If there was one word to describe the incredible emotional challenges of the last few months with COVID-19 and the ‘New Normal’, it is grief.
With statistics showing the global effect of the pandemic on families and professional businesses, many people are in a personal experience that has not been felt in years.
A brand-new short film, MY OTHER SUIT IS HUMAN, attempts to get to the bottom of what happens when a family tragedy begins to affect and impact a couple.
Film And TV Now spoke with director Andrew Montague about the film and his reflections on grief.
FILM AND TV NOW: There is much to reflect on in a film that focuses on the context and effect of grief on a couple. Was this film based on anything in particular?
ANDREW MONTAGUE: I think grief is a powerful feeling that affects us all; a universal theme that everyone can relate to in their lives in one way or another.
It’s not directly based on any one thing, I’ve never known anyone to dress up in a cardboard robot suit, but when I was a teenager, my parents lost a child and I was always struck by how they reacted to dealing with the grief of that heart-breaking event and balancing it with having a loving home for their children.
I was very much the outsider looking in on that situation and that’s how I wanted to approach this, in an observational way, which is why there’s many shots framed looking through doorways and maintaining distance from the characters.
I was recently talking with Simeon Oakes, who plays Stephen in the film, and it was interesting hearing his thoughts on it – he couldn’t imagine moving on if he ever lost a child and we discussed how a lot of couples can’t move past grief like that and I think that’s very true. People come to terms with loss in different ways and different times.
FTVN: The home-made robot suit becomes more than an emotional suit of armour for the wife. Was this the first image that came to mind when you drafted the script?
AM: Absolutely, it’s very much a suit of armour against the sadness of her world, she needs a way to move on and she can’t while she inhabits the space as herself; she needs the suit as protection.
She’s almost able to be herself in it. It was very much an integral part of my first draft and it we carried it with us all the way through. I wanted Zoe to seek refuge in a place where she feels safe and has a connection to her son, who had a love of all things robot.
Our producer, Kira Fitzpatrick, always read the evolution of the suit as Zoe moving through the different stages of grief, which is another interpretation of it.
FTVN: The film uses on occasion very wide-open spaces as a contrast to the containment we sense from this couple’s inner conflicts over the lost of their son. Tell us more about the visual style and context of the film.
AM: Along with the wide-open space and the freedom outside, we intentionally shot the outside as bright and cheerful in direct contrast to a darker inside shots.
The rooms were cooler in colour to reflect the mood of the household. Our cinematographer, Zeta Spyraki, and I felt that the open space emphasised both the containment Zoe is choosing via the cardboard suit, as well as the distance between her and her husband at this incredibly difficult point in their relationship.
These vast tableaus were meant to depict a sort of melancholic beauty that is perfectly still, frozen in time. Myself and Zeta talked about the wide, long shots well in advance and how we wanted to leave a scene to play out with as few shots as possible.
FTVN: Did you do much rehearsal with the actors before shooting?
AM: I intentionally didn’t over-rehearse with them. We met individually to talk about the characters and then twice as a group to workshop scenes and work on their relationship with each other.
One thing I was intent on was having their dialogue come across as natural as possible so we would workshop the key parts and find where the beats were for them and how they would interpret the message. I was always very mindful that I didn’t want a lot of dialogue in the film and was always trimming down, their actions were more powerful than words.
FTVN: Tell us about your cast.
AM: Both cast members were a great find. Simeon, who plays Stephen, was the first person that we saw on our first day of auditions and he just immediately got what we were looking for.
In the call backs, he improved on the emotional struggle that the character was going through, wanting to move on and unable to help his wife. He immediately embodied Stephen for us, and we were so delighted to work with him.
Bethany Blake, who plays Zoe, immediately struck us from the first time we saw her audition tape. She was amazing to work with and truly made the character her own. She immediately understood what I was looking for with regards to Zoe’s repressed emotions and quiet underlying anger that bubbled just under the surface.
I didn’t want them to spend too much time together before filming so that they would more easily keep that unfamiliar distance, and our first day of filming was with just Beth to allow her to truly feel alone in the character and their home.
FTVN: Tell us about your production team.
AM: My production team were fantastically supportive, helping to create an ambitious film with so many creative elements, scheduling work, location scouting to find the perfect house, essentially making the film a reality.
My producer, Kira Fitzpatrick, is just an awesome force to have all throughout filming. She organised absolutely everything to make it happen as well as being a strong creative voice that I could bounce ideas off.
She was behind the film from the first reading of the script and developed it with me and drive it forward to what it has become today. We’re now developing our first feature together through her production company, Abhaile Films.
FTVN: Tell us about your collaboration with your cinematographer Zeta Spyraki.
AM: I had worked with Zeta before on another graduation film from London Film School and I thought that the way she worked and how she was able to frame the light was perfect for what I wanted for My Other Suit Is Human.
I sent her the script when it was in development and she was really excited by it and wanted to come on board for it. We forged a great working relationship very quickly and she understood what I was looking for sometimes without us having to discuss it – it would be a look or one of us simply pointing to something within the frame.
I’m lucky enough to have worked with her again on a music video recently and look forward to working with her on my first feature.
FTVN: How long did it take to shoot and how did you raise finance for the film?
AM: We had a 6 day shoot which was just enough time to get everything, including a location move to the beach on the south coast of England.
We started filming just after a summer heatwave had ended and on our first day we had a massive storm with the rain and wind so strong that it really did threaten the shoot.
Luckily we could shoot indoors! By the last day when we were on the beach, it was a perfect sunny morning with barely a cloud in the sky, which is exactly what we had wanted from the start. We were very fortunate!
For the finance, each graduation film is given £4,500 from London Film School towards their budget. This was augmented by the fact that the script also won an award which gave us access to a camera and lighting package from a London kit hire house, Video Europe.
This enabled us to get the camera that we wanted as well as the lights that made this film look the way it needed to. We raised the rest of the budget through private equity investors, for which I am eternally grateful.
FTVN: As a writer, how does directing a short like this feed into and influence your creativity?
AM: It feeds into and influences my creativity so much. Being able to direct a script like this really develops my voice as a director and gives me a way of telling a story visually as well as what is written on the page.
As a writer, I find myself to be very visual in my descriptions and I feel that helps everyone from the producer to the DP to the production designer to be able to see what is in my head and work towards a common goal.
As a director, I love to be involved in all the aspects of the film, I’m very hands on and especially love to be with the camera and lights team as well as the art dept so with a script like this, I got to be there with everything.
FTVN: What sort of genres and films would you like to explore in future works?
AM: I’m very open to every genre, I love intelligent sci-fi films like Arrival, Solaris and Moon but equally enjoy a witty rom-com like When Harry Met Sally, I’m honestly open to everything, I have a very eclectic taste.
I still feel there’s always more to explore with the theme of relationships whether it focuses on romantic love or friendship and it’s something I try to bring into all my scripts. I’m fascinated by the themes of belonging and coming-of-age and those can be explored in all genres of films.
I would love to look at doing a sci-fi film in the near future though, I think that’s my next goal.
FTVN: You are working on a debut feature film and other short-form content. Tell us a bit more about these if you can share.
AM: I’m collaborating with producer Kira Fitzpatrick again and we are developing a road trip film to be shot in Ireland, where we’re both from.
We’ve always wanted our first feature to be shot in Ireland as we see it as a sort-of homecoming, as we’ve both learnt our trade while living away and we now want to bring ourselves back to work at home.
The film is about relationships and focuses on two siblings in their late 30’s who are experiencing their own coming-of-age journeys and finding out who they are in life and why it hasn’t matched up to their expectations they had when they were younger. I think it’s a very relatable story for a lot of us in our 30’s, looking at where we are versus the expectations we had for our future selves as children based off what were the norms societally.
I’m also working on a couple of shorts which deal with the themes of belonging and being different in the world and these I’m hoping to shoot next year at some point, if possible!
FTVN: Has the film been shown to psychologists and marriage counsellors as a point of reference?
AM: It hasn’t but I would love to and get their opinions on it! When writing the film, I researched various forms of couples counselling and grief therapy to find out the most realistic ways people would react to grief, especially to a death of a child, and people cope in so many different ways, it’s not always what you expect at all.
FTVN: How has COVID-19 affected your creativity and evolution as a film-maker?
AM: I don’t think it’s affected my creativity so much as I have still been writing but it’s definitely had a bit of an impact with timelines and plans. Looking for work alongside writing can be stressful and takes time away from concentrating on project development.
For a writer it’s so important to spend time on just writing, whether it be loose notes or pages of a script. It’s definitely been a difficult time but I’ve just directed my first music video and hopefully that will lead to further projects while I continue to write and prepare for my next directing job.
FTVN: Finally, what are you most proud of about this short film?
AM: I think what I’m most proud about is that it’s as good as I hoped for it to be before we filmed it.
Myself and Kira had such high expectations for this film; for me, having it as my graduation film and my calling card to the film world, competing against thousands of other great short films, I needed it to show what I can do if entrusted with a project and I feel that it met my expectations and has been well received which is what any filmmaker wants.
I wanted it to affect people and for them to feel even a little bit of what either or both of the characters are going through. I’m proud that I got to work with such an amazing cast and crew to make it happen and that I have lasting friendships and professional relationships from it.
