We have been developing Radio Underground for months and were very far down the rabbit hole when we were given the devastating news that the film could not go ahead due to Covid 19. 1500 words isn’t anywhere near enough to give a full picture of the film and the process involved behind the scenes. However, I will look at a few scattered points to perhaps give a sampled analysis of pre-production.
Aaron Ross and I co-wrote Radio Underground, however for the sake of assessment, my main role on the film was as director. I will try my best to separate these roles and talk exclusively about directing the film as much as possible, however in my filmmaking process one role is very much a continuation of the other. I think that as a writer-director, the very moment you start writing, you are simultaneously directing.
I have always loved genre films. As a filmmaker, they provide you a sandbox to play in; a set of established rules and tropes you can choose to follow, bend or break. Radio Underground is post-apocalyptic. I wanted to explore the genre while making something distinctly different at the same time. Films like The Road (2009) explore the extent of destruction (for example Fig 1). However, we obviously didn’t have the budget to practically make something like this; we would have to get creative.
From the early stages of the film, I was struck by how the apocalypse could be used as a metaphor for depression. Tom spends every day alone in his bunker, with no motivation and no enjoyment in life. He doesn’t speak to anyone, and even when he goes into the city, he is alone. It was clear to me; the film is about depression. When directing, I chose to approach it not entirely as a literal apocalypse, but also a thematic one. With this in mind, I felt it would be far more haunting for the empty city not to be presented literally; there weren’t going to be toppled buildings or bodies littered everywhere. The city is ghostly and preserved, instead of devastated by destruction. The tropes associated with post-apocalyptic films are usually very surface level. I wanted to use them instead for a character study of someone suffering from depression.
I always knew I wanted the film to have minimal dialogue. After all, Tom doesn’t have anyone to talk to. I’m a firm believer in the adage ‘show, don’t tell’ and I wanted Radio Underground to reflect this; relying on visuals and sound, rather than words. However, perhaps this is only natural considering the film was co-written by its cinematographer and director. At times the writing process felt more like storyboarding.
Tom is entirely alone, and this poses a creative challenge. I didn’t want voiceover of Tom’s internal monologue and I didn’t want him just talking out loud to himself about his feelings. How do you communicate this character’s thoughts and feelings to an audience? I decided to keep things simple. In Sabrina, the graphic novel by Nick Drnaso, there is a moment where we simply observe a character carrying out her everyday activities (see Fig 2). It is intimate and non-judgemental. We begin to get a sense of a character simply through observing her routine.
I drew inspiration from this for Radio Underground. The film acts as essentially a day in Tom’s life. I didn’t want a high stakes story; or at least not one out of the ordinary in Tom’s world. I could simplify things, relying on the elements of film language to show the audience who Tom is and what he’s feeling without dialogue. You can learn a lot about someone from their routine. This is how I wanted to quietly introduce Tom to the audience; through his morning routine. He gets up, uses the radio, eats breakfast, does a puzzle, tidies and prepares lunch. Nothing exciting, but it would provide an intimate perspective into Tom’s character.
To create a sense of loneliness, traditionally you make a character small in a frame. This is a very simple technique, but it’s effective. At one point, Tom sits on his radio, scanning for other survivors. He feels devastatingly helpless and alone. Aaron and I planned to shoot it leaving plenty of wasted space in the frame (see Fig 3). This empty space would be further exaggerated by our choice of a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. It was inspired by a similar use in Punch Drunk Love (2002) (see Fig 4). Our use of wide-angle lenses would only make Tom seem even smaller in the space. This is just one of a great many planned uses of framing in the film.
The design of Tom’s bunker should hint at who he is. For example, the painting of the city on the wall might suggest he misses home. However, how do you construct a bunker? The garage space Aaron and I secured obviously had a large door to allow cars to go in and out, so we didn’t have 360° unobstructed views of the bunker. To get around this, production designer Kirsty Maitland and I decided we could decorate one side of the bunker, shoot all of the necessary scenes, then shift our set-dressing around as though we were now seeing the opposite side of the bunker. This complicated things, but with careful planning, we could have definitely pulled it off. Filming in a room that was slightly different from our in-film bunker actually had the added benefit of more freedom to place the camera where we wanted. To Kirsty’s credit, she rose to the challenge of designing the bunker and it’s a shame you won’t get to see our work.
Performance would be crucial due to how character-focused Radio Underground is. I cast Paul Wilson (see Fig 5) in the role because he seemed to understand our focus on isolation and depression, rather than just the surface-level genre tropes. I wanted to collaborate with Paul, developing the character with him; something we never fully had time to do before Covid 19. I did a great deal of research into prisoners in solitary confinement and discussed at great length who Tom might have been before he was trapped in the bunker. It’s a shame we weren’t able to progress this further.
For a large portion of the film, Tom wears a mask, intentionally restricting performance. For example, when Tom sees a body hanging from a rope, we can’t see his facial expressions. He is seemingly entirely emotionless. Inside the bunker I didn’t want those restrictions. I wanted to give the actor more freedom. In Sidney Lumet’s Making Movies, he discusses how he shot a scene where two characters speak on the telephone (see Fig 6) in Dog Day Afternoon (1975). He let the actors’ performances play out in their entirety through the complete scene, without ever cutting. I wanted to do something similar for the final scene in the film where Tom is using the radio. I thought it would be a great way to give the actor the freedom to dig deeper emotionally.
The editing involved in much of the film, might have been unusual, considering much of the film is technically montage. There would certainly be moments of continuity editing, however a lot of the time we would cut from Tom doing one thing, suddenly to him doing something else. I wanted Harris Redpath to develop a slow pace to give the audience more of an idea of Tom’s monotonous life.
When it comes to Juliet Brown’s sound design, I wanted the only sound to come from Tom himself. His movements would be greatly exaggerated, like in Hukkle, but everything else would be painfully silent. Juliet and I worked to try and come up with this strange soundscape. Inside the bunker, all sound should be diegetic. I discussed the possibility of score with Juliet. Perhaps we could use something very subtle in moments outside the bunker, however, inside should be purely diegetic.
Collaboration is very important to me as a filmmaker. I very much disagree with the idea of auteur theory because I think, most of the time, film should be a collaborative process. I grew up working as a one-man film crew, however I have come to find that my best work is done when I’m in a collaborative environment. When I can communicate my vision for a film to my collaborators, I love seeing what we can come up with together. Hopefully, this will give you a glimpse of my filmmaking process, even if it is only a glimpse. It’s a shame the film was never made, because it feels as if the extensive work I did for the project has gone to waste. However, even though pre-production was all we managed to achieve, I certainly learned a lot that I will be able to carry forward to my next film.
Bibliography
The Road, dir. by John Hillcoat (Dimension Films, 2009) [On DVD]
Drnaso, Nick, Sabrina, (Italy: Granta Publications, 2018)
Punch Drunk Love, dir. by Paul Thomas Anderson (Sony Pictures Releasing, 2002) [On DVD]
Lumet, Sidney, Making Movies, (New York: Amjen Entertainment, 1995)
Dog Day Afternoon, Sidney Lumet (Warner Bros., 1975) [On DVD]
Hukkle, György Pálfi (Arsenal, 2002) [On DVD]
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