Interview: "Blackbird" Director Matthew Reynolds

Matthew Reynolds filmed the 20 minute long short film Blackbird in Liverpool. A statement on 1980’s culture and classism, Blackbird might be relatable to how you feel about politics today.

Although it is set in the 1980’s, is your short film supposed to be reflective of this time period?

 Absolutely, the UK has a right-wing government at the moment, and we also did in 1985 under Margaret Thatcher, who, love her or hate her, is by far one of the most influential figures in British history so it’s only natural to make comparisons to her. While it might not be as bad now, the film is sort of a reminder of how little has improved since the 80’s. When shooting on location in Liverpool, it was kind of saddening how little effort was needed to recreate the period because most of the streets look just as run-down as they did back then, it’s shocking to see how virtually nothing has been done since to improve living conditions in the areas that need it most.

Do you think people learn from history at all?

I like to think so, but reflecting on it I’m not sure. We often talk about learning from wars and dictatorships but these are things still going on today, there’s still an awful lot of division and I really hope we’re learning from it.

When you called off the screening party due to COVID-19, what was your original plan? How were you going to market the short film? What about now other than film festival entries?

We were going to have a big screen premiere with a Q&A at a local venue which we were excited about, that would have been really fun but for obvious reasons wasn’t possible. We were going to put it online either way, but I think since all the marketing has had to be online now we’ve simply put more focus into online marketing and I think it’s actually benefited from that, becoming our most viewed film by quite a way. In addition to film festivals I’ve been doing interviews and constantly posting about it on our Instagram!

Are the pub people and everyone in the film your friends to begin with? How did you borrow assorted filming locations for a low budget short?

All the actors playing recurring characters were good friends of mine to begin with, most of which we’ve worked with before, but to get larger groups of people for the pub and ball scenes we just put out a call for extras and a dozen or so strangers helped us out! We’re students as well so I find that venues are more likely to help us out due to our age, obviously we can’t get every location we ask for so it’s just a case of being lucky that the places you want have friendly owners who are willing to help local artists. There’s a lot of goodwill needed to pull off any film on this low of a budget.

Your film is 20 minutes long. Why did you select this running time for a short? A bit more and you could have made it a feature.

I’ve always said the philosophy of Some Guys With A Camera is that we make “films that are short”, rather than “short films”, if that makes sense? The vast majority of short filmmakers are just making films that are about a single scenario or conversation, so they’re rarely interesting enough. That’s why we try to make a well-rounded narrative, with a proper ending and character arcs, because that’s what people want to see. I think Blackbird being any shorter than twenty minutes wouldn’t have been developed enough, and any longer would’ve made it too slow- I wanted to make it very snappy whilst telling enough of a story! I really love being part of this unofficial grassroots movement in the Instagram film community to make these sorts of projects. Other filmmakers my age like Casey Joel Maguire and Ellis Quinn are doing really exciting stuff themselves and have been so supportive of us.

Have you ever felt your life is out of control like the lead character appears to? She doesn’t really say so. I get the impression she feels this to be true at the start.

Absolutely! I’m very lucky to be in a comfortable position nowhere near Mary-Kate’s, but that doesn’t mean I don’t relate to her. She kind of reflects a side of myself who’s just had enough of people’s shit. We open social media and see Snapchat stories from people we’ve added as “friends”, yet wouldn’t even say hello to if we walked past them in the street. It makes you forget who to really value amongst people you know.

In one part, you make fun of the phrase, “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” I am glad you did this. The many homeless people out there and poor, ill people who cannot afford their outrageous healthcare bills might beg to differ. What circumstances have you been told this phrase enough to put it in the film?

I’m glad you liked that! I definitely think it’s a phrase used by greedy people to stop poorer people from complaining. We have free healthcare in the UK but there’s still problems. The nation are applauding healthcare workers on their doorsteps at 8pm every Thursday yet six months ago voted for a government who CHEERED when a pay-rise for them was denied in Parliament. Unbelievably hypocritical! But at the same time, even though we need it, obviously there is so much more to life than money and with the film I was exploring that. The poverty Mary-Kate faces is fundamental to what turns her insane, but don’t forget it’s the loss of her boyfriend that’s the final straw, hinting it’s the non-material things like emotions that really drive us.

Where do you want to go from here with your career goals and this pandemic problem interrupting life? 

We’ll keep going with this for as long as we can! Some Guys With A Camera is always going to be a side project for me that’ll keep branching out and developing, I don’t know exactly what the future holds but it’s only going to get more interesting. The pandemic has delayed us so much, this was going to be our most productive year before I went off to University so it’s very disappointing but we have to stay optimistic. I’ve been doing lots of writing and we’ve been heavily developing ideas that have been half-baked for a while so I’m excited to push forward with those as soon as it’s safe to!