A dream job bossing Oscar-winning actors
IT is not often a 28-year-old local guy gets to direct an Oscar-winning actor. But Johannesburg filmmaker Mark Middlewick can now put that on his CV.
Established in 2012 by Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti’s Trigger Street production company, the Jameson First Shot competition gives emerging filmmakers the chance to make a short film starring an established Hollywood star that screens on YouTube.
In 2012, that Hollywood star was Spacey himself, in 2013 it was Willem Dafoe and last year three winners got to make films with Uma Thurman. In previous years the competition was open to entrants from Russia, South Africa and the US. This year 1 700 entries came from eight countries, and three winners got to make their short films with Oscar winner Adrien Brody. One of them was Middlewick.
A graduate of the film programme at the University of the Witwatersrand, Middlewick has directed acclaimed music videos for local artists such as Nakhane Touré, Matthew Mole and Shadowclub.
He also directed Security, a short film screened at several international festivals. A passionate devotee of the French New Wave and ’70s Hollywood films, Middlewick’s work is noticeable for dark, sombre atmospheres.
Of the usual First Shot competition entries, he said: “They’re kind of quirky and light and that’s normally not my thing. I normally only do heavy.”
His winning idea is called Mascot and tells the story of a seemingly mundane everyman whose alter ego is an exuberant mascot for a basketball team.
Middlewick spent two days in Los Angeles shooting the eight-minute film, which will premiere at the end of this month.
In 2012, he tried his luck in the competition — which is open to writers and directors who have never made a featurelength film — without success.
Middlewick was intrigued by the choice of Brody as this year’s actor.
“In a weird way Adrien reminded me of my brother, who’s also quite an intense guy. So I wrote a character around that. Even though on paper it sounds like a twee, quirky story, it’s a Trojan horse. It’s not a rip-roaring fun time. It takes a dark turn.”
I had fun and I love directing. You get to have an opinion about everything
Middlewick said he enjoyed working with Brody. “Not to put down our actors here, but I didn’t need to coach out a performance because he brought so much to the table coming in,” he said.
“You realise that the standard that he’s working at . . . even for a short film, which he didn’t need to necessarily do any work for, he’d really gone above and beyond.”
Middlewick described winning the competition as something “that gets your foot in the door”. He’s working on two feature projects, one personal and one with the National Film and Video Foundation.
“I had fun and I love directing. It’s fantastic — you get to boss people and have an opinion about everything. It’s a dream job and you don’t have to have a tangible skill. What other job could I do in the world where I don’t have to know anything?”