INTERVIEW - Claire Dix

The Philips Short Film category at the Irish Film and Television Awards celebrates and recognises brilliance in short film making. This year four shorts are contending for the award, including writer and director Claire Dix’s ‘Downpour’, a 3 minute homage to the thing we complain most about in this country...the rain.  Claire did the short with the help of the Irish Film Boards Short Shorts scheme. IFTA talked to the director about how she came up with the concept for the short, the journey the short has been on since it was completed and what it was like to be nominated at this year’s IFTAs.

IFTA- Firstly, how does it feel to be nominated for the Philips Short Award?

Claire Dix- Oh, it feels amazing; it’s completely unexpected. You make these films and you don’t know how they’re going to turn out and you have to show them; it’s not like a painting you can hide them away if you don’t like it. (Laughs) This is an Irish Film Board short and obviously it’s going to be promoted no matter what and they send them out to festivals as well. It was funded under the Irish Film Board Short Shorts Scheme, which is a brilliant scheme for new directors. I think they take a chance with the ideas under that scheme because they are so short, they can be between 3 and 5 minutes long so they really do look for people who I suppose are up and coming directors. They’re brilliant in the sense that they really do support young directors. I was expecting it to get into festivals because they are almost like little fillers they can put on between longer shorts and I just thought it was likely to get into festivals. I didn’t honest to god think it would win anything because I thought it was too short and it would be up against others that have big strong stories. Then it started winning stuff, like it won Foyle, it’s won the Irish Film Festival Boston Directors Choice and a couple of other things. But the IFTA nomination was like wow! That’s really unexpected but it’s brilliant. To work away at it yourself for years and finally get a bit of acknowledgement, it’s not why I do it or anything, but it’s nice at the same time to get the recognition.

IFTA- Do you feel it kind of snowballed after winning Foyle and the Irish Film Festival Boston choice?

Claire Dix- Yeah I did. We premiered it at Galway in July and that was a great screening because I got to see all the other Film Board shorts that had been commissioned in the same year as ‘Downpour’ and that was brilliant. I got chatting to people afterwards and they were all film makers who were in the same boat. Then there wasn’t much news about it until Foyle and in the same week it won another prize. I got an email from Foyle telling me I’d won then I got a phone call from Nodlag Houlihan (the producer) two days later saying it had won something in France. So I was like wow these things come in threes as they say and then we got the IFTA nomination, which was not so long after. These things are great chance but I don’t think you can get too carried away, as I say, it’s not the reason I do them, I just love making movies and telling stories and working. I mean the crew; we are working with a lot of them again; getting funding from the Film Board to do a longer short film this time, it’s a Signature piece which is in pre production, which is great. It’s such an honour to be working with that crew. Our DOP Piers McGrail was just fantastic and that’s why I do this, to be working but it is lovely when you get to have a bit of a do as well. (Laughs)

IFTA- How important do you think it is to recognise short film in this way?

Claire Dix- I think it is really important. There are so many people making short films in Ireland that you just don’t really hear about and most people don’t really see any short films. My family would be aware of a lot of short films but that is just because I make them watch them but beyond that I’d say the average person wouldn’t be able to name one short film and it’s such a shame. For instance, the one that’s got the Oscar nomination ‘Pentecost’, that’s such a great little film and I think it’s a pity they don’t show them in front of features. I know they have to show ads for cinemas and trailers, but if they just stuck in a little 10 or 5 minute thing; I really think it would help the exposure of them. There’s so many people breaking their backs and I often think only other filmmakers ever see them. ‘Pentecost’ is an example of a film that would be loved by anyone, a real kind of family film and I just think it’s a pity. They’re very important because you have a chance to practice your craft; you can’t go from college to making a feature film so they’re vital and not just for directors and writers but for producers, DOPs; for everyone to get practice being on a set. It gives people who are younger, apprenticing or assisting in a feature film the responsibility of a bigger role on set as well. So they’re absolutely vital I would say.

IFTA- Do you think people take more chances with short films?

Claire Dix- Ye I mean I can’t answer for other people but I mean it’s a chance to make a film full stop really isn’t it? You don’t know how it is going to turn out. It’s a bit of a risk because it could be awful. For me anyway it’s been a learning experience but no matter how you look at it, it’s a chance. You go into it and you’ve got one way in your mind in which you’re going to work and maybe it will and maybe it won’t you don’t know. In films I know they do have people to come up with ideas, probably at the idea stage is where people take the chances you know when you’re writing; you say to yourself well this needs to stand out, it’s only going to be 3 minutes long. That is the point, when people can take risks and take a chance and they do encourage you to do that in the Film Board. They encouraged people to come up with really innovative ideas and there is probably more scope but I suppose they don’t have  to make lots of money from box office so in that sense you can take chances.

IFTA- How did you come up with the concept for Downpour?

Claire Dix- For the Short Short films they look for a theme for every year so the theme when I entered was ‘Ireland;I love you’; they were looking for theme with love or the love of Ireland so it had to match that brief. I wrote 3 scripts for that and when you think about it,how do you say I love you without being twee or bringing in loads of clichés? So I wrote two other shorts and I didn’t think either of them were great. I was thinking what do we have here that we hate? that we complain about, and maybe look at it in a different way. I don’t think it rains here that much and it rains in other countries too,but we have this real identity abroad in relation to it. I read somewhere that when producers come to Woody Allen, he always asks how many rain scenes he can have in his films because they look really well on camera. So it was a really simple idea which came from the idea of celebrating or making the most of something that is not really celebrated and we kind of give out about. It just kind of came from there really. Now I’m thinking, I’m the director, how do I do this? We had to make it rain, my producer jokingly said why did you have to make it so difficult? You get funny moments like that and then you’re like oh no! I have to do this. But you always get some problems, it’s always going to be a bit of a challenge but you know that’s what makes it worth it because if not you’d just have the same film over and over.

IFTA- What challenges were there on the film?

Claire Dix- The logistics definitely, the rain and also there were so many different locations in our film. There was a house, a bus stop, a field, a beach and the inside a tent and we only had two days to do all that. We couldn’t really afford anything else because that was the budget, two days was all we had.  I know with shorts you’re advised to have minimum locations but sometimes I think you just have to go for it. That is the luxury of filmmaking; that’s the meat of it; you have to do it. With theatre your stuck on the stage but with film you can move your character wherever and that’s the beauty of the medium; Its movement. So I think it was great and I had a great producer Nodlag; she was brilliant, she made it happen, without her I would have been day one filming the house but she managed to make it happen so we were able to shoot in all those locations in two days. That was the first challenge; obviously the rain machine was a huge thing but we had a great team of guys from Ardmore. They were great. They made it rain when we needed it to rain. We were there with the rain machine on the beach, in April, which was funny because it was a nice day and it was kind of hazy and the water was flat calm which was really annoying. There was this couple sitting on the beach and they were like ‘what are they doing? They just brought the rain to the beach.’(Laughs) It was really warm and so we had to send poor Cian, our actor into the water and we had been prepping him saying the Irish sea was going to be absolutely Baltic so we had loads of towels and Nodlag had loads of things prepared so he’d be warm but actually the crew were in shorts and stuff and he was running in going ‘this is grand’, but pretending it wasn’t. Actually I’m sure the water was freezing. (Laughs) So those two things really, the location and working with a big rain machine, there were the two main challenges really.

‘Downpour’ was shot on location around Dublin and Wicklow over two days. It was written and directed by Claire Dix (Free Chips Forever!, A Clip From Birds To Beasts) and produced by Nodlag Houlihan (Blue Rinse) of Zucca Films. The DOP on the short was Piers McGrail (Kelly and Victor, The Prodigal Son). It stars Irish talent Cian Barry (Doctors, Shameless), Muireann Bird (Eamon, Rough Diamond) and Marion O’Dwyer (Tom’s Sceadu, An Old Fashioned Christmas). The short has been nominated in the Philips Short Film Award category along with Michael Lavelle’s ‘Cluck’, Lorcan Finnegan’s ‘Foxes’ and Kealan O’Rourke’s animated short ‘The Boy In The Bubble’. The 9th Annual Irish Film and Television Awards take place in Dublin Convention Centre on 11th February 2012 and will be broadcast on RTÉ One at 9.40pm.

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