No fuzzy pic for Shane Meadows, I'm afraid - another sellout talk in a huge cinema venue.
This was another great event - he has lots of interesting stories and has worked with some good people.
He made a whopping 15 short films before his first international success, and says he likes to draw subjects from real life. This seems evident in his films - many of which are semi-autobiographical in some way.
He talked about the fact that he has known the brilliant Paddy Constantine for a long time - they both went on a drama HND course together - and both left early on. Apparently Paddy's best role whilst there was as a topless woodcutter.
Shane reckoned that improvision is integral to his films, and that from Romeo Brass onwards he has "let the characters tell the story." It's a similar ethos to that of a fair number of writer/directors I've heard speak in the last couple of years - this idea of an on set collaboration with half-formed scenes taken to rehearsals. It's not something I think screenwriters should linger on though - we need to make the story and characters within a script as brilliant as possible, we can't afford to leave character holes for the actors to plug on set.
I need to catch up on my Shane Meadows films - I haven't seen anything except some of This is England (HOW?!). He was there with his new film Somers Town, which has received good reviews so far. After seeing a clip of it, I also quite fancy A Room for Romeo Brass.
