What inspires you?
Music is my biggest inspiration. Sequences just appear fully formed in my head as I listen, whether it be movie soundtracks, modern classics or just rock and pop. Snippets of life experience also play a big part. For example I was in India with my family in 2003 and we were visiting this incredible temple at the top of a steep hill with a bustling marketplace below. On my way down a little girl (obviously a street child) walked alongside me with her hand stretched out all the way down to the bottom. I gave her some money, she walked off and then stopped when she saw how much I had given her and turned and gave me the most wonderful smile. That small encounter inspired the complete screenplay ‘Assassin’ which is set in 1970’s India.
I also read a great deal both fiction and non-fiction and have come to have an understanding of how the world works and the compromises that we all have to live with working in the system as is. Which is why anti-heroes or flawed heroes are of so much interest to me. It’s easy to like someone who is perfect onscreen. Or perhaps with a flaw that would lead one to empathise i.e. a drug or drink habit. That’s not enough for me, because that’s not real life. Take for example the character Viktor in Interview with a Hitman. He’s a cold blooded killer who has done the most awful things. But by the end of film, people who have watched the film, have told me they like him, when they shouldn’t and that they empathise with him. Anti Heroes do that to us. The put up and mirror to ourselves and ask – given the circumstances – would you do any different?
What is the hardest thing about making films?
Every stage in the process has its challenges.
The screenplay. It is there that you absolutely, must get it right. If the screenplay doesn’t work then the film is never going to work. It is tempting to move on from the screenplay and think that it will work itself out. But it won’t. If it doesn’t work on paper it will never work onscreen.
Then it’s the casting. The casting for Interview with a Hitman was both a pleasure and nightmare in equal proportions. It was a pleasure when an actor came in nailed the audition or gave me an interpretation that exceeded or even challenged my expectations. It was nightmare seeing actor after actor, willing each and every one to do well and for no-one to even come close. Those were the low points. A prime example was casting for the lead, Viktor. Nobody that auditioned could deliver what I wanted. It got so bad that I began to think that I had written a character that couldn’t be played. So I got our casting director to send out another request and that’s when Luke was put forward by his manager. I had seen Luke in Blade and Hellboy and knew that he could do it. So I cast him straight away.
Locations. I had the film running in a loop in my head and after the selecting the actors that will make the characters real it was on to making real the world that those characters inhabit. I had to compromise on a few locations but Newcastle is a amazing city with exactly the kind of locations I was looking for so on the whole I got the look I was after.
Then it’s a case of inspiring the great cast and crew into delivering the best film possible. I knew from my business background managing large projects with big teams that everything is driven from the top. There can be no hesitation or doubt. I was a first time director with an experienced crew and a lead actor that had done over thirty four films and worked on two huge movies with one of the biggest directors in the world Guillermo del Toro. I had to deliver an impossible 18 day schedule. Even if I felt any doubt, which I did a few times during the shoot, I could not show it. I was absolutely clear on what I wanted all the time. I had trusted my instincts up until the day of the first shoot and come to rely on them. They didn’t let me down.
And then there’s the post production. I thought the hardest part was shooting the film but the edit turned out to be a real challenge. The film cut together beautifully and the first cut was just under two hours and everyone that watched it raved about it. I was very careful to protect the creative process during that period and was able to deliver something that worked really well in a really short space of time.
Then we got into the rounds of reviews and started getting input and great feedback from the distributor. There was a lot of interest in the film and lots of opinions that wanted to be heard. There were times that I felt the film was being pushed in a direction that I didn’t want but, as a first time director, you have to listen to those that have more years in the industry. Fortunately I was able to preserve the core of the vision I had set out to deliver. Protecting the creative process is massive in this situation and I was fortunate to work with two editors that were completely bought into that and I was able to deliver a final cut that pleased everyone. Having said that the Director’s cut will be a little longer than 92 minutes. I’m pretty nifty with Final Cut now so I’ll be putting that one together myself.
Once the picture’s locked then the music starts. This process normally starts earlier but finding the right composer took a while. I had a fantastic temporary score to work from and an amazing composer to transform that into the great electronic sound that I wanted for the film
At the same time I worked on the look of the film i.e. Grade. I wanted a de-saturated, high contrast, stripped out look to the film and we definitely got that but it took quite a few days in the grading suite!
Then it’s all down to the audience. You hope you have made something that audiences will enjoy and find accessible and also challenging.
What is your writing process?
I have been writing a long time so I’m now at the point where I spend most of my time tweaking the screenplays I’ve already written. I will need to sit down and finish the novel version of Penumbra – my next film.
As I mentioned above Music and my love of anti-heroes tend to drive my imagination down a certain path. It’s normally on a train or listening to music whilst driving that sequences starts to form in my mind. With Hitman, the characters of the young and adult Viktor and how one grew up to be the other came to mind first. I mull the idea for a few months to see if it builds any momentum. Then I start to sketch out the story in note form. I don’t start writing until I have the complete end to end story in place. Then I just sit down at write until the first draft is done. Interview with a Hitman took me four weeks from sitting down to getting the first draft out. Then a few months of script editing which resulted only in some changes to the second act. So pretty quick especially if you compare it to Penumbra which has taken some ten years to get it where it is!
How did you come up with the concept for your film?
I didn’t want to do a standard Hitman movie, where you’re usually introduced the protagonist fully formed. I wanted to get under the skin of what makes a man like Viktor. I wanted to ask questions like ‘does a man of violence like Victor deserve a second chance?’
There’s action in Interview with a Hitman but it is also a character piece. I remember after an advance screening, one of the audience who worked with abused children came up to me afterwards and said that it was a realistic description how children get changed by what happens around them and grow up to be men of violence like Viktor.
Did meeting Spencer Pollard, the CEO of the well-known distribution company, Kaleidoscope, change your life?
Kaleidoscope was actually just Spencer on his own and starting out when I met him! Amazing what he has achieved in such a short space of time. It was good meeting and getting to know him. I would like to say that my relationship had a bearing on him coming onboard as distributor but if you knew him as I do you would understand that ultimately it had no bearing. It was the compelling nature of the commercial proposition (script, cast, budget, vision) that I had put together that drove his decision to commit. Ie the opportunity to make a significant return for Kaleidoscope, which he already has, purely on international sales alone, with Interview with a Hitman. There were two other parties wanting to partner on the project, but I stayed with Spencer because of the relationship we had built up.
What advice do you have for other filmmakers?
Don’t let go of your dreams. Work on perfecting your art. Be patient. The creative industries are capricious and can be somewhat insular. Focus on what works for the mass market first. Even Spielberg had to start off by putting bums on seats with Jaws and ET before his name meant he could do the projects he wanted to do. And remember it is a business first and foremost and the greatest chance you have of breaking in is to do what any business does when entering a new industry – deliver a product that your market will want to invest in.
How hard is it to get funding?
It is inversely proportional to the commercial viability of the proposal. With Interview with a Hitman getting funding was fairly straight forward once all the elements in the package came together.
What are your plans for the film?
Interview with a Hitman has presold in every major territory worldwide going to the United States, Germany, China, France, Japan, Middle East, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, CIS, Baltics, Benelux, India, Indonesia, Australia, Kuwait
Kaleidoscope have released it in UK Cinema’s and the DVD release is scheduled 27th August.
I am hoping the audience will like it and that it gets critical as well as commercial success.
How did you get into the industry?
I did an MA in Film and Television at Brunel in 1990. I remember I had a Eureka moment in the first film studies class. It stayed with me and didn’t diminish. As soon as the course finished I borrowed some equipment from the University and set about making a short film.
Why did it take you a while to get back into film?
My short film started opening some doors for me. But as with a lot of people, life tends to have different plans for you. I got married and so ensued job, mortgage, responsibilities etc. And there’s not a lot of room for something as self indulgent and flighty as a career as a film director.
So I had to lay that aside, but continued writing in my spare time, building up quite a number of screenplays that I would have loved to see on the big screen. Over time I built up an IT consultancy business. In the back of my mind I always thought that I would take up my passion but a more realistic and down-to-earth part of me realised that it was becoming more and more distant.
My father passed away at the beginning of 2009. He, along with my mother had come to the UK in the mid sixties and had worked hard to give me the start in life and the opportunities they had never had. I know my father had his own dreams and aspirations but he was far too much of a stoic to ever burden us with them. He had given up on his dreams and I knew he wouldn’t want the same for me. So a few months after his passing I sold my consultancy business and set up my film production company Kirlian Pictures Ltd.
My business experience had taught me a great deal and I knew that to succeed in this industry was no different from any other. I had to deliver a product to market that audiences would want to watch. It was fortunate then that, as I had built up a compelling and highly commercial body of work and was ready to go.
I immersed myself in all aspects of film making, lenses, cameras, cinematography, lighting, sound. Being very technical had served me well in my IT business and I wanted to make sure I knew how to get what was in my head onscreen.
And because I was coming at the industry from a business perspective I took a part time producers course.
The first film was going to be Penumbra, a revenge thriller that’s been described as ‘Taken’ meets ‘Max Payne’.
The size of the budget led to significant pressure from investors to hand over the directorial reigns to someone who was more of a known quantity. Is a less risky proposition. I knew there was no way I was going to let anyone else direct Penumbra so I went back to the drawing board and wrote a lower budget feature called ‘Interview with a Hitman in April 2010. I spent a few months script editing and once it was right, moved on to production packaging.
I began presenting the film to potential investors. To head off any concerns about me being an unknown quantity I went out and bought a piece of previsualisation software that the studios use to model films sequences and try stuff out. I previsualised the first five minutes of the film as I envisioned it playing out.
The budget, genre, previz (which went down a storm) and the quality of the screenplay packaged together was a compelling commercial proposition in its own right. However, Cast is the primary determinant of value in a genre feature film (horror being the exception) so I went out to cast.
I got a fantastic response and I assembled a great cast very quickly. The only problem was casting the lead, Viktor. Nobody that auditioned could deliver what I wanted. So I got our casting director to send out another request and that’s when Luke was put forward by his manager. I had seen Luke in Blade and Hellboy and knew that he could do it. So I cast him straight away.
After that the investment just rolled in. In fact we had to turn investors down because I had decided to invest in it myself via my production company. I knew I could deliver a great film so absolutely wanted to be part of its success. That was in May 2011 and we started shooting in August 2011.
What was it like working with Luke Goss?
Working, with a Luke was great. I had a very clear vision of what I wanted and he worked so hard to give me that. A director’s vision is articulated through the prism of an actor’s performance. Great actors like Luke become the characters they play and bring their own nuances and detail. That part of the process I really loved, working with him and the rest of the cast to find the truth in this fictional world I had created. And I think we succeeded. You’ll see a very different Luke Goss in this film.
What’s next?
Interview with a Hitman was a stepping-stone. The way for me to prove I could actually deliver a film that was a commercial success and hopefully one that audiences have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy watching.
So now that I’ve done that it’s back to the much bigger budget action, thriller Penumbra. Penumbra is the story of a loving family man who, when his young son is kidnapped and killed by child traffickers is left with a choice; freedom from the unbearable pain (by taking his own life) or catharsis in the form of revenge.
He chooses the latter and in doing so descends into a vile underworld and risks becoming the very thing he seeks to destroy.
Set in present day Europe. This is the story of a man’s search for absolution, his fall from this world into darkness, his salvation by an unconditional act of love and his redemption through the ultimate sacrifice.
The film will be shot mostly in Budapest with a couple of weeks in the UK. I would love for Edward Norton to play the lead Blake. We’re aiming to start shooting in April Next Year.
For more info you can go to:
Production company www.kirlianpictures.com
On twitter @perrybhandal