Photo Credit: Rose Baker

An Interview with Out of Orbit on their new feature, ‘The Dig’

Published: April 23, 2018

Blick Residents, Out of Orbit held a Gala Screening for their feature film, The Dig, written by Stuart Drennan from Wolfhound Media (another Blick Resident!) on the closing night of the Belfast Film Festival. We caught up with Brian Falconer to tell us about the process of creating the film.

How did you get involved to start working on The Dig?

Because the community is quite small here in Northern Ireland, I tend to be aware what’s going on. I’d known of Stuart beforehand and had been talking with Northern Ireland Screen to see what projects they had in development and which ones they liked. From quite early on I heard about The Dig which was still developing, but coming along well. At that point I met with Stuart and really liked the script.
I thought it was a really strong premise so I went to NI Screen and said I’d really like to develop this with Out of Orbit with the aim of producing it. A year later they gave it the go-ahead, we got the funding and we shot it over three weeks.

Did you have any say in how the writing progressed?

The role of a producer changes upon who you’re working with. Sometimes you may work with writers who won’t want to change a word and then there’s others who want to hear opinions and try new things, because they enjoy the collaboration aspect. Immediately when Stuart and I started working on the script, I made a few suggestions, which he was happy to hear so it became quite an organic process.
First of all, we made some notes and broke the script down. Later on we liaised with NI Screen and their script editors and then we brought in our own script editor. The project evolved a lot when I came on board but fundamentally it was Stuart driving it. At the end of the day I would give him ideas but it’s his script and his decision.

Do you have any highlights and obstacles you’d like to share?

Getting the permission to go ahead with the project was a massive achievement, which almost didn’t happen when it did. If it hadn’t, then we would’ve had to work on the script some more and then pitch it again, which would’ve taken more work and taken a lot longer. With experience you realise “How much more work is it going to take in the future to get back to this point? It’ll save me time to put extra effort in now.” so I pushed relentlessly to get it done.
When Angus Mitchell, the Director of Photography/cinematographer started doing camera tests, the settings were live and in 3D for the first time, which was very exciting. Seeing the first cut was also huge, because you’re suddenly like “Wow, we have something special here and it’s really good.” which can sometimes be really nerve wracking if there’s mistakes that can’t be fixed in post-production. This was largely down to the actors; every one of those characters is so strong, we couldn’t have got a better cast.

The shooting was three, six-day weeks. Time is never a commodity when you’re a short film maker; we’re used to doing it with no money and no time. With The Dig, it was quite brutal, we couldn’t afford to drop shots or make mistakes because we were filming in a bog, in winter and it was a lot slower than what we could have planned for. It took a week or so to get into the motion of being effective as a unit. For me, I don’t work week in and week out in production and shooting so it’s a very quick bonding experience but the production crew are constantly on set so they’re very much used to working together.

What’s your favourite part of the process?

The first day of principal photography, when you’re on set, everything’s there and you can see all that you’ve worked towards. I like being the problem solver in the background, so if someone has an almost unrealistic idea for the production, I like accepting those challenges and making it happen.

What’s coming next for Out of Orbit?

We will begin Principal Photography for out next feature film, Normal People in July, starring Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville.

Featured Image Credit: Rose Baker

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