5 Questions with Daniel Turner
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
Going to the cinema and watching films was a big part of my childhood, but I don’t think I ever considered that making films might be a possibility for me.
It wasn’t until I was 17 or 18 when I took a film course at school that I started to consider filmmaking as a path I could take.
From that point on, my obsession grew, and I tried to explore as much of cinema history and see as many great films as possible.
2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?
The initial idea came to me just over two years ago, I overheard a fellow film student talking with a lecturer about her arrival in the UK and a problem she faced with her registration for the course.
I wrote a short script inspired by this interaction about a young woman studying abroad and her first day at university. However, at the time I was busy making other projects and so the script was shelved.
Over the course of the next year this script blended with another I had been writing about a routine day in the life of a young woman balancing work and a relationship.
Eventually, I decided that it was the right time to make this film. I began to look for someone to play the lead role and around the same time I coincidentally became friends with the young woman whose original interaction a year and half before had inspired me and luckily enough she agreed to be a part of the film.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most, and the least?
There were a number of things that during prep for this film I imagined would represent quite large challenges when it came to shooting. For example, working with non-actors for the first time and with an extremely small crew (4 people total including myself and cast).
However, the opposite proved to be the case these perceived challenges instead proved to be assets and helped to create the most creatively fulfilling filmmaking experience I have yet been a part of. This is due no doubt in large part to the mutual trust and understanding that had been developed over a number of years between myself and Will Price the film’s director of photography and Richard Lozberg the films editor.
One thing I’ve learned through the films I’ve made, is the importance of presence in all aspects of the creative process. I love the energy of shooting, the palpable sense of constantly needing to be in the moment, it definitely makes all the weeks and months of prep worth it. But I also love the edit as well as it really is the moment when you finally start to bring your film back to life.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
I watched Bob le flambeur on Mubi recently and I really loved it for all the reasons I love so much of Jean-Pierre Melville’s work. Ostensibly it’s a crime or heist film but as with Le Cercle Rouge or Le Samouraï these generic terms fall short in doing justice to the complexities of both character and style present in these films.
I also watched a fantastic short film on No Budge just a few days ago called I’ll say it first which takes such a deceptively simple concept and imbues it with unique personality and energy.
5) What’s next for you?
We are just finishing the grade on two follow-up films to Dvě místa following Anna at two subsequent intervals of her life, which will form a loose trilogy.
Then, in around a month’s time I will be shooting my next short which is a WW2 set film following a young soldier as he comes face to face with his own mortality. It is by far my most ambitious project to date.
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http://vimeo.com/dturner
IG: @dtr93
Twitter: @danielturner493