We chat to director Oliver Blair about how he walked a fine line between tragedy and comedy to depict grief in his witty, yet poignant, debut short film, The Tree, which follows two characters dealing with the loss of their father…
How does it feel to see your first short film out there in the world?
You cannot understand the level of relief I’m feeling. When you make films at university, it's a completely different ballgame because the only pressures you've got are from your tutors and your peers – whereas with a film like this, you’re motivating yourself, and I owe that to the cast and crew. The best way I felt like I could pay it back to them is by getting this film to be the best it could be and then firing it out there. It feels like a big anchor off of my neck.
You funded the whole thing yourself, right? What advice would you give to someone who's looking to make their own fully self-funded film?
Accept your limitations. I see a lot of filmmakers trying to make very big set pieces – they can be done on a budget, but I always like to put the money into the comfort of the cast and crew. Everybody understands that there’s a currency of passion, and if you build up that network around you, then it's a lot easier. Accept your limitations, but absolutely push them as far and as hard as you can.
I think this film may have set a new record for the highest number of F-bombs squeezed into twenty minutes, but Joel Morris and Hayley Thomas deliver them in such an amusing and authentic way. Did you write the script with these two stars in mind?
I didn't. I knew Joel beforehand, but I didn't know that he was going to perform it the way that he did. I always had it in my head as more of a comedy than a drama, so when I wrote those F-bombs, they were a lot more for comedy value rather than anger. I was going to go through a huge casting process, but as soon as Joel had read this for me, I knew that he was exactly who I wanted. The performance that he gives is spellbinding. The same goes for Hayley – she's totally not like that in person, so to watch her get to that level of anger was brilliant.
In small towns like Ilkeston, there aren't a lot of arts projects, but everybody is creative through comedy. It's through ribbing each other, tearing down those walls and absolutely tearing each other apart
We interviewed Assistant Director Alex Withers last year about his short film Dead Quiet, which was also really impressive. Do you think there's any overlap between the two projects?
I Second AD’d Dead Quiet, and Alex himself is one of my best friends and very much a mentor for me in the film industry. In terms of overlap, I would say British realism. He comes from a small town in Leicester and I come from a small town in Nottinghamshire, so I think our values align, very much so. To have Alex join us on this project – and every other crew member as well – was a green light for quality, because a lot of these people wouldn't step onto a project in the way that they did if the script wasn't good.
Did you draw from any of your own experiences with grief for this project?
I did. In small towns like Ilkeston, there aren't a lot of arts projects, but everybody is creative through comedy. It's through ribbing each other, tearing down those walls and absolutely tearing each other apart. You're not trying to send anybody home crying – you're trying to cheer them up and detach them from the situation by looking at it objectively, and it's a really good way of processing grief. When I was nineteen, my grandad died of stomach cancer. It was like he was fine, and then six weeks later, he was gone. It happened so fast that the trauma was much more long-term, but it was those kinds of moments that got us through it.
Everybody made it a little bit of themselves, and for that I’m eternally grateful
What can people who enjoyed The Tree look forward to from you and your collaborators in the future?
I've got a feature I'm writing, but it’s a little higher-budget and I don't know if people are willing to take a chance on me just yet. So I think there's going to be another short film between now and then, but I haven't committed to one yet. I find it harder to identify with characters that aren't like myself, so I'm looking to collaborate with another writer on the next project. That’s my big plan.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
When I picked Joel up for the rehearsals, he’d written out [his character] James’s favourite food, song and film, and really boiled him down. Hayley had done the same, and they started finding connections between their characters, and one was that they both had memories of Skegness. We built that into the soundtrack at the end with a jaunty piano tune, like a kids’ amusement ride, and so they managed to work their own influence into the film – and the same goes for all the crew. It was the most fantastic experience to see that from this one seed, everything just sort of grew… like a tree, right? God, please don’t keep this in. Everybody made it a little bit of themselves, and for that I’m eternally grateful.
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