June 27, 2007
'...nice bottom' in the Daily Mail
The lovely Sophia Myles (plays Kate Breck in Hallam Foe) appeared in the Daily Mail the other day and managed to squeeze a remark about Jamie's bum into the interview...
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April 11, 2007
My Movie Mash Up Mention
Hallam Foe got a brief mention in last Thursdays Times Online article about the My Movie Mash Up idea that is running on MySpace at the moment.
What might entrants deduce about Film4’s thinking from its forthcoming productions? They include Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten , Julien Temple’s look at the Clash’s frontman; Shane Meadows’s already acclaimed skinhead saga This is England ; and David Mackenzie’s Edinburgh-set romance Hallam Foe , starring Jamie Bell. With a £1 million budget, the MyMovieMashUp winner is unlikely to be a lavish period drama or a large-scale action epic with special effects.
Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell
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March 2, 2007
The 4th Estate
DM signs his picture at the world premiere of Hallam Foe
I have been doing a little online press research, so here are the fruits of my labour so you don't have to go trawling yourself if you can't be bothered. If there's anything I have missed that is particularly interesting please feel free to leave a link to it in the comments.
The ScotsmanCity sets the scene for David's latest dark tale
The Scotsman
Peeping Tom movie spies global successJust Jared
Jamie Bell: Fee Fie Hallam Foe Fum
Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell
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February 22, 2007
IS IT GRIM? THEN BEAR IT.
JAMES CHRISTOPHER FROM THE TIMES SHOWS STRONG SUPPORT FOR HALLAM FOE
The Berlin Film Festival may have developed one of the biggest markets outside Cannes, but the lack of a single outstanding film made a mockery of this year’s competition. A good Berlin can set the agenda for the entire international circuit. This, though, was desperate. Who knows what devils beset the jury on the final day, but it seemed clear that the wrong Chinese film walked off with the Golden Bear.
Tuya De Hun Shi (Tuya’s Marriage), directed by the 42-year-old Wang Quanan, is a worthy melodrama about a nomadic Mongolian family under pressure to leave the steppes and move to a grim industrial town. Moving, sure, but hardly novel in terms of subject matter or craft.
The more spicy contender was the 33-year-old Li Yu’s controversial Ping Guo (Lost in Beijing , pictured above right) — a film destined to be cut to ribbons by the Chinese censors, if and when this female director (an oriental rarity) is allowed to release it back East.
Ping Guo is a sour and bracingly modern comedy about two couples on either side of the financial chasm in down-town Beijing. Lin Dong (Tony Leung), the owner of the Gold Basin Foot Massage Palace, is caught raping his top masseuse by her aggrieved young husband. Rage cools to compromise when Tony Leung promises the couple a huge sum of money in return for their silence, and even more when the childless boss discovers that he might be the father of the girl’s unborn baby. The dodgy politics, murky deals and sweaty sex scenes are very unChinese.
The winners of the Silver Bears made no sense. Julio Chávez won Best Actor and the director Ariel Rotter (an unfortunate monicker) picked up the Jury Grand Prix for El Otro (The Other), an impenetrable Argentinian/French/ German fantasy about a couple of dead strangers on a business trip.
The best films were sadly not in competition, or they were fobbed off with lesser prizes. David Mackenzie’s peeping-tom thriller Hallam Foe deserved far better than a Silver Bear for Film Music.
Jamie Bell is terrific in the title role. The star of Billy Elliot star has been aching for a serious break-out role and they don’t get much stronger than this. Bell plays a loner convinced that his father’s new wife murdered his mother. The more convinced Bell becomes of his stepmother’s guilt, the more she sexually appeals.
Determined to break this weird spell, he flees to Edinburgh and finds work in a hotel. He promptly starts stalking the personnel manager (Sophia Myles), who bears an uncanny resemblance to his dead mother. The queasy tension is cleverly turned into an unlikely romance when Bell tries to save her from another admirer. A splintering comedy lies between Bell’s naivety and the director’s mordant camera.
Morgan Spurlock’s brilliant idea for creating a super-sized buzz was to screen a few precious minutes of his next documentary, The Hunt for Osama Bin Laden , to a select audience of buyers who had to sign a 98-page confidentiality agreement not to discuss it with a soul, living or dead. Harvey Weinstein, naturally, bought it.
There are a handful of other gems coming this way. Sparkle , a romantic comedy by Neil Hunter and Tom Hunsinger, the duo who made Lawless Heart (2001), is a serious charmer about love and how to lose it in the slippery world of public relations. Shaun Evans finds his loyalties tied in knots by Stockard Channing, Amanda Ryan, Lesley Manville and Bob Hoskins.
Jacques Rivette’s compelling period drama Ne Touchez Pas La Hache (Don’t Touch the Axe), based on a Balzac novella, creaks like a pair of starched britches. But Guillaume Depardieu (who recently had a leg amputated after a motorcycle accident) is utterly compelling as an angry French general who has his affections rudely toyed with in various ballrooms and boudoirs by a beautiful aristocrat (Jeanne Balibar).
James Christopher, The Times, 22 Feb 2007.
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February 20, 2007
Press Cuttings
Photo courtesy of Berlin Film Festival
The Hollywood Reporter / 17 February 2006
By Kirk Honeycutt
Bottom Line: Most entertaining comic drama with a great turn by Jamie Bell.
"Hallam Foe,"..... a juicy character for the talented and increasingly ubiquitous Jamie Bell to run with. It's a showy part, but the movie ably supports it with splendid use of Edinburgh, Scotland's cityscapes, a basket full of startling surprises in the screenplay and characters without a fleck of sentimentality. With muscular marketing, the highly entertaining movie, written (with Ed Whitmore) and directed by David Mackenzie, could move beyond the art house niche in Europe and North America.
Rock bottom, what is going on beneath the crowded and quite funny surface of this film, is a lad going through hell following the sudden death of his mother. Hallam (Bell) has one question about her drowning in the lake next to the family's country home: Was it an accident? If not, he has a suspect: Verity (Claire Forlani), his dad's seductive secretary, who married Julius Foe (Ciaran Hinds) much too quickly following his mother's death.
His grief and anger express themselves in odd ways. Retreating to an elaborate childhood tree house, Hallam takes to spying on his dad and new wife through binoculars. Then one day, a fed-up Verity climbs into his tree house and seduces him! That's some stepmother.
Hallam understandably flees, winding up penniless on the streets of Edinburgh. He quickly finds a place to roost, where he continues his spying proclivities. One woman who catches his attention bears a shocking resemblance to his late mother. He follows Kate (a winsome Sophia Myles) to a deluxe hotel where she is the personnel director. After a brief though strange encounter, she hires him as a kitchen worker. He continues to follow and watch Kate only to make the awful discovery that she is having an affair with the hotel manager, Alasdair (Jamie Sives), a married man. Alasdair becomes aware of Hallam's activities, fires him, but then is forced to rehire him when Hallam pulls off an audacious, cheeky stunt.
One night, Hallam goes drinking with his mother's look-alike and winds up in her bed. Strange things happen in this movie. Indeed, there are echoes of Alfred Hitchcock, especially the voyeurism of "Rear Window," the sexual obsession with a look-alike in "Vertigo" and even the mysterious drowning death in "Rebecca."
But the movie never becomes a thriller as Mackenzie is more interested in his characters and the emotions that run when a son loses his mother early. You don't have to buy this character completely to enjoy the movie.
Hallam Foe is a rather fictional conceit, no matter how you look at him. As he scampers along the rooftops and darts through open windows and passageways, he is the Phantom of the Opera with an obsession with a beautiful young woman and Spider-Man with his boyish obsession with solving crime.
This is the fun of the film. It's serious, but then again it's not. The story is rooted in the grim emotion of paralyzing grief, yet the story is wildly entertaining and in its sex scenes even a bit kinky. Kate's signature line is: "I like creepy men." So does the filmmaker.
Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens turns staid Edinburgh into a glittery, stately presence, especially in night shots, while Tom Sayer's production design creates a world of undergrounds and rooftops. Colin Monie's editing keeps things at a nimble pace, which is aided by an astute use of pop songs for the musical score.
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December 21, 2006
Kodak article
Below is a link to an article about Hallam Foe on the Kodak website. All in it is a very interesting read, but there are two glaring inaccuracies; in the 2nd and 3rd photos on the page the writer has got David and Giles muddled up, Giles has heavily cropped hair and David doesn't. That should clear things up for anyone confused by the varying blurb that goes with the stills.
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/inCamera/oct2006/hallamFoe.jhtml
Enjoy.
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December 11, 2006
Flags of Our Fathers
Flags of our Fathers
The latest of Mr. Bell in the press, an article here, from the Independent again, about JB's forthcoming release, Flags of Our Fathers.
Here's a quote to whet your appetite, but I recommend the rest of the article...
After King Kong and Flags of Our Fathers, Hallam Foe must have been quite a contrast. "It is financially," says Bell, "but money has never been a major attraction for me to do anything. The most important thing for me during these years, from the age of 17 until now, has just been about discovering who I am as an actor, working with some interesting people, and just trying to make my mark. And the thing all the films I've done have in common is that the director has a great passion. I go into meetings with some film-makers and they literally have nothing to say, they're almost bored by their own material. I'd rather work with people who are very passionate and very animated about what they want to do. People who just want to tell stories."
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/features/article2062643.ece
Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell
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December 8, 2006
4th Estate
We have a little press coverage in an article in the Independent from an interview with Sophia Myles.
Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell
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November 16, 2006
Blog hits NME
Now I have to plead a little surprise here. I do not consider myself any kind of authority on music at all, so to be sent a link to the NME this morning that directly quotes the blog I find pretty amusing.
Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell
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November 13, 2006
Franz chat for the Record
Fellow movie-blogger Sue Upton very kindly sent me this article she spotted in the Glasgow Daily Record. I have been following some other news too and should be able to bring you a piece from BBC6 later today. This is available on the BBC site, but they don't actually get round to talking to Alax Kapranos until about 2hrs into the program and then it cuts out. This is quite frustrating when you have been listening to it for the express purpose of trying to pinch a soundbite. Karma stepping in on the theft issue there perhaps.
Anyway, it would seem that the article link below stems from a combination of info gleaned from that radio show and our blog anyway.
It's not so surprising to see something about Hallam Foe in the Glasgow press, particularly when linked to FF. Word is defintely going global though and there is now a post in Russian on one of our main commenters blogs, Helegis. Maybe we could get a translation?
Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell
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November 1, 2006
Marketing Week
Here is the article that was printed in Marketing Week. It features very insightful comments about the blog as film marketing tool from Gia, Hugh and of course my good self. Enjoy.
Marketing Week 26th October 2006
In the spirit of this blog (revealing the content of the flame) here is the email correspondence between myself and the journalist:
GH Colin - any chance of getting answers to these qu's this morning? I have to send the story by mid-afternoon. Hope you can help,
Why market a film via blog?
CK Blogs are very accessible, they’re easy for an audience to track and they’re relatively inexpensive and simple to create, certainly in terms of technology at least. They allow an immediacy that is not available anywhere else because there is the option to create a dialogue between whatever endeavour you’re involved in (not just applicable to film) and you’re audience. This is interesting in terms of film because you can bring your audience that much closer to an ultra-protected environment but in a far more genuine inclusive form than other media. Or at least that’s how we have approached this project, we have wanted to lift the lid on the filmmaking process and share the secrets for those interested.
Truth is though that this is an area that’s developing and the only limits to what you can do with it from a marketing PoV are your imagination. I know people who are doing some quite experimental stuff at the moment and we will be pushing the bounds of what we’re doing as we develop, both for Hallam Foe and other films too – but you’ll have to keep an eye on the blog to find out more about that.
GH What are the key differences with more traditional film marketing methods?
CK Traditional media know they’re audiences very well and have solid foundations that people understand, are used to working with and interpreting, so they can target very specific audiences through established channels with a good degree of confidence. This is good and bad to my mind, trad media are very expensive and bound by tight rules of engagement. The advantage of the blog, especially at the moment as people conduct experiments and try to find the most advantageous ways of using it as a tool, is that there are no bounds to what you can do and the audience is potentially enormous, limited only by peoples access to technology.
Currently, the blog is the main online presence for Hallam Foe and we have no plans to change that, but we are working across many many sites and building a network that will make the presence of the film online formidable and it’s due to blogging. Also, we’re doing this on a comparatively small film competing on a stage with far bigger projects, so we need a means of getting in amongst it all that’s as effective as possible in terms of engaging an audience and making a some noise.
GH Hugh was telling me about the importance of 'the conversation' and how the pre-screening for bloggers, with Stormhoek thrown in, played directly into this. What's your take on that?
CK We have been able to engage an audience far earlier in the process than would happen with traditional media (where the audience is targeted and engaged in the few weeks prior to release). The thinking behind this is that we will engender a following that are not only interested in seeing the end product but that are complicit in the success of the film because they have been involved by the filmmakers and have greater impetus to discuss or debate the film, particularly once they have seen it and can then really recommend it with a real degree of authority.
GH I can see the dual attraction of low financial outlay and conversational marketing being quite attractive for a lot of different products/services. Do you see any other benefits to blogging the film process? For instance, has it directly impacted on the creative direction of the film?
CK David did originally put the script online for people to comment on and make suggestions, script writings equivalent to open-source marketing. But I don’t think in this instance it was a particularly successful experiment – I don’t think that should necessarily preclude it from being successful in the future though.
It’s great to have a record of all the things that have happened over the months of production, that’s something that we will always have as archive material surrounding the film and can refer back to. Also as people increasingly watch movies in an environment which is permanently online there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to navigate on from the movie into an online realm where you can have as much related material as you like, I can see archival material being very important in a situation like that.
It’s also helped hugely on the publicists side, all early interest in the film from the press or fans is catered to in a form that the production have complete control over so it has worked very well in conjunction with the publicists work.
Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell
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October 24, 2006
Channel 4 Ideasfactory
...are interviewing me about the blog today.
This is the second interview in as many weeks, last week was Marketing Week.
The whole thing about going on record about what you say really makes me nervous. It's like that whole thing about hearing your own voice when someone videos you - grating - and the reason I removed the interview Hugh did with me, garbled twaddle if ever there was.
However, I subject people to some minor form of interrogation on a daily basis so that I can bring you the ups and downs of Hallam Foe and it seems only fair that I should be on the rough end of similar treatment from time to time.
I think I will take along my own dictaphone and then I can endure the torture of my own voice to bring you a sneak preview of the interview this afternoon.
Posted by colin kennedy at 11:29 AM | Comments (2)
August 21, 2006
David Shrigley in the press
The press buzz of the movie is starting. David Shrigley wrote this wee piece in the Telegraph on Saturday...
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May 1, 2006
evening standard
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April 13, 2006
Scotsman
High Jinks...
http://news.scotsman.com/movies.cfm?id=559032006
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March 29, 2006
The Herald - 25th March
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Metro Scotland
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Press
As new press releases come into the production office I'm going to post them here and you can get the real info from me.
'Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear' - the press can be pretty inaccurate so I'll endeavour to get reactions from David, Jamie, Claire, Ciaran and the rest of the gang to get you the word straight from the horses mouth.
Here's some accurate press from Kotleta at iofilm www.iofilm.co.uk/news/article.php?id=92
Posted by colin kennedy at 3:17 PM | Comments (0)