Tom Wrights Ambitious Eight Minutes To Midnight Sets Sail
WRITTEN BY PATRICK FROST
Ravensbourne film student Tom Wright Embarks on his latest film Eight Minutes to Midnight A romance set on a boat with three friends two being painters and one an aspirational yuppie art dealer on New Year’s Eve 2020. This one take film follows the story of an old flame shows up who in an attempt tries to reignite his relationship with his girlfriend Julia.
When I heard about Eight Minutes to midnight and its wrap on filming, I just knew that I needed to get a scoop on it. From initially Finding out through word of mouth what this student film was about I was curious to find out more and managed to book an interview with the Director Tom Wright DFP second year student.
When interviewing Tom, I was able to get a clearer Insite Into how he worked on the project and the different elements he had to consider and use in the overall story. We first spoke about his inspirations for the film one being from director Woody Allen and his directing approach but what I found especially interesting was taking inspirations from “A lot of Arthur miller single scene plays”. Taking inspiration not just from film but theatre when coming up with a film concept can be a very interesting influence. Another inspiration that Tom mentioned was his past experiences that played a role alongside the development of the project. well Toms inspirations were starting to feel unique and quite eye opening, as a creative I would look for other forms of film to take inspiration from but to see a young filmmaker think outside the box is always refreshing to see.
When asking more about the writing process was for Eight Minutes to Midnight I had and a brief insight into the project itself. When coming up with the themes and when writing out the overall narrative he wanted to use the idea of time specifically "I wanted use themes such as time in a specific way when leading up to midnight cause everyone has different experiences on new year’s Eve some people love and hate it and I find it a strangely a sentimental time as your reflecting on the year and your relationships with people about how the year is going to be like going forward and it touches on all these ideas”. When we were discussing using themes during his writing process I felt that Tom had strong intentions to make sure his audience felt the use of time not just through a time like New Year’s Eve but the time our two main characters have together during the film itself.
When talking about the importance of the boat location not just as an aesthetic choice but a narrative choice he spoke briefly on how he wrote it in the story "I didn’t write the story until I saw the boat so really, I didn’t know if we were all going to fit on the boat and be able to film but the boat itself was an inspiration for the writing as it was written for the location specifically” as the boat was a great source of inspiration for the overall story he felt the boat was a great challenge to work with. “It could have been written in a different location, but it would have been boring, and it really added another dimension to the story".
Overall, this interview had very in-depth discussions surrounding Toms creative style and how he implemented new skills and a new style into Eight Minutes to Midnight and the one take which was something new he wanted to take on for this project. “Yeah, the one take was a big leap, but I've always enjoyed long takes in my films where I would go for a take that would be two or three minutes long as it gives my actors the room to play out each scene in a different way but my thing at the minute is experimenting with experimental films styles but the unbroken take it was a fun”. While talking about the one shot take that’s new to his style the thing that tom keeps returning too is the slightly longer takes that he feels as a creative allows his talents to explore more depth within each scene and find something new that wasn’t intended in the script. Tom also adds his great relationship with his talents he worked with and his co-star Macie. "Macie was great I love working with actors over and over again because it’s like you can develop different styles. For example, on a different project we would work and change things about her characters to suit her and challenge the story further".
It was great to talk with Tom on a student filmmaker level but especially getting an InSite into the creative mind and how he directed Eight Minutes to midnight. To finish off the interview I asked what’s next for tom and what he’s going to get up to in the future. “Well, that’s a good question um probably something you haven't seen before I'm planning on making another film in Black and white like a cold silence. But coming soon I will be making a feature film this year in a black and white format that will be something simple but effective but build on top of what I've done before so it'll have the comedic quips, break ups, and ex-girlfriends but I don’t want to give anything away but that’s what you'll expect to see"