming at that age, recording your own
events with a tape recorder and camera?
James:
I was actually more into the outdoors, climbing, hiking, etc. I did
watch a lot of telly though and went to occasional drama groups, but was, even
then, more interested in writing and directing (telling people what to do) than
standing around being a tree or whatever. I never saw myself as a performer,
though ironically, that’s what one becomes when you are interviewed.
As
director and writer do you have any control over what music is used and who
narrates your work, or is that left to other people in the production team to
decide?
James: Oh yes – ideally total control. In
Torchwood I picked all the music, Antony and the Johnsons, Bowie – they were
for me key moments. I love working with music and am just wrapping up the edit
on a feature film with John Hannah and Nico Mirallegro called Shooting for Socrates, where we got the
guys from Snow Patrol and their friends to re-record some classic songs with a
contemporary twist. Similarly narrators, I’ve been able to work with Gary
Oldman, Tom Hardy and many others, and I always pick the voices. That’s part of
directing, in many ways the key part – casting, be it a voice or a face, and
music is so important, it becomes part of the performance.
When
you’re not working, although given the list of credits I don’t think you do
actually have any time to rest, but shall ask anyway, how do you relax?
James: It’s true, I work a lot, but since having
my first child two years ago, I’ve learned to take more time out and try and
see the world through his eyes. Other than that, friends, family, cooking,
reading, watching boxsets…No hang-gliding, I’m afraid, though I am looking
forward to my first flying lesson next month.
When
you’re writing, where do you find the best locations for inspiration, what
drives you to write?
James:
I like noisy locations –
I seem to need the noise to focus me on the task, whereas my wife (who is also
a writer, but of far more serious stuff) demands total silence. I wrote the
death scene in a script last year in the local pub while a Ska band were
playing and people danced around me…mind you the script was set in Alaska and
the pub was called The North Pole.
Fan Question:
Claudia
Lindner: I would like to know, though he is not a writer, what he thought of that
episode Random Shoes? To be honest, I
don’t understand this episode, it doesn’t really seem like a Torchwood episode,
as it’s just Gwen there. What’s his view as a director on this?
James:
The episode was
designed as what’s called a stand alone which
allows breathing room in the schedule for some of the other cast, in the case
of Torchwood this was principally John Barrowman, to either rest or film scenes
that have got missed or rewritten after shooting. What I like best about doing
a stand alone is that the rest of the
series doesn’t really matter – it’s more like doing a feature film that stands up
on its own.
Resources
https://thejerseypocket.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/quad_aw_pantani_final1.jpg http://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/_assets/uploads/cropped/29875-square.jpg http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1419477760/tt1626175?ref_=tt_ov_i
©BBC Torchwood 2006
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