THAT three films could be written, cast, shot, edited, set to sound and released for viewing for a total of €10,000 is eye opening.
Yet this feat is underway with the City of Culture funded training project Trilogy which challenges individual directors to wrap a short film each, connected thematically and geographically.
Limerick is linchpin, local cast and crew essential. The support system is international with director (Gerry Stembridge), cinematography (Paddy Jordan), music scores (Patrick Cassidy), editing (Simon Maguire).
Our first insight into Trilogy is the second film, ‘Day Off’, although as director Stephen Hall makes clear, “The stories are all very different but can be watched individually or all together. It gives them an extra dimension”.
He’s in the cutting stage of his short fiction, a four day shoot with Dawn Bradfield (The Clinic), Joe Mullins (Pilgrim Hill), Myles Breen, Joanne Ryan, Sean Flynn and Erica Murray, who is lead role in the third film.
Ostensibly, “‘Day Off’ is about a woman who going into town on her day off – from what, we don’t know. She gets her nails done, has a coffee and goss, goes to Brown Thomas”.
Forget beauty shots of castle and Custom House. The backdrop is Carey’s Road, Wickham Street, Poor Man’s Kilkee. This is everyday context for “a heavy handed piece’, admits Hall, graduate of Limerick Senior College and LIT. “It emerges that her husband has early Alzhiemer’s, unexpected in a couple this young, early 40s”.
Chuckles give way to poignancy as we are drawn in. Laura’s day out is much more than a manicure by Madeline Mulqueen and as happens with mental distress, the challenges are implicit. Discoveries are arrived at by the audience in a script by Peter McNamara (‘The Bridge’).
More anon on Trilogy. Its first story ‘The Apparel’ is to be directed by Peter Delaney in April; story No. 3 is ‘Date:Time’ by Denise Woods.
