short film

Leave a comment Posted on humans of middlesbrough, short film

James Harris, 48

That’s just one of the useful bits of information you’ll find in this interview I did about Humans of Middlesbrough with Scarlet McBride at the Gazette…

The Teesside mockumentary which is celebrating ‘Humans of Middlesbrough’

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You may have heard of popular photoblog Humans of New York .

Well it has inspired a hilarious mockumentary set in Middlesbrough .

Teesside writer and director James Harris, 48, from Linthorpe , was intrigued by the personal stories of triumph and tragedy captured on the streets of New York and thought it would make a good format for some Boro-based comedy.

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Humans of Middlesbrough

Huge thanks to Tees Valley Screen, Northern Film + Media and the BFI Network for funding this stupid film about Middlesbrough I wrote and directed. Here’s what filming it looked like. Pics by Jay Moussa-Mann.

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Be Mine Forever

Written by me (and what a lengthy script it was) and directed by Laura Degnan, this is one of a series of “Little Shockers” – bite-sized horror films with a tickle at the end. Like Tales of the Unexpected, if you’re not expecting a daft punchline at the end of the tale.

We’ve entered it into the Four4 Short Horror Film Competition, for 16 second horror films made up of four four-second shots. I’ll be shocked if we win, which’ll be in keeping with the theme of the thing.

Expect more Little Shockers soon. Or rather, don’t expect them, then it’ll be spookier when they turn up.

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Distraction Jackson

Here’s the film we made for the National Film Challenge 2011. It was written and made in 48 hours. It’s quite funny. We got in the top 11 out of, ooh, millions of entries probably. Maybe hundreds. Anyway, we did quite well. See what you think.

We won best use of genre – mockumentary. Not even best use of bubbles, or most realistic weeing on the floor scene. Travesty? You decide.

Leave a comment Posted on short film

Distraction Jackson

A couple of months ago we made a short film for the National Film Challenge 2011. We had three days to write and make a short film. The pic above shows us working out the story. Note step 1: “does something funny”. We are good at comedy.

The film was written and performed by me and mi Heavy Petting compadres, it was shot by the amazingly talented Jay Moussa, and John Noble built us a house of cards, an electrified collar and a hospital maternity unit in the corner of our office.

Anyway, 155 teams worldwide took part, 125 got completed films in, and now the best 15 have been shortlisted, and we’re in! We’re the only UK team to make it, so we’re pretty chuffed.

You can see (and, you know, maybe vote for?) the film here:

http://filmchallenge.org/2011-Finalists/2011-finalist-distraction-jackson.html

I haven’t voted yet, so I totally understand if you can’t be arsed either, but if you do watch it, let me know what you think.

And in case you’re wondering, we got given the genre “mockumentary” (I know! But what can you do?) and the film had to include a glass of wine, a marathon runner called Francis Tucker and the line “Let’s pretend this never happened”.

Here’s an nice picture of us filming a scene.