Romeo and Juliet: A Love Song is an independent, New Zealand musical version of Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy. This incarnation places the timeless lovers amongst the spliff-swapping, crate-bearing, caravan-populated world of the Trailer Park.
A Love Song is playing as part of the 2013 New Zealand International Film Festival. We asked co-writer and director Tim van Dammen a couple of questions about the film.
Hello from Flicks. What have you been up to today?
Rearranging the bakery in my dad’s supermarket and sorting out our fresh doughnut and sandwich loaf production. Then I wrote for two hours, injected our diabetic cat with some insulin, watched some Xcal vids, some HodgeTwins vids and am currently having some beers with my bandmates.
When did the opportunity to direct Romeo and Juliet first present itself?
October 2010, I was emailed a series of songs asking if I would be keen to make a film. I was then sent a couple of CDs with 38 songs on them. I thought about how I could make this work as a film and after a whole lot of kicking ideas around with Alex Gandar and Tim Flower I finally decided that I could make it work as a sort of trash opera – like an updated John Waters type of thing.
The film’s not “theatre”, but had you been involved with stage productions in the past?
I’ve been involved as an actor in a whole lot of stage productions when I was growing up – from Shakespeare to the new brutalist stuff from the ’90s. Since discovering photography in my late teens, I stopped doing theatre. Film and theatre are far different forms of entertainment and require much different approaches to storytelling and execution from both an actor’s and a director’s point of view.
What were your first thoughts on how to translate the score and story to the big screen?
I knew it needed to be framed as a comedy in order for it to draw in the audience; it’s easy for people to be alienated by rapping Shakespeare – it needed an ‘icebreaker’ first act. I also knew that it needed to be low budget as possible, so with these two ideas in my head I began brainstorming. Initially I thought Romanian gypsies rapping Shakespeare in a rubbish-dump trailer-park would be funny but then when I thought about translating that to an NZ setting it made sense to set it in a camp ground.
And did these evolve over time? Were there unexpected challenges to overcome, or particular ideas that popped up along the way?
All the changes and evolution were due to the setting which turned out to be great because it kept the budget low – we could get our sets and costumes from the inorganic collection. When we arrived up at Waipu Cove we were presented with a whole lot of opportunities location-wise. It changed the way I thought about a few scenes, like any film we adapted to what we had because what we had was better than what we had hoped to have. The locals introduced us to various people and places that ended up becoming major parts of the film.
Were there aspects of your filmmaking background that proved especially helpful?
I’ve been working as a music video producer/director for many years and I’ve built a really strong and close team. Without them, this film would never had worked. Having shot a lot to music vids helps because it is very difficult to shoot to music – much harder than shooting standard drama or comedy because everything needs to be in time to a track. The emotional beats contained in the dialogue are suddenly set to tempo so as a director you need to make sure that these still read and that the actors still have time to hit these beats convincingly. Then when you’re editing the film and you start to cut scenes down you have to do it in bars and beats which adds another level of complexity. I was lucky to have such a great editor as Jonno Woodford-Robinson on the case!
What elements of Shakespeare’s original work do you think translate most strongly on screen, and why?
The love story screams at you from the top of its lungs through this piece, I think even if you tried to go completely against that central plot it would still envelop and affect an audience deeply. It’s weird because when you look at it in the cold hard light of day, Romeo and Juliet meet one night, get married the next day and then die the day after that… It’s a three-day relationship but it feels like the greatest love of all time. The other thing that truly lives on is the virtuosity of language. Not only does Shakespeare write the greatest love story of all time but he does so in rhyme. Show off.
Could you share your strongest memory from filming?
Just the general feeling of being under a lot of pressure, being isolated up north on some make-shift sets with your best friends all working together to make the best possible thing you can. The friendship and the sense of achievement when you’ve finished shooting for the day and cut it together and everyone grabs a beer and sits around and watches what they did. There’s nothing like it on earth; it’s the best feeling ever.
Who would be the best, and worst, possible people to bring along to your film?
The best people to bring along would be Shakespeare enthusiasts because they will see all the subtle Easter eggs that I’ve planted, people around 13 to 17 will love it because it’s mental and funny and the leads are hot as f**k, romantics, people who want to see something different and people who like John Waters, Rocky Horror, Mario Bava and Roger Corman.
People not to bring – dicks.
What was the last great film you saw?
I haven’t seen Pacific Rim yet and I hear good things so the last great Hollywood film I’ve seen would have been Life of Pi – it shouldn’t have worked but was overwhelming in every aspect (no pun intended). ‘Latest’ in terms of what I watched this week was The Searchers on Sky Movies at my parents’ house… so great, so dark and so beautiful.
What are you thinking about doing next?
We’re working on two different projects. One is another opera with some of NZ’s top musicians and the other is set in early NZ about headhunters but I’m always looking for compelling local scripts!
