Paul McGann And Ronald Pickup To Star In 'A Little Place Off The Edgware Road'

The cameras role this week, and McGann and Pickup head the cast for this short film based on the story by Graham Greene. They join Owen Brenman (Doctors/One Foot In The Grave) and Natasha O'Keeffe (Lip Service) in a psychological thriller, the story of which was written in 1939.
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The cameras roll this week, and McGann and Pickup head the cast for this short film based on the story by Graham Greene. They join Owen Brenman (Doctors/One Foot In The Grave) and Natasha O'Keeffe (Lip Service) in a psychological thriller, the story of which was written in 1939.

Having first had wishes to turn the story into a film when I was thirteen years old, little did I think I would manage to work with a cast of this profile, especially as it was around the same time I discovered Withnail and his housemate, (probably in the video machine every weekend at school without fail). But let's not forget the underrated Paper Mask.

In a world of HD Cams, Reds, Canon 1Ds, 5Ds and state of the art CGI, there's little ol' me making a short on 16mm. Now, that's exciting. But whereas with those digital things you can run up to take 70 (if you're David Fincher), it's looking more like a disciplined maximum of two takes, perhaps three for safety. No corpsing chaps, there's precious film running through that camera. It's old school - the definition of 'moving pictures'. Will this define me as a film-maker in years to come? There is a certain strangeness at seeing Martin Scorsese wearing 3D glasses on the set of Hugo. The director of Taxi Driver?? But then again Hugo was 'about' old cinema. Interesting.

Thought: must see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel before the shoot.

Final shot lists to complete, touch-ups to little set details, a little addition here, a little subtraction there and we should have something of a starting point. I hope. I must live in the moment. Apply that acting training to directing. But maybe I'll only be truly happy once I see the credits rolling at the end of the film on that screen. Then I'll probably just miss the shoot.

So after nine months of pre-production, two years of development from the time pen hit paper, and twenty-three years in all, let's make movie magic. On 16mm.