TD 1
a comedy about loneliness in my instance.” They b
oth bemoan time as the greatest constraint on a shoot. O’Conor remembers “anally timing every shot so I could send to the first AD every night.” On a 21-day shoot, there is “never a moment where you are not freaking out about it” says Butler, “you make economies while shooting, you can buy back time but you never get more.” In contrast he enjoys the “calm” of the editing suite where you can “work things out”. Therefore, casting is of utmost significance. “You can’t make a good film with bad casting. It’s impossible. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of casting. It’s just everything. You can write a brief for a character but until you get to work with them and figure it out, then you can have real confidence about the thing. They show up, off book. Ready to play, hit the marks, give you options, you fall in love with them,” says Butler. Another salient point is what fuels the decisions of directors. “It needs to come from your heart or it won’t affect everyone else,” says O’Conor. “An audience knows. you can tell when they are bored or fidgeting. There’s a constant reappraisal of what I do but you have to find something you believe in.” He cites Joanna Hogg’s steadfast and personal film-making which lead Martin Scorsese to becoming an executive producer on her latest film The Souvenir. One distinguishing feature of both their bit of work, then Treasure, you kind of need it to be for five minutes everywhere she turns someone is telling her, ‘You need to think of this,’ with her saying, ‘What is it? Fuck it, give it to them,’” he laughs. As for releasing their respective features after the festival circuit to a hometown crowd, Butler films are superb soundtracks with Metal Heart clearing a Velvet Underground track from Lou Reed’s estate and Papi Chulo landing Madonna’s Borderline for a central scene. The tenacity and resilience needed for this cannot be understated. “Madonna’s a dear friend. She’s so good to me,” jests Butler. “She sent an e-mail saying she loved the clip and loved for it (Borderline) to be in the film. We had a plan B and C and shot three different songs. Matt (Bomer) did a good is under no illusion about this significance. “Anyone who doesn’t say it’s important is not being entirely truthful. We grew up here. This is where we were formed and the audience you most want to connect with. As a writer, much of this is to get a sense you are not alone. You write something and it’s like a distress flare you are putting out into the world and hoping other people see it. That is massively important.” Papi Chulo is released on June 7 and Metal Heart on June 28. See reviews in Film (page 76 & 77) IG & Twitter: @mrjohnbutler @hughoconor 34