Following a screening of Jump at the 25th Foyle Film Festival last month, director Kieron Walsh and producer Brendan Byrne were more than happy to spill the beans...
Was the adaptation process, from stage to screen, a difficult one?
Kieron Walsh (hereafter KW): Brendan read the play seven years ago, and he thought it might make a good film. But making it was difficult - it went through two rewrites and we had to tinker with and add in certain elements, such as a reimagined opening voiceover. I knew that a "too happy" ending with our central characters running off into the sunset together would have been ridiculous. You can get away with something like that on the stage, but not in film, where you have to eradicate the theatrical sensibility. There were some nice scenes in the play that worked well on their own, but they added nothing to the play itself.
Watching the film reminded me of Pulp Fiction. And I remember Quentin Tarantino saying that he wrote it in a linear manner first before making it non-linear. Did you use the same approach here?
KW: No, it was written as non-linear to begin with. We kind of followed Jean Luc Godard's quote, “Films should have a beginning, a middle and an end – but not necessarily in that order.” TV is linear, but you can mess about a little with movies, and that’s exactly what we did.
Brendan Byrne (hereafter BB): Although I do believe Lisa McGee, the playwright, was inspired as a 15-16 year old when watching Tarantino.
Were you well received in Derry?
BB: We were very sensitive about filming in Derry, but we were welcomed well. Our connection with the area helped us, as did a documentary about suicide I had made. And seeing the film again, I think that there's something really positive for anyone who has contemplated taking that "jump". It's one of the stronger interpretations we've had of a live issue.
KW: Nothing in the play spoke "Derry", but I felt that filming it there was important because of how both the city and the Foyle Bridge could be presented on the big screen. It's a beautiful place, and the bridge was just asking to be displayed in cinemascope.
What kind of approach did you go for when making Jump?
KW: We wanted to put an anti-suicide message out there without being too heavy-handed. The approach we wanted, and the approach we took on in the end, had some kind of magical quality - not Ken Loach, more fantastical.
Should dramatists write their own screenplays?
BB: I think it depends on the medium. In TV, or theatre, I would say "yes". But filmmaking is a vastly collaborative medium. There's many more individually nuanced things you can fit into your film, to create something more visual.
Where's the film going now?
KW: It will be released in March 2013. Be sure to keep in touch with how things are going on Facebook.
To read our review of Jump (part of a larger review) click here.
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