Cherwell: Can you tell the readers a little bit about who you are and what you do?
My name is Mark Norfolk and I’m a filmmaker living in London. I also write drama for the stage, radio and screen. I initially studied drama and was an actor for a few years. However I was out of work, resting, as most actors are so I got a part time job at a local newspaper as a junior journalist. And thus began a writing career…writing about old ladies’ cats stuck in trees and errant tortoises. I did once get a scoop though. It was an exclusive photograph of Sarah Ferguson before she married Prince Andrew. That was also the time that I learnt ‘Lesson No. 1: Ambition can be a killer’. Especially in the cutthroat world of the media. Survival first.
So I was sent to see if I could get a photograph of ‘Fergie’. After waiting two hours I managed to grab the shot. I called the staff photographer and told him I got the shot and he came to get it. I handed him the undeveloped film (it was all film in those days) and he said he would develop it immediately as the editor was holding the front page. It was all very exciting, my first front page. However, when the newspaper came out that evening somehow I found my by-line shared between myself and the staff photographer, who at the time I was taking the photograph was at least ten miles away. Incidentally, he was soon off from this little local newspaper to the grand offices of the London Evening Standard.
Cherwell: Could you briefly explain the plot of your new film, ‘Ham and the Piper’, and perhaps explain how the project came about?
‘Ham & The Piper’ is a love story about an elderly man who discovers his wife is dying. In his moment of grief he finds himself battling with his own conscience about the frailties of long term marriage. Although he loves his wife dearly, as far as he’s concerned he has given up much of his life investing in the marriage and losing her now would mean he has nothing more to live for. His psychosis is such that he begins to question the role society has played in forcing him to abandon his youthful dreams and ambitions in order to get married. So he decides to take revenge against the society whom he blames for his weakness.
The project came about in very strange circumstances. I was writing a script for a futuristic political fantasy feature film which I’m very excited about. But then one day everything changed. For the last four years I have been a writer in residence in a prison. During my time there I found it to be full of interesting characters – and I’m not just talking about the prisoners. One day after I’d finished teaching a class of inmates I got talking to a student who told me he was now going back to the war. He certainly wasn’t a soldier (unless he was a street soldier) so I asked him what he meant and he went on to explain that when the cell door bangs shut behind you, it’s just you and your mind in a battle for the next twelve hours or so. This set me off thinking about the human mind and how well it sits within itself and how it copes under stress.
Cherwell: How did you get into film directing?
As a young actor I was always particularly interested in how shows and projects were put together. I saw that the director had a vision which he or she tried to achieve. I found that this was a brave and yet scary position to be in. If it works, everybody loves you. But if it doesn’t work, for whatever reason, the director cops the blame. No one talks about the lack of money or the limited choice in casting or the dodgy venue – it’s the director’s fault. That aside, I was fascinated by the creation of ‘the show’, not that I ever thought I would be directing films – I couldn’t even get work as an actor. Back in those days, black actors were only hired if the part called for a black person. So you’d get an audition and find yourself lined up alongside the cream of the black acting community. Can you imagine going up for a one liner in a TV soap and you find yourself next in line after Denzel Washington? Well, that was it then. I’m not sure how much things have changed, though I’m positive it has in many ways.
Anyway, one day my journalism skills saw me get offered an afternoon’s work at a Sports News Agency when a reporter missed his flight back from vacation. To cut a long story short, one afternoon for £30 turned into 6 years as a freelance sports reporter. I eventually left the company to go back to acting (once an actor always an actor), taking a massive wage reduction too, but the writing continued. I had been attending a few video production courses mostly for access to the equipment. And here’s where I learnt ‘Lesson No.2: Beware of the green-eyed monster’.
Not long after completing a course at Super 8 Film I went to work on a BBC documentary series as a production assistant. I had started off on travel expenses only but by the end of the shoot I was an Assistant Producer and was then headhunted to work as a Researcher on a ‘Dispatches’ documentary. The documentary led to me writing my first screenplay and being short listed and nominated for a couple of screenplay awards. It was at one of these awards events at BAFTA that I learnt my next lesson when a Scottish writer who used to write for Billy Connolly asked me ‘Are you serious about this business?’ Well, of course I am. ‘Do you want me to pat you on the back and tell you how good you are? Or do you want me to tell you the truth?’ I candidly asked for the truth and his reply was, ‘Your screenplay was easily the best one there (out of 12 others in the final) but it won’t win. It’ll never get made. That’s just the way it is.’ He then bought me a drink and told me ‘Your first big screenplay is a ‘show script’. It’ll get you through the door. Use it to get other commissions.’ With that he went off on his merry way. Of course, true to form, my screenplay didn’t win, didn’t even come in the money places (1st, 2nd or 3rd). I slunk into a corner to drown my sorrows in the pint the Scottish writer had bought me. ‘Lesson No. 3:Life isn’t fair. Neither is the movie business’. I stuffed my face on canapés and got thoroughly pissed on free wine. Within three months I was at film school in Cardiff studying Independent and avant-garde film.
Cherwell: What films and film directors have been the biggest influences on you? Do you have any current favourites?
I suppose one is influenced by a number of things, not just films and filmmakers but stories, art and politics. I began watching foreign films, when growing up Russian, Czech, French, Japanese, Indian. What I noticed for the most part, particularly amongst the European films was their adherence to the art of film rather than pure narrative. Then when I entered film school I discovered that one of my fellow students also lectured in Czech cinema and collected early Eastern European film. We talked long and hard about film and debated the whys and wherefores of narrative structure… the discontinuous non-narrative feature film.
The movies that always remained emblazoned across my brain locker were the epics, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, ‘Doctor Zhivago’, ‘Once Upon a Time in The West’ and edgy suggestive films such as ‘Black Narcissus’ and ‘Peeping Tom’. My favourite director though is David Lean. He is often seen as over-elaborate but was a genuine director with a vision. He would attempt to film classic books and as far as I’m concerned he’s been the greatest ever British director. The man was an artist and was able to get as close to popular imagination as anyone with films such as ‘Great Expectations’, ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘Madeleine’, ‘Ryan’s Daughter’, ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ – I could go on. I also like Guy Ritchie who gets a very bad press but is actually a much better director than he gets credit for.
Cherwell: Do you or would you ever direct someone else’s script?
Of course. As an arthouse filmmaker, producers tend to be afraid of you. They think you don’t or won’t understand mainstream sensibilities so they are reluctant to approach you with projects. A few years ago I was up for a couple of movie projects, one in particular I got really close. There were three producers, two British and one German. The Germans were putting up most of the finance. They’d all seen a short film I’d made and called me in. I had a few meetings but I noticed that the German producer wouldn’t speak to me at all, just stared and barely nodded his head. Here’s ‘Lesson No. 4: Trust your instincts’.
It turned out said German producer had a German director up his sleeve so I was off the picture. I went to see the movie when it came out. I have to say it was brilliantly done, a very good film – though I would’ve done it better (I would say that). No really, in terms of directing actors’ performance I will blow my own trumpet.
Cherwell: Do you think that independent films are in general more interesting than mainstream Hollywood fare?
One would expect an Indie filmmaker to say, ‘Hell, yeah.’ But in all truth that’s not the case. Most films are made independently and most of them are quite frankly awful – I think there were over four hundred films made in the UK last year, and we can thank our cotton socks that we never got to see them. The Hollywood fare, or what we consider to be Hollywood fare, is generally exceedingly well done. The studios make films that cinema-goers are going to pay to see; that means stars, explosions, car chases, CGI, gloss, extraordinary production value. The CGI effects in ‘Transformers’ were out of this world, the sound quality was second to none, the look of the film on the big screen just tells you you are at an event. Hollywood is a brilliant model of people power. Yes, I said people power because the studios adapt to what the people want to see and thus they will spend millions of dollars delivering it so they can make even more money.
Cherwell: Has the internet helped you to gain a larger audience than you might otherwise have?
If you asked me this six months ago I would have said no. However in the last few weeks I’ve had people contact me from different parts of the world asking me for news of my next project or wanting to screen something of mine – weird. In all honesty though, I believe the internet in practice is not all it’s cracked up to be in the entertainment stakes. It’s great for buying your weekly shopping or some badly made electronic goods or paying bills, but when it comes to media it’s all about the sound bite. There are people who watch films on the computer screen, but they aren’t seeing what the filmmaker intended. They’re seeing a squashed down apparition of the work. If you watch a download for instance (so you can tell your mates you saw that latest blockbuster) then go and watch it in the cinema you will find that you are watching an entirely different film. The experience is different, the little things in the corner of your 17″ laptop screen are actually props that the production designer searched all over the county of Waco to ideally place in order to enhance the visual aesthetic of the mise en scene. The internet can be reduced to ‘Change’, Obama’s election slogan. Two years later, nothing’s changed but the ‘internet believer’ generation bought it.
Cherwell: Is British independent filmmaking in good shape right now? Will the closure of the UK Film Council make things noticeably more difficult?
British independent filmmaking, for all its ills, has been doing okay. With the industry as it is currently, filmmakers such as myself can go out and try to seed projects and get them produced. It’s still hard but when you have an industry you can ride alongside it and feed off the crumbs. However this was all thrown into jeopardy when the so-called coalition unilaterally decided to kill the UK Film Council. It’s a bad decision. Okay, the entity might have needed trimming and decentralising but to announce abolishing it as a direct policy is tantamount to a coup d’etat. Don’t get me wrong, I have no love for the UKFC. They have never been a friend to me. I have been working in the film business for the best part of the whole time they have been in existence and being one of only a handful of black film directors, I’ve never had a meeting.
What I see happening in the future is a new body being set up. But in the meantime, while the politicians are pissing about, the Goose that lay the golden egg will die. It will take ten years for the golden egg to hatch before we get to the stage where we are now. The UKFC’s demise is a poor decision less based on financial matters than political ones. That said, I recognise that they have done a phenomenal job here in the UK and abroad; let’s not forget that their tentacles reach across the globe.
Cherwell: What have you got planned next?
Next up for me is a psychological thriller set in Norway. I am currently writing the script and meeting with Norwegian co-producers. At the same time I’m still developing my futuristic political fantasy thriller.
