POR T R A I T OF A DIR ECT OR
INTERVIEWWITH LONDONBASEDGILESALDERSON Rosalind Winton met Giles Alderson in London to discuss f ilm production, The Filmmakers Podcast and breaking into the f ilm industry. ROSALIND. What made you want to go into filmmaking? GILES. The only two things I loved doing when I was young were football and acting. I played football in the youths and under 18?s for Bradford City FC, but even at a young age, it was a case of: If you could do anything, what would it be ? football or acting? At Bradford, I wasn't first choice; I was the reserve keeper and I was just not making it. I wasn't confident enough. A teacher told me I had been great in a school play, so she put me on a performing arts course for acting. I thought it was amazing... I watched all the guys get the lead roles, getting all the girls, getting all the adulation, getting all the joy and I thought: Hang on, I want this. This looks really fun. Then I had that ?bee in my bonnet?and the passion to want to do it and, yeah, I did everything I could to make that happen.
I went to university, then I went to drama school, then I acted for ten years, and I was writing... I was at the Royal Court Theatre for Young Writers. I was always putting on plays and directing them. I still didn't really think I could be a director as a job, and then, the acting took off with some big films and big telly. During that time we were writing and producing a sitcom for the BBC and the director couldn't do it last minute, so I just sort of put my hand up and said that I would do it; and in terms of knowing what I wanted to do, it was the best thing I ever did. I fell in love in that moment with how incredible it could be, to create something and actually know where I wanted the camera to be, how I wanted it to look and suddenly I'm creating this magic and this wonderful world ? I absolutely loved it, but I still didn't know how to turn that into a career. So, while I was acting, I made loads of corporates and music videos, brand media promo specs, [and] I wrote scripts and feature films and just really tried to make something. Then I made a load of shorts and did really well ? started to win awards for them ? and I remember, at that time, it just turned, something just turned the corner, and I kept getting work in as a director and... yeah, it became full time. ROSALIND. Tell me about ?The Dare?, it sounds really interest ing. GILES. In the last couple of years, I have managed to direct The Dare feature film, which I think could be a big one; and directed and produced the World of Darkness documentary. I also produced the black comedy A Serial Killer's Guide to Life, so it was a big year last year, and the year before; which is really interesting for me, because you wait so long and there are so many heartaches ? so many things go wrong during that time. Jason Statham and Noel Clark were attached to a project and Fox Searchlight was saying: "Yeah, we love your script. We love you guys, brilliant." Then something just fell down, something wasn't real; it wasn't a concrete offer to Jason and Noel, or he was too expensive, and because of that it just faded into the background. You get so disillusioned and you, personally, end up being the commodity, you become the problem, as in: We love your project, we love what's happening here, but you haven't done anything, you've not directed anything big ? short films don?t count to them ? so we can't give you this big project, even though you created it. ROSALIND. It 's credibilit y, isn' t it? GILES. Yes, it's credibility. I thought that instead of being devastated, I?d do another project [and] let's make it really low budget, but that budget just went up and up, because everyone liked the project, names would get banded around and then you're in the same situation, which must have happened three times. Then The Dare came about. It was two ideas I turned into one: the first was like the film Sleepers, in a way ? four kids and what would happen if
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Giles Alderson & Richard Brake on set of The Dare
