Ben Gregor
Ben Gregor makes his directorial debut this week as he brings the fun and family friendly All Stars to the big screen - a dance movie with a strong social message.
We caught up with the director to chat about the film, stepping into feature film and what lies ahead.
- All Stars hits the big screen next week so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
All Stars is about a bunch of kids who are having the place that they love taken away in the cutbacks and they have to decide whether to just suck it up or do something about it. It seems that that is happening for a lot of people at the moment with facilities being taken away and stuff like this.
And they get together - they don’t all care about it and the have to persuade each other to get involved - and it involved a lot of music, loud noise and dancing.
- So where did this project start for you and what was the attraction of Paul Gerstenberger's script?
I grew up skateboarding and would often be stopped by my dad, who would take my skateboard away, so I would do better school work - but that would never work because it just mean that I would think about it ten times more.
And so I really related to Jaden’s character as he is a kid who is under a lot of pressure and is being stopped from doing the things that he loves - so much so that he is seeing it everywhere.
With Paul’s brilliant script I wanted to adapt it and reset it inside kid’s imaginations so that’s why with Jaden I was like ‘he will see what he loves everywhere and when he is doing an exam he will climb inside the exam and fight origami samurai and we will explore everything with crazy sets’ and everyone was just like ’what on earth are you talking about?’
Luckily producer Allan Niblo was like ’just let him do it, don’t ask too many questions’. And it has turned out alright but it really was a lot of trust.
It was great to work with a production company that are really unusual in the sense that they trust their directors and don’t sit on them and to tell this story about a boy who is not allowed to do what he wants.
- As you say this film tackles the idea of facilities being taken away and that is something that is quite topical at the moment so how much was that a draw for you - without wanting to deliver too much of a message movie?
It was a big draw and we added more to it as we went along. We went back on the re-shoots - we had picked up some extra things to shoot - to film Ashley Jensen’s speech inside the council chamber about ‘you can’t allow money to decide the fate of our children’.
It was really about how the free market has failed us and young mothers and people who are not immediate generating wealth are treated like second class citizens by this country - which is insane.
It does make me angry if I am honest but instead of making a ranting film I wanted to make a film that makes it so blatantly obvious that we need to do something about it.
But I also wanted to do it in a fun way that touches a lot of people that people will change their minds. It’s like dealing with kids if I get annoyed at my kids then it doesn’t have any effect but if you show them in a way that is more involving then they change their way that they think about things.
So I wanted to try that with the cuts ad austerity and make the world’s first anti-austerity dance movie.
- All Stars marks you feature length directorial debut so how have you found the transition from TV and shorts into film?
It has been brilliant, it is so much better. It is impossible to go back now and I will never do TV again (laughs). It is just brilliant and you make it will more love because you have so much more time. The people who work on it love it and it is more exciting for people what it is on the big screen.
But you are asking more of an audience with All Stars because it is not from a book and so it doesn’t have a following wind - most projects for families and kids they are related to something that is already out there.
So we are relying on a ground swell of love and affection for this film because if that doesn’t happen no one will see this film. In a way it is more risky because with TV is in on in the corner of the room and so you may see it.
But we are saying ‘it is a Saturday afternoon and the sun is shining but don’t go to the park come to the cinema’ it is such a big deal and so you really have to deserve people coming to see your film.
So that was the challenge and I don’t know if people will come and see it - I hope that they do because I think that they will really love it if they do.
- The cast list is a mix of new and young talent such as Theo Stevenson and established actors such as Ashley Jenson so can you tell me a bit about the casting process and what you were looking for?
With Ashley Jensen she was the only name on my list as I have always loved Ashley as she is just so funny and disarming and wonderful. I was just basically begging her to do it and she agreed. So that was that casting process done and that was pretty easy (laughs).
With the kids I wanted to cast actors rather than dancers because if you love the kids then it won’t matter if they can dance or not. And I was saying this and everyone was just open mouthed saying ‘What? This is a dance film’ and I was going ‘it is a film with heart that has got dancing in it.
As it happens Kenrick Sandy, who choreographed the Opening Ceremony at the Olympics, was our choreographer got them dancing really well.
It was great that that happened but they were actors and they were people and they were characters - that was what was so cool about the casting process as some of them really couldn’t dance when I cast them in the lead roles. It didn’t matter because they were kids and you liked them.
- They always say that you should never work with children and animals so how did you find working them?
I think if you want an easy life then you shouldn’t work with them but it really is more rewarding working with kids. When you see something happen for the first time when you are filming and it is brilliant and crazy.
Kids have that weird insightfulness and logic that we don’t have, we have lost it and cannot get it back, so when you see it and you capture it then it is brilliant.
Of course it is challenging as there are all these rules about how long you can film them for - which are very punishing to be honest, especially on a small indie film - but you just go with it.
- You don't really have a background in dance or music videos so how did you find working on the choreographed scenes?
I had done The Midnight Beasts, an internet band, and we had done a series for Channel 4 and done a series of music videos with them but it was a very different scale.
I don’t speak choreographer and I think that that was a good thing because we worked at it in a different way. I wanted the choreography to come from the heart and not be too clinical and I feel like the kids were always doing stuff on their own and I think that we really did that.
Akai’s dance sequence when he is in the garage doing his own thing he just sits down in a chair half way through - which is unheard of in a dance sequence - but I just thought ‘he is going to be tired. Let this be more of private and intense moment where he is doing it for himself’.
And they liked that because it was different. I wanted to make a slightly wonky film a bit like the eighties films. When you watch an eighties film now the edits are slightly wonky and everything is wonky but the likes of ET and The Goonies are wonderful and films with heart.
I think that it was a good thing that I wasn’t a dancer and don’t know anything about dance because I wasn’t saying ‘do this move here or do that move there’ because I was lust like ‘he needs to be more angry or more funny’.
I think that the idea that it is not a dance film is good because I think a lot of dance films like Step Up are all about perfection and it doesn’t feel like what dancing is all about for me.
We have been on a national tour and went to the Venus Dance School in Bristol and been to amazing youth groups in Cardiff and have seen what kids are like dancing; they are all shapes and sizes and they are having a ball and going for it.
It is not about being perfect and executing your moves perfectly it is about being with your mates and jumping about. That is what I wanted to shoot and that is what I did shoot (laughs).
- It’s interesting that you have mentioned ET and The Goonies as they are widely regarded as two of the best kid’s films of all time and they really don’t make movies like that anymore. So how much did you want to emulate that?
Those are the movies that I want to make. I am here now and those are the movies that I want to make. I love The Secret Garden as well as it is a movie that is so from the heart and about kids and dads and identity.
So many films are about ‘I am doing a heist’, so what? Or my girlfriend is this or that. Much more visceral for me is my dad as you not going to get another dad. The relationship with your kids and the relationship with you parents is so much more visceral and interesting.
Making friends, growing up and coming of age is so brilliant and I think that kid’s films have got quite serious and they have all got quite moody.
These are three hour long movies that are all so intense and it is great to be moody sometimes but not all the time.
A movie like ET has this emotional bit as everyone cries when ET is taken away but that is because you have laughed and got involved and movies that give you that journey are the way to go.
A lot of Hollywood movies now will suddenly do the emotional bit and it will feel like such a horrible change of gear and so cheesy. I think that making movies that are a bit more shambolic, a bit more heart and a bit more reflective of what it is like to be alive is what I want to do.
All the other films are completely awesome and I am not dissing them but I just like that feeling that people are trying - T.S. Elliot said ‘it’s the trying that counts’ and for me that is very true.
- This is also your first time working in 3D so how was that experience?
3D is amazing. People see 3D as a very cynical gimmick as a way of extracting more money from an audience but actually it is an incredible new dimension.
It takes a long time to shoot, there’s no doubt about it, those cameras don’t like coming in and out of trucks they like to be in a studio. But when you get it it is amazing.
To shoot Trillick Tower and bits around London that you have seen that are not the most glamorous places - we shot on Dalston, Trillick, and South East London and when you shoot these places in 3D they suddenly look lovely. I would definitely shoot another 3D movie, I love 3D I think it’s amazing.
- And how have you found the early response to the movie so far?
Pretty incredible. People go crazy at the end of screenings; teachers are punching the air during some of the more political speeches while parents are hugging me in tears saying ‘I can’t believe that I have seen a movie that I don’t hat that my kids like’.
It just feels like people are being disarmed by it because it has heart and I can’t ask for more than that.
- I mentioned earlier that this was your feature film debut so how did you background in TV and shorts prepare you for this?
Working with actors has been really good in telly as I have worked with Johnny Vegas as they taught me a lot about what honesty is on screen. Someone like Johnny is a very honest guy, really raw and a really brilliant and beautiful man.
I have been really lucky with who I have worked with. I like to make a slick look so it looks lovely and luscious but keep the acting performances really honest - and I think that is what I have learned from TV.
- Finally what's coming up next for you?
Well I am going to be doing some more films for young adults; one in the UK and one in the States. I really like the idea of continuing to make films for young people and the next one with be more for fifteen and sixteen year olds.
But I don’t want them to be too moody and brooding - I don’t think I will ever make a brooding film - I just want to make something that is touching and funny and stories that are vibrant and look good up there on the big screen.
I am also doing quite a lot of youth work down in London Bridge with Kid’s Company - I have set up a youth music video scheme for kids in care called Dead Rappers Society. The kids write songs and we make music videos and we are about to have our first screening of our work from that.
All Stars is released 3rd May