|
 Stephen Kane, The Crooked Mile’s
Writer & Director praised the crew as well as his
cast as having pulled out all the stops
“Julie Daly-Wallman, Avril Ryan and Triona Campbell
managed to assemble a hugely talented group of
individuals who really worked with us throughout the
process beyond the call of duty. For my first
feature I couldn’t have asked for more dedicated
professionals to work with, and also, given the fact
that we were shooting digitally it allowed me a
greater freedom with the cast to do multiple takes
and try more varied coverage which was something
Laurence Manly (DOP) and I had been planning to
experiment with from Day One and thus story-boarded
for accordingly”
Executive Producer & Producer Julie
Daly-Wallman and Producers Avril Ryan and Triona
Campbell were intrigued by Stephen Kane’s script and
vision for The Crooked Mile but concern did lie in
finding a nine year old capable of captivating the
screen portrayal of character Anna. “I began
casting with Stephen in January 2000 for roughly
five months, I think we saw in excess of 800
children from all over
Ireland before
narrowing it down”
says Avril Ryan. “Dayna McKiernan we found
through the recommendation from Damien O’Donnell
(Director of East is East). She came to us
with huge amounts of raw talent through Ann
Kavanagh’s stage school and her agent is Julian
Benson of Star Struck Agency for child actors. Our
view”, continued Avril “after, having cast a
large amount of productions in
Dublin, is Dayna McKiernan is a
talent for the future and I know the whole Crooked
Mile Team are looking forward to seeing what she
does next”
 Principal photography on The Crooked
Mile began in Jersey, Channel Islands for three and
a half weeks shooting all over the 45 mile square
picturesque island which stood in for the coastal
town of Tramore in Ireland. Jersey Channel Island
Film Executive Producer & Producer Julie Daly-Wallman
came up with the idea to shoot the feature in
Jersey, “it was a real passionate challenge to
bring the film to Jersey, the production received
accommodation (Hotel De France) for the crew as part
of an investment, Condor Ferries / Irish Ferries for
transporting vehicles and a very large ferris wheel
also a number of cash investors such as
Green Eye
Productions and Large Beast Productions came on
board including the Irish Film Board & the States of
Jersey this was a first time for the Jersey
Government to give finance for film production, but
most importantly it was the goodwill from the people
living on the island with that of an extremely
talented film crew and cast that made this film a
great success. There were inevitably some very
special moments whilst we were filming in places
around the island that brought back many childhood
memories to me”.
Producer Triona Campbell described
the decision to shoot the film abroad: “It’s odd
in some ways as both Stephen, Avril and I had wanted
to make this a very Irish production and had
 envisaged shooting in and around
Waterford. But
as a producer in the international market place
these days you go where the money is and it became
pretty clear to us early on through our work with
Julie Daly-Wallman that it would be possible to
raise more money to shoot this feature in Jersey
Channel Islands”.
“This
film is the first time the States of Jersey have
invested in feature film production and the first
Jersey / Ireland Co-Production. It was probably
harder in retrospective, as we basically had to set
up an infrastructure where one didn’t exist before.
All the cast and crew had to be flown over and the
budget was small, having said that everyone from the
Irish heads of department to the Jersey trainees had
a real feel and passion for the story and through
out the shoot there was a carnival feeling. The
people of Jersey, were hugely supportive, as were
the people in Rathmines and Sandymount when we came
home to do the last four days in Dublin”.
What
the Director of Photography Larry Manly thought of
Jersey “The story of The Crooked Mile was
set in Ireland, so
we
 were a bit constrained sometimes when it came to
exterior filming, in that we couldn’t show anything
that was recognisably not Irish. The scenery in
Jersey is wonderful, and it was sometimes
frustrating that we had to turn away to shoot into a
corner so to speak, to maintain the illusion that we
were in Ireland. This is no slight on the island of
Jersey, which manages to fit a huge variety of
scenery into an area of its small size. We had
little problem in finding locations to fit our
script.
Finally, the weather was a big plus
in Jersey. We shot in October, and apart from one
stormy day, I don’t think we were delayed by rain at
all. In general, due to the more southerly latitude,
the climate in October was similar to early
September back in Ireland, most of the time I
remember blue skies”. |
SHOOTING ON
DIGITAL
I used Canon Video Primes, in an
effort to retain some of the discipline of a
traditional film shoot, but the use of prime lenses
on a video camera such as this is in its infancy,
and I found the lenses lacking in several areas. If
I were to do it again, I’d try to get an adaptor of
some sort, to use a set of PL mount film prime
lenses.
