MA Filmmaking graduate Christine Lalla, was recently featured in Cinema Jam's The Spread magazine, having just wrapped on her debut feature THE NEW BOY.
This month The Spread is delighted to feature Christine Lalla. Christine is a writer, filmmaker, cinematographer – you name it, this talented Jammer has probably been involved in some aspect of the creative process.
So with that in mind, I caught up with the London Film School graduate to talk about her past work, current projects and future aims.
Tell us more about yourself Christine
I’ve been a professional photographer since 1990, I have lived in Hong Kong, Paris and Mexico, specialising in action/sports reportage for editorials including GQ, Esquire and Condé Nast Traveller. After graduating as a Cinematographer from The London Film School, I was mentored by Academy Award nominee, Barry Ackroyd BSC. My films have premiered at Locarno, Cottbus and Clermont-Ferrand Film Festivals, and I was nominated for Best Cinematography at Emir Kusturica’s Küstendorf Film Festival in 2012.
In November 2006 I wrote, produced and directed Behind the Crooked Cross, a short documentary on the origins of the swastika and in 2010 I completed another short, Grandad’s Dead, working with six deaf and hard of hearing actors who all communicated the story using British Sign Language.
I am an alumna of the Berlinale Talents and a BSC Club Member.
A member of Directors UK, I’m also a self-shooting director producing documentary, corporate and children’s short films for clients that include The English National Opera.
I have written three feature screenplays and my short script; Slight Return was shortlisted in the Euroscript/Underwire Film Festival 2013 script competition. I am currently in post-production with my first micro-budget feature; The New Boy.
So what is a busy professional like yourself working on at the moment?
I’m currently in post-production for The New Boy – editing at present and will be working with a very talented composer, Jim Hustwit (http://larpmusic.co.uk/) in April 2014 in preparation for the sound mix.
What was your inspiration for The New Boy?
As a cinematographer, I lit numerous shorts and expected to move onto no/low budget independent features after a few years. But this didn’t happen, partly because the feature scripts that I had been offered were unfortunately not great and aside from not wanting to work on films that I do not think are creatively good, it doesn’t matter how good a cinematographer’s work is on a film – if the film is bad, your work is never seen.
Then, three years ago I was fortunate enough to meet Ben Wheatley who encouraged me to write a no budget script, to film in the method he used for his debut feature, Down Terrace, which he shot in eight days with £6K. I was also inspired by Edward Burns, who makes micro-budget feature films, with a crew of only 2 to 3 people, little lighting, no costume/hair/makeup department etc. He manages to do this by limiting his takes, shooting on small DSLR cameras, having fewer locations and moving very fast – so I had a plan.
I set about writing a story about a family’s fall from grace, set in an English village that would take place over one sunny (i.e. available lighting!) cricket season. Unfortunately, I wrote the family as wealthy, owning a huge detached house – and driving two, top of the range cars. Not very no-budget at all but I continued to write it and five weeks later I had a screenplay – Catching Rocks. It was put on the shelf and I thought again about a good subject for a no-budget feature. I’ve always been interested in the difference between love and obsession and once the premise was in my head, I wrote the script for The New Boy in March 2013 with an eye on keeping production costs down. The working title for the film was CNE (The Christopher Nolan Experiment) as I’ve always admired how he made his first feature, Following on a shoestring, filmed over a period of a year at weekends.
Read the full interview here
