Beatles-inspired film wins prize
ASHORT film directed by an Edge Hill lecturer which reimagines a Beatles song while experimenting with the concept of time has won a top award.
A Day in the Life (24 Zero Hours), directed by media lecturer Carl Hunter and written by Liverpool’s Frank Cottrell Boyce, has won the Short Fiction prize at the London Labour Film Festival’s International Contest.
Carl worked alongside producers Roy Boulter and Sol Papadopoulos from Liverpool’s Hurricane Films on the short.
Clare Heney, who lectures in film and documentary, was responsible for all the additional photography in the film.
Third year film studies with film production student Faye Darwent is also credited as a camera assistant.
Starring legendary Liverpool comic Tom O’Connor as retired river captain Arthur and rising star Paislie Reid as Ellie, his carer, the film takes a ride on Liverpool’s famous 86 bus – the route which Paul McCartney took to school – and beyond, though the space-time continuum.
Carl said: “I’m really pleased to win this award, especially given it is a Labour Film Festival which highlights inequality and justice.”
He added: “I’m a big Beatles fan so to be involved in a reimagining of the song A Day in the Life with Frank Cottrell Boyce was a pleasure.
“It’s a film based on Sgt Pepper so we asked ourselves ‘what would the Beatles do?’
“So we made an experimental film, exactly how we thought the Beatles’ music would be if it became a movie. “We made a film which isn’t real.” The film plays heavily with the concept of time, comparing the two free hours of Ellie’s day after her caring duties with that of Arthur who counts time only by the tide-schedule.
Experimenting with how the Beatles music would be if it were a movie, the soundtrack makes use of actual sound clips from Venus and Mars supplied by NASA.
Sol Papadopoulos of Hurricane Films said: “The film was a cinematic response to the track (of the same title) from the inspiring Sgt Pepper album as part of the 50-year celebration of its release.
“Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce and director Carl Hunter decided to play on different people’s perception of time – a zero-hour care worker and her patient with Alzheimer’s.
“Hurricane Films are thrilled to have the film recognised by the festival.”
The short was part of the Sgt Pepper at 50 programme, commissioned and produced by the City of Liverpool.
The producers, writer and director behind A Day in the Life are currently collaborating on a feature film, Triple Word Score, starring Bill Nighy.