belfast is a city of stories um and particularly at the end of the 1960s it went through
an incredible tumultuous phase in its history very dramatic sometimes very violent
and i and my family were part of that and it was always for me
a story of our time in that city that would come to the surface when thinking about writing
something about ireland that period in belfast
there was always a story about the point in anybody's life male or female where there
is a sort of crossover into the world of adulthood where innocence is lost and where
new responsibilities sometimes new worries are found and that moment capturing that moment of
crossover which is in this case in belfast in 1969 was slightly accelerated by the events
around us all a very recognizable intimate small family group in a in a in a threatened
and stressful situation uh with some big life choices and uh you know not not epic in the grand
sense of some sort of historical you know biopic but in the lives of the people involved enormous
decisions titanic you know decisions for the families and people recognized that i think they
rec there was some sort of um connection to the basic sort of family dynamics that were at play
but there was an immense sense of gratitude that we could that we could tell any kind of story
i've been very pleased that lots of people who are in it and people who've seen it since
we've been working on it have talked about a sense of authenticity in the way people talk
so i think i think that center of it i think is is something that is very literal and
accurate you know the language of the time the the way people um behaved in terms of um
their leisure time the extended family sing songs people out in the parks you know that sense that
the whole sort of street sort of played and worked together there are good and bad things
about that sometimes people knew way too much about you know your what was going on um to be
comfortable at all times but the the if it takes a village to raise a child this was a great sort of
advert for us so that side is all accurate jude hill you know does an excellent job in the film
and who we seem to find at a moment where his talent was ready to both uh blossom at the same
time as jude himself was was in the best possible way ordinarily enjoying himself as a as a 10 year
old boy so football for him in the film and on the streets was as important and enjoyable
as making the movie we wanted that we didn't want somebody who was suddenly decided they were a big
movie star um but he at the same time he was very serious very prepared very open very flexible um
somehow you need this curious combination could you just be yourself and also could you make all
these tiny adjustments i'm asking you to do that you know might be difficult for an actor
with many decades of experience and and in the process of him doing the latter you don't want
to change him from the beautiful original as as always those who surround him families and in this
case colleagues on the film become critical their critical influences and in this case they were so
wise and compassionate and he himself is is you know i was kind of older than his years
a quality that is great for the part and um he turned out to be a real winner for us my
approach with with younger actors is to treat them as if they were much older certainly respect them
entirely and and uh also respect if they have some intuitive way that they might like to work some
people respond to lots of words some people don't some people like it to be a game the whole time
some people need to be encouraged to do a bit more homework and we probably encourage that a bit more
jude's mom shawnee was very very good at preparing him with lines and we made it very clear how
vital it was to know the lines very well quite a long way ahead of the of the the day you might
do them because the dates might change you might suddenly be doing it tomorrow and if your effort
in the morning is just about remembering the lines you're not going to be as good as if you knew
them had forgotten them and now could just be with them and he seemed to understand that we knew that
we we wouldn't quite find the real place in belfast because it's 50 years on and
and not in the uk so it was the the gift was to be able to build it with real specificity
um size of houses size of rooms you know the width of the street
um and then to be able to shoot it every which way if you're in on location
you get a sense of freedom you get a sense of control you can create you can paint pictures
in a different way so it doesn't have to be that big because the world of visual effects
can allow you to expand it a bit if you have the money in the budget um and so i was able to
do something um that was both built on specific reference of what that specific street looked like
and also how buddy saw it when i first went back to the street i was brought up in belfast
but this is this is a street food for very small people
uh forgetting that when i'd lived in it i was a very small person so it had seemed enormous to me
um so i didn't have to make it quite literal but everything imaginative that struck the eyes and
ears of a ten-year-old is in that set that's what jim clay um helped build and it allowed us to be
tremendously uh flexible in the in the shooting it's curious about black and white we when we see
pictures um when we see a sort of cartier-bresson picture you know a black and white still somehow
it it sort of bespeaks additional authenticity additional reality and yet it is not the way
we personally see the world which would be more sort of encyclopedic color it's a curious paradox
that um you get a grittier and more realistic effect from a poetic treatment
and so um this was something that i knew i wanted to be part of the sort of mythology of this story
and it's different there's a hollywood black and white and there's what i would call a sort of um
european black and white and the one the european black and white uh on on the whole it has a more
sort of um sometimes emaciated quality is it it has its own sort of particular beauties
but it was the hollywood black and white that kind of branded itself on my imagination well yes speed
we were working uh inevitably there's it just doesn't matter what the situation is there's
never enough time and there's never enough money to to sort of meet what your imagination suddenly
thinks is required it's not like you want to be profligate but sometimes that's just how it seems
so rapport you know shorthand with people you've worked with before uh an understanding of um you
know visual sensibilities the way you like to frame things i particularly have developed by
now a sort of fairly clear sense of of how i like to frame things hopefully not the same every time
but it's quite it's quite a strong taste sometimes thank god it is shared and indeed developed and
enhanced by harassment lucas i've been very lucky with my photographic collaborators over the years
um and jim clay i say you give him an idea and he runs with it they come back knowing that they have
a degree of um of freedom that is clear based on previous experience you know they know what they
can run with and what they perhaps need to run by me um you know i'm pretty good at decisions and
and and relatively clear about about what i want stop where'd you beat your guy in love to bring
my husband home he's on the other side there where's he been there not your bloody business
not with you in your hour of need that's a bit off isn't it he works away in england does he
what kind of work is that he's a joiner i see and has he joined any of these groups making all this
mess in your street a joiner that's a carpenter in your bloody language and i just told you he
was away last night that was andy perhaps you knew he'd be okay that he wouldn't be targeted
he knows nothing about the whole bloody thing he's here to be with his family i'd like to hear it
the film is is really about that it's about an understanding and it isn't a complete
understanding it's merely a sort of in the current state of knowledge and the knowledge
not just intellectual it's it's knowledge of the heart um of who you are and where you came
from and how those things add up and and that an acknowledgement of it is uh can be very powerful
certainly not just for yourself because if it's only for yourself really write something down or
have a you know have a good think about it but if you believe that there could be something uh that
is powerfully recognizable to other people then it may be worth sharing that story and in this
case i thought it was so inevitably you go through a very sort of full experience of it um which is
often yes one of the things i think i've learned to do and this is be very happy about being
emotional and you know crying a great deal at the time but often it's to do with recognition and
and on a profound level gratitude i think it's it is sometimes presumptuous to sort of i hope that
audiences will will take anything particularly i hope they'll be entertained i think there's a
spirit in belfast there's a spirit and a vitality in the place itself that i hope is reflected in
this film and i think it's a spirit and a vitality and a humor which i think is very life-affirming
and i hope that people feel that the um the joy and sometimes the sorrows of what happens in that
city and in this particular case in the life of this family and this street are something
that they can recognize and perhaps sympathize with be compassionate about and to some extent
um you know be be consoled when it comes to some of the difficult decisions in their own lives
perhaps to see you know in that in that famous ray or a phrase you know we read to know that
we are not alone in stories like this maybe we understand that we are not alone when when we look
at these reflections of other lives and uh if um if that was the case i'd be thrilled it's amazing
how contemporary a black and white film can be especially when it comes from an emotional place
and a personal place and it looks like it did with kenneth branagh's film
belfast so if you haven't seen any of his other films you may have he's directed many
other films before but you may have seen him work as an actor in other people's movies too
but one of his phenomenal directing debuts was marvel's thor and did you also know he also
directed the film the murder on the orient express which is also coming out with a sequel as well i
wonder if he's directing that but stay tuned on this channel to find out more about that as well
hopefully you learned a lot from this video and it's really really cool that a big budget film
like kenneth branagh's film about belfast i would say it's more or less like a big film
in comparison to microbudget filmmaking which is what you see a lot here on youtube but these
types of films is a good example to see how it looks to be on a more of a million dollar budget
behind the scene it's amazing to see uh with their tight budget what they were able to pull off on
this film and it's so cool to see them build a whole um just a whole set and everything where
the kid was playing down the hallway and everything like that it's just amazing to
see these kinds of things and uh learn from those types of films so you can do these type of things
on your film so let me know all of these type of stuff and let me know all the things that
you've learned here even working with younger actors as well down in the comments down below
and let me know your thoughts on this film and if you've seen any other kenneth brana films
let me know your favorite kenneth branagh to film down in the comments down below
as well and don't forget to hit the like button subscribe and i'll see you here next time later