Award-Winning Short 'Russian Roulette' - Scout Q&A

For an unsigned director on a minimal budget it's always crucial to have a strong script, great talent and a dedicated crew. Director Ben Aston, fresh out of film school, has a knack for getting all three right and has repeatedly won praise on Short Of The Week, via the Vimeo Staff Picks page, and most recently in Sundance London.
 
'Russian Roulette', Ben's latest short (as featured on The Scout), is the tale of a lonely girl and a horny astronaut who strike up an unlikely but brief friendship on Chatroulette across the solitary void of space. Inspired by the antics of Canadian International Space Station engineer Chris Hadfield and his quirky video coverage of life in earth's orbit, Ben gives us a generally more humourous and 'intimate' interpretation of how astronauts might amuse themselves on the internet while on the day job.

By skilfully manoeuvring his script and direction along both comedic and tender veins, Russian Roulette is a great example of how you can make a fantastic short with a big heart on just a shoestring. We caught up with Ben to find out his tips and tricks for creating award-winning work.



Did you and your writer decide on the idea for the short together or did you come up with it yourself? What was the inspiration for it, personal experience? Have you met any astronauts/odd balls on Chatroulette? 
 
I've never actually been on Chatroulette, I've always been too scared! I considered trying just as preparation for the film but I just couldn't do it.
 
Oli and I have written comedies together for years, I honestly can't remember who's idea it was, it's just one of those magical things that comes out of an aimless conversation between old friends. I know that he wanted it to be more jokey, and I wanted the heart. All in all I think we met somewhere in the middle.
 
According to your Vimeo page you made this short while in pre-production for another film. Does this include coming up with the concept, or is this a film you've been thinking of making for a while?
 
At the time I was in pre-production on another short film 'He Took His Skin Off For Me', produced by Fiona Lamptey (Film4). It's a darkly comic domestic-fairytale about a man who takes his skin off for his girlfriend, and why it probably wasn't the best idea. Needless to say it required a LOT of work to pull off and I needed a break.
 
I came to Oli and told him we had to make something fun. It really didn't exist before then. We set ourselves a two week deadline, a £50 budget and made a story that fit our requirements. I like to think of it as a kind of emotional release! 
 
The film is set pretty much in a single location. Was that a conscious choice? Did it cause any problems with regard to the narrative drive?
 
It was definitely a conscious choice. I didn't want the film to look as cheap as it was, once you start adding locations it suddenly becomes a real production and there was simply no way that could have worked.
 
I was initially worried as to the narrative drive, but the first draft of Oli's very funny script instantly quieted any hesitation.  He was able to pack so much into so little that I knew we were safe; there's really no dead time.

 



Compared to your other recent short ('Dinner and a Movie') 'Russian Roulette' is certainly more of a comedy. Is this a genre you're aiming to move towards? Was it at all daunting trying to make people laugh?
 
I've been making comedies for as long as I've been making films. I hope every film I make is funny to at least one person out there. As a rule I've spent my recent time at the London Film School exploring how far I can push the comedy boat out into other genres. I don't think you can grow making the same thing over and over again so I've felt obliged to keep trying something new.
 
'Dinner and a Movie' was my first stab at a drama-comedy in the Alexander Payne style. It's the story of a young guy who meets an older women on a prison dating website, and brings her back to his trailer for their first date. It's starts off pretty straight but definitely shows it's comic sensibilities towards the end. 'He Took His Skin Off For Me' is probably the least funny thing I've ever made, but it still gets a laugh or two. Comedy is a necessary part of the way I like to tell stories, 'Russian Roulette' is just more up front about it.
 
How long did it take to assemble your crew, or do you already have a few dedicated people you keep going back to?
 
On a film like this it's all about short-hand and favours. Most everyone involved in the film was someone I knew or had worked with on other projects before, but never on a project of my own. I saw this as an opportunity to finally work with people I had always wanted to, like the DOP Darren Joe.
 
The two actors are absolutely brilliant at being both funny and sympathetic, how much of the characters did they create themselves? Bec Hill is a professional comedian while also working in film, did her expertise come in handy?
 
From the beginning we knew that we wanted a comedian to play Lucy, even though she's the 'straight man' we needed someone who could still inject humour into the role. Being a comedian the one thing Bec knows better than anyone is timing - it's because of that innate sense of delivery that we totally buy she's talking to someone who's not really there. My biggest challenge was keeping her from being TOO funny, as it would have messed up the balance in tone.
 
I had first seen Stewart in a very serious drama called 'a Perfect Day for Cake', where he had played the Eastern European flatmate, a kind of comic relief. He was the best thing in the film for me and I knew I had to work with him. We pretty much wrote the role to fit that performance and luckily he signed on. He just has an effortlessly charming way about him and prevents the character from ever coming off as creepy, he's the real soul of the film.
 


Was it hard trying to find an actor willing to act entirely on a screen within a screen? How did you get the 'Chatroulette' look - was it pre-recorded or shot live from another room and did the actors interact directly?
 
The whole thing is pre-recorded and played back on set. The first shooting day was capturing the space footage, followed by an edit, followed by a second day of shooting. In reality Bec and Stewart never actually met, everything shot of him is in fact a recording of a recording; which is helpful in hiding the cheap set he's in. You can find out more about the making of it here.
 
The film obviously didn't require a heck of a lot of post, but it's clear that the grade and edit has been finely tuned. Do you think it's important to get the finishing touches right when creating films like this? How has your experience schooled you on this?
 
So much of filmmaking is editing. As 'Russian Roulette' was something of a vacation for me I made sure to stretch the edit out as long as possible so I could really get it to a place where I was happy. People always care about what camera you shoot a film on, but it's not what makes a film cinematic. It's more performance, editing and sound.
 
OK, you finish your short – what next? Were you thinking of competitions/festivals whilst making it, or was it more for artistic expression / your showreel?
 
Definitely an expression, I really didn't expect anything from it, we just wanted to make something we wanted to see. However winning that Sundance prize has opened us up to a potentially rewarding festival run. We're looking at our options right now.
 


Russian Roulette has already been featured on Short Of The Week, it's just won the Sundance London online short film competition and you've been a regular on Vimeo Staff Picks, which must all feel pretty great! What sort of response were you expecting/hoping to get and how have you been promoting your work?
 
Ha, actually we haven't been given a Vimeo staff pick for this one. I've had two since January - 'Dinner and a Movie' and 'Polygon - The Bishops' - and have been privately told by a Vimeo curator that they're not going to give me a third in as many months, it undermines the purpose of the channel, it's not the Ben Aston club after all!
 
It's honestly done better than we could have possibly expected. The only thing we wanted was for people to see it; we've had it in front of 40,000 eyeballs since we launched last week, any future plans are just about getting more people to check it out.
 
You're in post-production for your next film at the moment, but what next? Will this be time to take a break or do you have other projects in mind?
 
Last week I handed in my grad film and officially finished at the LFS, so I'm no longer a student. For me the next few weeks are really about finding out what options are available to me in my career. I love short form content and am excited at the possibility of commercials gigs, for which I have begun to take meetings. I've also begun to take meetings for TV work. It's all pretty open at the moment.
 
In the meantime I've been using this time to begin thinking up the next home grown effort. Oli and I have been writing a TV pilot and I've been developing feature projects with my 'He Took His Skin Off For Me' writer Maria Hummer.



Ben Aston is one of the many talented unsigned directors we've uploaded to our Scout page.