Short Film

Requires Improvement was our first short developed entirely under the Evening Cat umbrella. With an incredible cast and crew, many trips to Sheffield and lots of first time screen roles, we had such a wonderful time. We took our half-Sheffield, half-North Lincs thing seriously with this one- almost all the cast were Lincs, almost all the crew were Sheffield. 

Prepare yourself for the most backwards pre-production process ever experienced as we give you a glimpse into the process. In our defense; with a micro budget, sometimes you need to think a little outside of the box!

Turns out that there are a million different puns involving the word write. Prepare yourselves, we'll be milking this one for years.

We start our trip through Requires Improvement with the writer, Natalie Yates; as one would expect. No writer, no script. 

This particular script was written in 2021, as part of a writing course- she was given four weeks to come up with a concept and write something. Not planning on ever developing it, she leaned heavily into the idea of creating a hugely unlikeable lead. Paired with the fact that she had a lot of trainee teachers in her social circle at that time, she quickly typed up a script, learnt standard screenwriting formatting and got feedback. Her advice? Keep action lines short and relevant, keep dialogue natural.

In spite of a warm reception to the piece (and the odd note-to-self to maybe drop some of her natural dialect, as it literally doesn't translate anywhere successfully unless spoken by her), she buried the script in a neat little folder on her laptop and moved on. Famously, she declared "I'm not writing again, I'm not interested in that". For the record, if Natalie declares she's never going to do something, she most likely will do it.

The script was a bouncy little comedy following a student teacher who on the surface is utterly deplorable, ever so slightly morally bankrupt and desperate for her teenage students' approval. At least, that's how Natalie described it initially.

Three years later (did we give you whiplash? Sorry.), Natalie was crawling out of the world of How to Win Friends and Guinea Pig People and determined to create a film with a stronger storyline, more elaborate characters and better quality equipment. 

Having shot a short film in Sheffield as an actress the previous year, she immediately remembered how much she'd enjoyed working with that team. She'd been considering collaborating with another producer, to learn from and help lighten her responsibilities, especially as working with such a tiny team on the last film had been incredibly fun, but she could appreciate the benefits of a larger team. Can't we all?

So, she dusted off her Sheffield roots and lured in a producer (sounds much more sinister than it really was).

Enter: Alexander Brown. Co-Producer. First AD. 50% of the original line up. Natalie, ever the optimist, approached him excitedly, claiming to have a couple of script options (yes, she'd remembered the script existed again at this point). He offered to give them a read; sending some notes across and some insights into which one may work best for them both in that moment. Concise, precise and brimming with advice (you're welcome for that delicious rhyme), the notes guided Natalie through a couple of tweaking sessions and left the pair of them with a script worth developing; officially getting the ball rolling on Evening Cat Productions' first solo project.

An awfully productive zoom meeting took place, where they created a wonderfully optimistic budget (so optimistic, that we're far too embarrassed to share. Natalie soon got real), discussed a potential timeline and vaguely split up tasks. The pair of them were on the same page, which made for an incredibly successful development process. It was decided early on in the process that Natalie would play the lead; never one to shy away from a challenge, she set to work becoming enamoured with the character, justifying faults and humanising her. Ask her to defend Ellie and her actions? She'll do it, even now.

Turns out, our little producer duo were incredibly efficient. They left their meeting with an actionable list that they got to work on promptly. This is where we split; this section will follow Natalie's actions, the next one along follows Alex. 

With Natalie being an actual actor (as opposed to a plastic one? Not sure where we were going with that one), she was more than willing to go out seeking actors for the team, confident in her ever-growing circle of past and present colleagues and collaborators.

I know what you're thinking. So soon after the development meeting? Told you they weren't conventional with their methods. Unlike any Evening Cat Production before or since, actors were hired pre-pre production (is that a thing?), which had it's pros and cons.

On this particular shoot, with it being the company's first independent film, the casting process was done privately- Natalie and Alex used trusted actors who they knew of, or had previously had positive experiences working with.

Natalie was able to round up her cast early, which was a relief from an admin point of view, although it did mean the actors did have to wait a couple of months for the team to confirm dates with them!

Luckily they'd collected an excellent group of actors who were nothing but lovely throughout the entire process. Want to get to know them? Keep scrolling for their individual bios. 

So; while Natalie was in actor-land, where was Alex? You've probably guessed; handling crew.

While Natalie was busily sweet talking actors into reading her script (okay, fine it didn't take much sweet talking!), Alex had found the project's DOP. Legend.

Dan agreed to join the project and they all scheduled a meeting. Spotted the next unconventional move? Yep. Going into pre-production with a DOP but no director was slightly off-piste for us, but we will defend that the decision worked perfectly for this specific film. 

Our first in-person meeting took place in a little coffee shop in Sheffield (super glam, we know), with the team discussing potential equipment (Dan and Alex were delighted about the use of an Arri Alexa. Natalie looked delighted and pretended that she knew what an Arri Alexa was. She's been an actor for 10 years. She should know.), casting decisions and setting the date. 

The team then tackled the elephant in the room. We had producers. A cast. A DOP (and an entire camera team). Oh yeah- director? No. Thankfully, straight after the meeting Sima was brought on board, effortlessly adapting to the already established decisions and started to steer the project creatively in ways that only a director can. 

She introduced us to Hanieh, our magnificent stylist, who introduced fresh perspectives to the wardrobe and fashions seen on screen. Sima made the decision that red would be a prominent colour, highly associated with the lead character, which was supported by the styling. Her clear vision allowed all other departments to bring the script to life.

After a few more meetings (we'd pick them apart, but it's only remotely interesting when you're in them), a cast rehearsal and a huge amount of paperwork, we were ready to shoot.

As we went into the shoot week, we were feeling marvellous about our talented crew and wonderful actors. Alex had handled locations, while Natalie had been messing around with lots of paperwork (i.e. so incredibly boring, that only she could get a thrill out of it, so let's move on before she mentions her Risk Assessment Qualification. Again.)

Alex had received the permission of Sheffield Hallam University to film on their premises. They gave the team access to school-looking spaces, wonderful facilities (important!) and our production office- based in the same building. The dream.

Our locations ended up complementing the film fantastically; with interesting visuals and bright natural light prominent throughout the scenes.

One of the earliest challenges faced on production week was that a couple of the shoot's locations fell through. On the day. Enter; the quickest response from a crew of all time plus sheer skill. Remember how we needed a bedroom and a shop?

The production office was promptly transformed into a store, then became a bedroom, with the help of some pretty fairy lights (that Natalie totally hadn't just bought for herself. She'd totally been thinking about set dressing when she picked them up in Ikea), skillful angles by Dan and careful movement direction by Sima. 

The bed in the picture above? Cardboard boxes balanced over a gap on a desk. With Natalie under strict instructions not to fall through the cardboard and mess up the shot. What can I say? It's an integral part of micro-budgets, right?

The best bit? We wrapped early that day.

With the film now almost wrapped up and ready for festivals, what happened after production week?

After an eerily smooth three day shoot that could only be the case because of our incredibly talented crew and cast who navigated any slight hiccups quickly and calmly and a director and DOP who communicated efficiently with each other, we were delighted to hop into post-production. We passed our hard drive onto the editor, with beautifully organised files (thank you to Dan for that one!) and debriefed. 

The film then went through its initial edit, we had a wonderful day of pickups (due in part to the fact there's one character on screen for most of the film. Really makes it easy to coordinate a pick up when you've got one actor to direct), a chat with the editor to ensure the shots were what she needed and finally; a little bit of ADR (not exaggerating when we say little, all of Molly's sound was perfect and didn't need any retakes).

Natalie took great joy in driving around North Lincolnshire and making her actors record lines in the back of her car under several blankets. The locals enjoyed that one too. 

After an afternoon of ADR, our producers were excited to receive updates from our editor and assistant editor, both working closely with Sima to ensure the edit clearly reflected her vision for the film.

Next steps? Evening Cat will be pushing this little film into its festival run, before we release it publicly. 

But for now, we are grateful to every single member of the production, for giving their time, expertise and enthusiasm to this project. What a joy to work with you all.

*Unit Stills by Shepherd Creative*