The cast and crew behind a Wales-shot short film starring Game of Thrones' Owen Teale, Something Pointless, have come together to discuss the 'quietly devastating' production. Something Pointless follows an intergenerational bond that forms between a lonely, bullied boy and an elderly man whose quiet, pointless daily ritual becomes an unlikely act of defiance against insignificance. The film world-premiered at the USA Film Festival in Dallas this spring, and American critic Jeff York, who has covered the Academy Award shorts for 15 years, came out of that screening calling it 'a genuine contender for such accolades'.
The script began its life winning the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition over a decade ago. Producer David Cormican explains how it eventually found its way to Wales: 'The script for Something Pointless came to me via the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition, which is a script contest I originated, fifteen or so years ago, to find the best short screenplays around the world. And Neil's script ended up winning first place. I want to say it was 2011. I could be wrong - might have been 2010. The idea behind the competition is we make one of the winners each year. It's taken us a few years to get to this one.'
Director Asa Bailey, known internationally for high-end virtual production and technology-driven work, stripped all of that back for Something Pointless. 'The majority of what I get called to do for studios tends to be all about the technology and the advanced ways that we do things. My art is different to my job. And with this, I naturally sort of fall back on a time when the world was simpler. There was a comfort in things. The days when media was simple, when storytelling was much more simple. Because it is a simple story. It's a very simplistic, human story. And I didn't want to dress it up.'
The film has a very particular visual feel - nostalgic, warm, slightly out of time. Cinematographer Keefa Chan and Asa arrived at that through early conversations. 'Asa and I had conversations early on. I showed him my showreel, and there was a particular shot he liked - a shot from a film I made in Italy, using a lens I made myself. He particularly liked it because it had a very natural and very shallow depth of field. That led us to conversations about shooting with a tilt shift lens.'
Something Pointless premieres Tuesday, May 19 at 10:15am at The Main House cinema, Ffwrnes Theatre in Llanelli as part of the 15th Carmarthen Bay Film Festival. Taking place 18-21 May, Carmarthen Bay Film Festival champions the very best in independent filmmaking and filmmakers in Wales and from around the world.
