My Name Is Joe (1998) :: Crew Notes

Production Crew Notes

Director - Ken Loach
Cinematographor - Barry Ackroyd
Sound Recordist - Ray Beckett
Art Director - Fergus Clegg
Location Manager - Brian Kaczinsky
Costume Designer - Rhona Russell
Producer - Rebecca O'Brien

Director » Ken Loach

Loach resists talking about the filming methods that he pioneered more than 30 years ago. "Its' just boring and self-indulgent when directors go on about how they work, and their cinematic style. What's important is the content, to feel respect for the people you see on the screen," he says. "You've just got to trust your instincts, and the more you talk about it, the more you lose that sense of going on a hunch."

But crew members who worked on Joe, many of them veteran Loach collaborators, reveal the minimalist, stripped-down principles that characterise his film-making.

Cinematographor - Barry Ackroyd

Joe presented the lighting cameraman Barry Ackroyd, who has shot every Loach feature since Riff-Raff, with by now familiar difficulties: "There's a lot of dialogue in small rooms that are lit with one small bulb, because the characters are poor and wouldn't be able to afford fancy lights," he says. "The problem was how to light it without making it look hideous."

Some of these intense, emotionally charged, scenes are shot and re-shot at length, with small changes and tweaks each take, producing a shooting ratio that for many directors would be unacceptably high. "Ken just lets the dialogue run on, as the actors improvise around the basic script. With Ken you're never quite sure which bit he's looking for. It could be just a tiny new moment, at the beginning or at the end."

The eye is lifted by aesthetic images, Barry says. Most of the action takes place in cramped interiors or bleak sets, but some shots "celebrate the beauty of the surroundings and lift the eye." But Loach's rule of thumb still holds: camera at eye level, with lenses rarely wider than the range of the eye, and with minimum interference with the action. "What happens in front of the camera is always more important than what the camera is doing."

Sound Recordist - Ray Beckett

The vast emotional range of My Name is Joe is caught, not only by Loach's unobtrusive but insistent camera, but also on the sound track, presenting the sound recordist Ray Beckett with huge challenges. "The voices range from a barely audible whisper to a scream within a single take, which I may be hearing for the first time and in a tiny room which I'm not even in!"

Ray describes how he adjusts and mixes the volume as if handling a radio play, and adds that technological advances with DAT recording equipment help enormously in his ability to capture the full range of sounds he has grown used to in years of working on Loach's movies.

Art Director - Fergus Clegg

Fergus Clegg, the art director, another veteran of recent Loach movies, is also accustomed to his strict requirements. "It was sometimes difficult finding locations that had the right light in all the areas where action would take place. Ken doesn't want direct sunlight."

All locations were in roughly the same part of town, to lend greater authenticity to the unity of the action. "Our aim is always to make the place look functioning and realistic, with nothing out of place to distract your eye. Then we know we've got it right, and you can concentrate on the story and the action."

So realistic, for example, was the transformation of a furniture co-op into a sports depot (which included the toning-down of some red shutters) that the building's owner, watching the set-up, remarked. "People will be coming up to me for weeks asking about that new sports shop."

"Designing Joe was much simpler than Loach's last two internationally based movies because it is in the present day, local, and in a contained geographical area," says Clegg. "But some parts are so dangerous that they are dubbed by locals 'Bosnia' or 'the war zone'. In such a poor area it was vital to be extra-aware of local sensitivities."

"We had to be discreet and work without drawing attention to ourselves so that our presence wasn't overbearing and didn't provoke hostile reactions among local people."

The location used as the health centre in the film was an operational community education centre that functioned on a day-to-day basis. "So we had to time the use of the facility when we installed our own stuff. We recreated a health centre by using designs based on a real one nearby. So we put in offices, a reception area and a baby clinic. They were very generous in letting us take over the place for about a month, so we just left everything in situ for the whole time we came and went for shooting."

This was dictated by the needs of filming in sequence. "We would shoot for a day, then return a week later. Everything had to be kept in place, so obviously we needed maximum local co-operation. They were very kind."

Location Manager - Brian Kaczinsky

Brian Kaczinsky, the location manager, dealt with Loach's insistence that normal activity should be allowed to carry on around the filming, rather than block off traffic, invade an area with huge vehicles, and clear parking spaces. Vans and lorries were kept to a minimum and tucked out of sight.

Keeping a low profile, Brian says, was crucial in getting access to the areas where Loach wanted to film. "In the sort of areas we've been filming in, if it had been a conventional film crew I'd have advised them not to bother, just too risky. You'd have to be very careful not to antagonise people and get into trouble. As it was, it was essential to hire security guards who actually came from the area and knew the local people. I found them by asking local builders and housing associations," he says.

Co-operation with the police was crucial. "I had to phone them practically every day to let them know of last minute changes, because of the flexibility of the schedule, but they were great. They looked askance at some members of the cast, though - they knew most of them!"

Brian found the three flats belonging to Joe, Liam and Sarah through the local housing association. "They had to be vacant. We couldn't have subjected anyone living in them to the disruption of coming and going over a period of nearly eight weeks."

Costume Designer - Rhona Russell

Rhona Russell, Costume Designer, worked on Carla's Song and was Assistant Costume Designer for Mike Leigh's Career Girls.

"Loach's films are very research-based," she says, "you search out the reality for each character and situation, finding out how much money they have. For instance, Sarah dresses down for work to fit in when she goes visiting. But, Rhona adds, "When the reality is a cliche, like glitzy gold jewellery, the latest sports gear, we don't use it."

The aim was to produce a studied, casual poverty, based on muted tones, without distracting bright colours. "Because the actors don't know the plot, we have to get a general collection of costumes without giving them clues about what's going to happen. So for Sarah we bought underwear, nightwear, a heavy coat and smart suit. Some things we use, some we don't."

Shooting in sequence can also bring flexibility: "If it gets cold, people can add warm clothing." Maximum flexibility is also needed because "Ken often changes his mind, but he's almost always right!"

When kitting out the boys in the football team, "Ken wanted to keep them looking as they do in life. They brought their own things and we had a collection and they chose their own, to keep their own characters, so we didn't interfere, just weeded out the bright reds and yellows." She adds: "The costume is character-led. It's much better that way. There's no distraction from the actors, the scene or the story. This is what matters, not an attempt to impose a look."

For Joe's character, the basic guideline was that he was unemployed. "But in the AA everyone was very careful about their appearance. Even though it was cheap it was well cared-for, and he had to wear pale colours that would fit in with all sets and at night."

An added difficulty with a Loach film, Rhona says, is that "Once the actors are in the scene you don't get to check them, brush them down if necessary. You feel at first that you're not doing your job, but then you just let them get on with it. It's much more rewarding to work on something you're going to want to watch."

Producer » Rebecca O'Brien

Getting My Name is Joe under way was quite a short process, Rebecca says. Paul Laverty was keen to write a love story that dealt with deprivation and poverty in Glasgow, "so with those ideas in mind, we went to Channel Four's head of drama David Aukin and he commissioned a script, in spring 1996. C4 paid for development but made no other investment in the film apart from paying for the UK Television rights."

The next move was to approach Ulrich Felsberg of Road Movies in Germany as co-producer to help raise the money from more than one source. Road Movies had collaborated on Land And Freedom and Carla's Song. "We wanted to avoid having too much single investment in the film so that we could keep control over it," Rebecca says. Fund raising started in April and May 1997 during a number of meetings at the Cannes Film Festival.

"We decided to raise the money by pre-selling the film in our favourite territories - France, Spain and Italy - to partners we've had long association with, and to Belgium and Switzerland." Taking advantage of the film's strong Scottish content, the producers also applied to the Scottish Lottery which granted £500,000 of investment. They also received £100,000 from the Glasgow Film Fund.

But only a fraction of the money, in the form of a deposit, was given up front, so a bank was needed for cash flow. A daunting legal process was needed for organising letters of credit. "Eventually we settled on the Berliner Bank, which is used to this kind of work for films, with the added advantage that Felsberg is based in Berlin."

The bank was very supportive, Rebecca said, although it imposed extremely rigorous requirements before releasing any money. "So throughout the pre-production period we were walking a tightrope, but we got there at the last minute."

Pre-sales raised 10 per cent of the investment for deposits. Then the Scottish Lottery advanced a pre-production payment, which was "just enough". The bank came through two weeks into the shoot, just when cash was running short. "We had just enough money at each stage, so it was fine."

This is a departure for Parallax. Normally there is a major outside investor, Rebecca says, like British Screen for Land And Freedom, and C4 for Carla's Song. " But becoming our own investors means we should be able to get back more money than usual on this film, which will enable us to have a bit more to invest in future films in terms of script development, and enable Loach's future films to enjoy greater autonomy."

The budget for My Name is Joe is £2.5m "which sounds higher than it is, because we're having to carry a lot of financing costs - bank charges, interest and extra legal charges - that a major investor would normally carry."