Floating

Written and directed by Mark Walker
Producer Lachlan MacKinnon
Associate producer Paola Minazzato
Executive producers Peter Carlton, Caroline Cooper Charles, Margaret Matheson
Editor Emiliano Battista
Director of photography Stephan Pehrsson
Production designer Sabine Hviid
Music Ben Foster

Production notes

Writer/director Mark Walker first pitched the idea to producer Lachlan MacKinnon back in February 2002, shortly after they left the National Film and Television School. "Although I knew Mark from our school days, we never actually worked together and we were both keen to embark on a project together," MacKinnon recalls.

"The catalyst for the idea was a story that an older friend told me some time ago," Mark adds. "She and her husband had been going through a period of not intimately and physically connecting with each other sexually, the way they used to in the bedroom, and she had begun to feel invisible. One day, in order to try to awaken his sexual appetite, she purchased some expensive lingerie and decided to surprise him that night. However, far from being aroused her husband began to get profoundly upset. Instead of the desired effect, her husband was touched by the desperation of this act and at once felt guilty and sad. She felt stupid and took the undergarments back to the store for a refund! That story came to inspire the penultimate scene of the film. The protagonist changed to the husband because I began to wonder about what had led to his reaction, and ultimately what it had meant. I began to write outwards from that one scene, filling in the blanks by drawing on my own relationship experiences. We also began to discuss a subject that fascinated both Lachlan and me, exploring the notion of masculinity and also infidelity and honesty. It was my intention with this film to touch upon the difficult fight at the borders between long-term friendship, sexual desire and love, and to show how one is quite often the casualty of the other. The script really came from here and it took me a very short space of time to write the first draft."

After the project was selected for Cinema Extreme, the search began for the actors that would play the lead roles of Jonathan, Grace and Mitsy. With the help of renowned casting director Fiona Weir (Love Actually, Master and Commander, The Mother), with whom Lachlan had previously worked on his animation graduation film at the National Film and Television School, a wonderful cast was quickly assembled. Jack Deam is perfect as the deeply troubled Jonathan. "Jonathan is a tricky character to portray," Mark adds. "On the surface nothing much seems to happen, but deep down he is full of self-doubt and self-loathing. Jonathan has retreated so far into his own head, that he lives in total denial of his emotional life. On the periphery of his consciousness he suspects he should leave his job, and his wife, but as much as he resents the idea, he has become dependent on the comforts his job provides, and the security of marriage." After this, the rest of the cast fell into place. Nicola Stephenson was the natural choice for Grace. "The challenge here was not to make Grace seem pathetic, but to portray her as an intelligent, sensitive woman who loves her husband, but, sensing that he is becoming detached from her, she desperately tries to lure him back to her."

"As with most of Mark's work so far, the performances were of primary consideration to him, and he had the opportunity to rehearse with the actors before the shoot," recalls Lachlan. "Mark likes to create a free environment where we can improvise some of the script to find the truth behind the text and procure the most natural performances possible."

"I don't care for storyboards, as I believe camera decisions should be made based on the performances and not vice versa," says Mark. "I realise that in many cases such as in action and CGI sequences storyboards are vital, but in a performance-based film such as this, I believe they can often lead to complacency. It is preferable for me to see the performances in their space before choosing frames and carry on looking for possibilities for the best way to express the performance throughout the shoot."

The scale of the production was rather large for a short film, given the budget. "We had seven locations to cover in six days and on top of that, we had to contend with two days of snow and ice storm! Despite the weather we still managed to wrap on time," Lachlan comments. From a production point of view, location scouting was the most demanding task and it took two months and three location managers to find locations both Mark and designer Sabine Hviid were happy with, but that were also affordable. In terms of a design colour palette, Mark and Sabine wanted to find ways of reflecting the characters' psychological states through their environment - warm colours for Mitsy and colder tones for Jonathan and Grace.

Director's biography

Mark graduated from the Fiction Direction MA course at the National Film and Television School in January 2003, where he directed a number of fiction films, including Lizzy and Scorn (Audience Award Leuven Film Festival, Belgium). His graduation film Sea Monsters, among other commendations, was nominated for a Best Short Film BAFTA 2004 and an RTS 2004 Award, winning Best Direction Award at the Rencontres Internationales Henri Langlois, Poitiers. The film was also selected for Tel Aviv, Dinard, Munich and Brest Film Festivals. Mark's latest film, Floating, premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2004 and also screened at Brief Encounters 2004. Floating was produced by Lachlan MacKinnon at Intrepido and funded by FilmFour and the UK Film Council as part of the prestigious new talent programme Cinema Extreme.