00:00A filmmaker from Northumberland whose debut short film won recognition at a regional festival
00:06is preparing to release his latest production.
00:08Jacob Stockton has completed filming on Screwball, a new short drama featuring established television actor
00:14Stephen Tomkinson alongside Craig Conway and Alfie Dobson.
00:19The project was filmed across several locations in the North East and is now in post-production.
00:23So the idea came up after we won the award at Tees Valley International Film Festival
00:29and we started coming up with ideas that, well we wanted to tell a story that was like comedic but
00:36a gritty drama at the same time
00:38and I was sitting with my DOP, Jay, in a coffee shop one day, scrolling through ideas on my phone
00:45and we just had this singular word and it just said, Ice Cream Van, you know, just that little, that
00:50thing in the notes
00:51and me and Jay were like, yeah we could do something with that, you know, we wanted to expand on
00:56that and that's where we went from there.
00:57Obviously the story was fantastic and Jacob was actually here rehearsing at the runway rooms
01:04and I kind of had a little sneaky insight into what they were doing.
01:08It's that thing of like the bug gets you again and I was like, this is amazing
01:12and then it was kind of like, well it wasn't my role anyway, so that was it
01:17but from that moment I knew they had something really special because you could just hear it, the dialogue was
01:23just beautifully written
01:25the scenes were really intense but there was this beautiful comedic value throughout it all
01:30which I think is essentially a very northern thing as well.
01:34Screwball centres on an ice cream van driver whose life is turned upside down
01:38after a family court ruling removes access to his daughter.
01:42I think there's a lot of stories that you can tell up here, the locations up here as well, I
01:47love filming here
01:47and I think like being from the North East as well, I think when you see a lot of productions
01:53in London
01:54and we don't see a lot happening up here, it's nice to bring something up here
01:58and tell the stories that you want to tell and we're spoilt rotten in terms of how much talent is
02:04up here
02:05so yeah, I think there's a lot of great actors to work with and a lot of great directors as
02:10well.
02:10The BBC have announced an 80% kind of cut in funding for shows
02:15so that means ordinarily regional productions are going to be doing less
02:21and so that means we'll hear less of regional voices
02:24so we need to find a place and a community where we come together
02:29we support one another, we collaborate
02:31and we put our actors and our voices on those screens
02:36to represent people from this region and people beyond
02:39so that's essential if we're going to start connecting to audiences
02:46who want to have themselves represented on screen
02:49and Jacob's doing that.
02:52Screwball is expected to run for around 15 minutes
02:55and is due to premiere at the Tees Valley International Film Festival in November.
02:59Legislativeelle
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