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برچسب: Screen

  • Who gets to be on the big screen?

    Who gets to be on the big screen?


    A group of teenage girls sit on a roof in the sunshine, laughing and smiling.

    Casting director Lucy Pardee lifts the lid on her latest project, Lollipop, and working in the casting industry. 

    In Rocks, a teenage girl struggles to care for her little brother after being abandoned by her mother; In Bird, a young girl seeks magical adventure away from her unpredictable father; In Aftersun, a young girl’s father-daughter holiday comes to hold melancholy meaning. These moving, character-focused recent films share one thing: they were cast by Lucy Pardee. The BAFTA-winning casting director has worked with some of the UK’s finest directing talent, from Andrea Arnold to Jonathan Glazer to Lynne Ramsay, discovered countless homegrown stars and had decades of industry insight dedicated to widening diversity on the big screen.

    Pardee’s careful casting has paid off since her first casting director credit with Arnold’s Wuthering Heights to her most recent film, Daisy-May Hudson’s feature debut, Lollipop. The poignant drama follows single mother Molly (Posey Sterling), fresh out of prison, trying to regain custody of her children but unable to while she’s homeless. It’s a piercing narrative that required a skilled cast. Demystifying the casting process, Pardee notes that finding the right actors is completely different with every project, but with Lollipop, the focus was connection and authenticity. “Because Daisy-May’s a documentary filmmaker, meeting people is really important,” Pardee explains. “She’s rather alternative. She wanted to bring a candle to light, but I said no, so instead she brought scents to neutralise the energy.”

    Pardee shares that this interest in actors with lived experience is where street casting comes in. “There’s a real misconception that we just wander up to people,” Pardee clarifies. “Sometimes we do, but street casting is impossible without contacts with organisations because they will help us translate opportunities for the groups of people they work with.” Pardee’s experience working with theatre companies Clean Break (an organisation illuminating the stories of women in prison) and Cardboard Citizens (the UK’s only homeless people’s professional theatre company) informed Lollipop’s outreach. Pardee says the very purpose of this approach is “about making the ramp into the room accessible to people without previous acting experience.”

    Lollipop embodies this outreach. For instance, TerriAnn Cousins, who plays Molly’s mother, came through Clean Break when Pardee previously cast her in Silver Haze. Also, Idil Ahmed, who plays Molly’s supportive childhood friend Amina, joined Lollipop through an organisation that works with East African and Somali communities after seeing Kosar Ali, an actor of Somali descent, star in Rocks. “I felt incredibly proud that we could bridge Kosar into the industry with Rocks,” Pardee said. “Idil and her four children are huge fans of Rocks. She was one of the people making a connection; Idil had never acted before, but felt like this was an opportunity she could step into because someone else had.”

    Despite these connections and having a slate of exciting projects, Pardee highlights that she remains concerned about the shrinking space for newcomers in the industry. “There’s a real insecurity at the moment in terms of projects being seen,” Pardee shares, adding that there’s added pressure on casting directors to work with actors with profiles, the antithesis of independent film as “a crucible for launching talent.” In response to this industry-wide insecurity in the arts, Pardee co-founded and serves as an advisor for We Are Bridge, an industry body committed to supporting “people who have come into the industry through alternative pathways, bridging to their next opportunities.” It’s not just allowing an actor a first role, but helping them secure a second. 

    Frankie Corio, a young girl with brown hair, stands at the centre of the frame in a yellow t-shirt surrounded by people.

    This work surrounding industry access is not just based on anecdotal experience; less than 10% of film and TV workers are from working-class backgrounds, the lowest in a decade, according to Channel 4’s 2024 report. Pardee says progression towards diverse working-class representation is “not a cultural shift to the future, but it’s almost a cultural shift to the past… [the UK] has a tradition of working class representation; we’re not breaking boundaries that haven’t been broken before, we’ve neglected pathways. Austerity kicked the shit out of those pathways which started with dramas in schools and youthclubs and access at community level.”

    Pardee cites Adolescence as an interesting example, as much of the young cast came from grassroots drama organisations. However, these programs aren’t free to access. “There’s a whole wave of talent that, as soon as you put a price on it, isn’t able to do it,” Pardee notes. “Privilege does not equal talent.” This barrier to entry is not only harming the industry but also the quality of independent film.

    This investment in the next generation is also clear in several recent films Pardee has worked on (Lollipop, Bird and Aftersun), which see her tasked with finding children and young people who can handle emotionally mature scenes. Exemplifying this, Luke Howitt and Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads deliver fantastic performances as Molly’s children in Lollipop. Rhoads is particularly impressive as she sobs and pleads for her mother to obey the rules to regain custody of them. Pardee explains that reaching such emotions is built around fictional play and imagination; there’s an end goal, but the journey to that point is up to each actor.

    There has been a recent dialogue about social media followers dictating who gets into the casting room when it comes to casting young people. “Not in my world!” Pardee laughs, remarking social media is a double-edged sword: though it has unlocked a door for accessibility, an over-reliance has led to a “generation of people who will send a self-tape based on, I think, how they look.” Pardee emphasises that self-tapes will never replace auditioning in the room, which is a safe space for failure and imperfection: “I don’t know whether it’s COVID or social media, but there’s definitely risk aversion in the younger people coming through. In art, you must be able to take a swing, miss, and feel ok to take another one.”

    Jennifer Lawrence, a blonde woman a floral dress, and Robert Pattinson in a yellow checked shirt and jeans, dance in a room with patterned wallpaper.

    Pardee’s upcoming slate includes much-anticipated projects, including Lynne Ramsay’s psychological portrait Die, My Love, starring Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence. “We found Robert in a Greggs,” Pardee laughs. “I’ve been working with [Ramsay] for quite a long time, but this is the first time we’ve cast a feature film together. She creates such a ripe, safe environment. I think that’s why we all do some of our best work with her, because of this safety.” Pardee is also in the “very, very early days” of casting How to Have Sex writer-director Molly Manning Walker’s A24 show about girls’ football. Pardee notes she’s conducting a lot of outreach and that authentic representation is a core focus for this casting. “If you want to represent a story authentically, I believe in: ‘nothing about us without us’. Because Molly is part of this community, it’s so exciting.”

    Many stars have passed through Pardee’s casting process, but one of her most memorable was Aftersun’s Francesca Corio. Corio beat out 900 applications to star in Charlotte Wells’ heartbreaking film, opposite Paul Mescal. Pardee remembers auditioning 16 girls in a snow-covered, empty wedding venue in Glasgow in 2021 with Welles and producer Adele Romanski. Pardee recalls the special moment: she acted opposite Corio as her mother, and the young actress had to reach a point of sadness. “She was so genuinely sad, I got this feeling of ‘we’ve found her!’ It was profound,” Pardee recalled. “I asked her, ‘What were you thinking about?’ She said her guinea pig is about to die. The next day we tentatively asked about her guinea pig. Frankie said: ‘My guinea pig died, but it’s ok, my mum brought me a chip supper. So I’m fine… let’s act!’”



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  • Long Hot Summer: The mythos of the pool on screen

    Long Hot Summer: The mythos of the pool on screen



    Later on, we see Ned teaching a little boy to swim in an empty pool, the water having been drained over safety concerns. Upon witnessing the boy’s skepticism, Neddy says, ​“If you make believe hard enough that something is true, then it is true for you,” because, ​“when I was a kid people used to believe in things.” This scene effectively summarises Neddy’s own delusion, with his attempts to revert to a state of childhood innocence shattered in the film’s final pool scene. Unlike Odysseus, Ned’s ending is not one of triumph. For the first time, we see him outside of the pool setting; having finally reached his own home, he finds the property overgrown with weeds, the tennis court unusable, and his family long gone. Back on dry land, Neddy’s childish illusion and dream of his ​“all-American family” is no longer contained in a pool-shaped fantasy. 

    If The Swimmer is considered the pinnacle of the swimming pool canon, then 1967’s The Graduate is a worthy companion. The film follows Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), who has just graduated from university. Upon moving back into his parents’ house, as he desperately tries to figure out what he wants to do with his life, he soon finds himself pulled into an affair with bored housewife Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).

    Benjamin’s feelings of uncertainty and loss of freedom are best summarised in an extended sequence depicting a bronzed Benjamin floating at the bottom of a pool after being forced into a scuba suit on his birthday for the amusement of his parents and their friends. By shooting the scene from Benjamin’s submerged perspective – through narrow goggles, completely surrounded by water – director Mike Nichols invites us to view the world as Benjamin does. The camera pans to take in the suffocating blue abyss, emphasising Benjamin’s feelings of isolation in his own home. 

    In this moment, the film also masterfully utilises sound, with the only noise being Benjamin’s exaggerated breathing as he drowns out the sound of the party and therefore the expectations and responsibilities of adulthood. Later, we see Benjamin lounging on a lilo, after sleeping with Mrs Robinson for the first time. He remarks to his father upon his questions about whether he will be attending graduate school, that ​“it’s very comfortable just to drift here”, perfectly summarising his feelings towards this shift. Lying on the lilo, he doesn’t have to choose between swimming or not swimming; the pool is a liminal space representing his awkward transition from boy to man. 

    Elsewhere, Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 road movie Y tu mamá también, charts the transition of late teenagers with similar intensity, at a time of sociopolitical upheaval in Mexico. In a recent interview with Movie Maker, Cuarón revealed the film’s intrinsic link to youth: ​“For us, this movie is about identity. Two young men seeking their identity as adults…together with that is an observation of a country that in our opinion is a teenage country looking for its identity as a grown-up country.” 

    Both Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) have finished school and are seduced by the allure of being by the water during the long hot days of summer, free from their highschool girlfriends and as fluid as the element they inhabit. In a demonstration of their infantile energy, we see these two boys compete against each other in swimming and masturbating contests in the Olympic-size pool at the country club where Tenoch’s father is a member, while fantasising about Salma Hayek and Luisa (Maribel Verdú), ​“la españolita”, the wife of Tenoch’s cousin. A high-angle long shot shows the boys side by side lying on adjacent springboards, engaged in simultaneous masturbation, before an underwater shot shows a squirt of semen entering the water, foreshadowing their journey of sexual discovery. 

    As their relationship with Luisa intensifies, the boys once again swim together, this time in a distinctly less well-kept motel pool overflowing with leaves. This change in setting embodies the boy’s evolving relationship, which is now entirely symbolic of their competition for Luisa’s affection. Julio has seen Tenoch and Luisa having sex and walks out to sit at the edge of the pool. The narrator says that Julio has only ever felt anger like this when he saw his mother with a man when he was a child. Instead of talking, they decide to race again. A victorious Julio reveals that he slept with Tenoch’s girlfriend; the narrator states that Tenoch had only ever felt like that when, as a child, he read an article about his father selling contaminated corn to the poor. It is critical that the boys’ ambivalent relationship with one another is backdropped by swimming pools because it allows us to understand how they each construct their concept of sexual identity in relation to their own youthful experiences. They are not yet mature enough to express certain emotions which continue to bubble under the surface. 

    At the end of the film, a significant shift occurs when the constrictive, self-contained pool is exchanged for the vast expanse and unknown of the ocean. Choosing to stay in rural Mexico alone, Luisa submerges herself in the ocean, and so enacts a kind of symbolic death. Tenoch and Julio were drawn to Luisa just as they are drawn to water, yet their eventual return home signals their acceptance of meeting their parents’ expectations. As both the boys and country open themselves to the unknown, Cuarón leaves us with a final message: ​“Life is like the surf. Give yourself away like the sea.” 





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  • Falling Into Place review – Sally Rooney-core for the big screen

    Falling Into Place review – Sally Rooney-core for the big screen




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  • The Worst Mistakes Parents Can Make When It Comes To Screen Time — Every Movie Has a Lesson

    The Worst Mistakes Parents Can Make When It Comes To Screen Time — Every Movie Has a Lesson



    # 1 – Enforcing Complete Screen Time Bans

    There’s so much discussion around screen time and its potential harm that many parents may be tempted to enforce complete bans on this kind of activity. Removing screens means removing the problem, right? Or perhaps not. 

    Teens, in particular, are unlikely to stop a behaviour simply because their parents want them to. In this instance, screen time bans can prove more harmful as they result in secretive screen activity that’s entirely out of your knowledge or control. 

    Equally, complete screen time bans from a young age can result in the glamorization, or overuse, of screens as those children get older. Banning screens altogether also prevents children from understanding essentials to modern living, such as healthy, screen smart behaviours, and even the ability to access online benefits like personalized learning.

    Nowadays, it’s also true that entirely banning your child from screens can leave them isolated from classmates or friendship groups, resulting in inevitable resentments and potential social difficulties both in and outside of school. For all of these reasons and more, management is always better than complete restriction, as it allows children to benefit from screens in an open, overseen way that keeps parents in control at all times. 

    # 2 – A Lack of Age-Appropriate Parental Controls

    Parental controls on each of your child’s devices are by far the best ways to ensure they don’t encounter inappropriate content online. These controls can manage everything from how long and when your child can access the internet, to which sites they’re able to access during that time. Most parents understand the importance of putting these controls in place before handing a device to their child, but many don’t take enough precautions to make sure that these controls are effective or age-appropriate.

    Even basic parental controls will be sufficient for younger children who, up until the age of at least five, should also be supervised while using screens. However, ill-thought or poorly managed parental controls can quickly come under fire as tech-savvy children reach their pre-teen and teen years. Not to mention that, at this age, strict restrictions could be as bad as complete bans for encouraging secretive use, or even hidden devices that you don’t know about. 

    The best way to overcome this is to continually review parental controls, ensuring that they provide age-appropriate restrictions and a strong enough defence to resist wise teenagers. As your children get older, it’s also worth speaking with them about restrictions that they may find problematic, and adjusting your approach to give them more overall control of their online activities, without entirely removing your much-needed oversight. 

    # 3 – Failing to Guide Usage



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