Why did you choose to make a film about life in the inner city?
Near where I live in London small bunches of flowers appear regularly on grubby corners to commemorate another young man stabbed or shot. What does it mean? On a more personal note I was mugged violently late one night in North London. I struggled with the young man who punched me to the ground and kicked my head to get my handbag. There was a moment when we looked at each other and I could see he was as freaked out as I was. He was prepared to hurt me but that was not his intention, he was doing a job, he just wanted my handbag. And I wanted to know who the hell he was and how he had ended up at a place where he thought it was acceptable to bash women in the middle of the night for 30 quid. So I started with a question. Of course I did not meet him again and probably never will but I met others like him. And I liked them all. There are very few bad people in the world and most behaviour makes sense in a context. Maybe it’s the context that’s not working.
Research and creating the script… Research takes patience. You hang about and persevere until you meet someone who you click with and when that happens the door opens wide. Before that it is shut in your face, over and over, a bit like being an unwelcome Jehovah’s Witness – and it’s hard to keep the faith. It is very depressing because when you are constantly shunned you start to lose confidence. Young men would quite reasonably ask me what the film was going to be about. I’d reply that I didn’t know because I needed them to be open with me, that I couldn’t as a white middle class, middle aged woman write a script about their lives out of my head. “Yes, but what it is about?” “I don’t know yet, I need you to talk to me.” “Yes, but what it is about?” And so it went on and on in frustrating circles. The only thing that helps is a couple of vodkas, laugh till you cry, get up the next day and carry on hanging around people who don't want you there and think you are working for the police. It's really horrible.
Eventually, I met a couple of people who actually liked me and things really took off. Dylan Duffus who plays Flash says he knew within 30 seconds that I was not a grass. Through him I met lots of people and heard lots of stories. I asked lots of questions and I made lots of notes. A lot of it was really funny, it's not all grim, of course it's not, there’s a huge amount of humour and resilience and wit. As I got to understand the slang I realised how clever it was – it is intended to keep secrets, keep private and baffle white society just as the use of street names and intimate names are fashioned to protect you from being known and exposed. Tobeijah, who worked on the crew, is also known as Beijah, as Orphan, as the Rev and as Oliver Twist. Sometimes I would realise that what I thought were two or three people were all the same person – but nobody tells you these things, you have to slowly work it out. Money can also be paper, scrilla, p’s or don’s. Most people speak several languages, school English, street talk, code and patois.
I fell in love with the Jamaican community - when you think about how tiny Jamaica is and the massively disproportionate impact it’s had on world culture from Bob Marley to Usain Bolt, it blows your mind. Both Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambata had Jamaican parents, so even hip hop which we think of as quintessentially North American has Jamaican roots. And yet these boys fail at school. It’s a huge mystery.
I went home with all my notebooks full, with all these voices in my head, and wrote the script. Everything in my script is true although it did not all happen to one person in one day. Very early on I had the idea of containing the story in 24 hours and have Flash chased by his own side, the ‘other’ side, his three baby mothers and his family. I was struck by how respectful even the hardest men are to the older women. They call them ‘Mummy’ and are very tender towards them and the Nanny and the mother are there to show this. And I was intrigued by the mothers. They know exactly what their boys are doing and they don’t exactly like it but they understand. ‘My mum’s a soldier and I rate her for that. She knows I get depressed when I don’t have no money.’ Immigrants from Jamaica arrived very well educated and full of ambition. In some cases people have gone from being teachers and lawyers to street hustlers in a generation. From fighting the Special Police Group to killing each other. What have we done?
Casting the actors and rappers….
I wanted to street cast this film as I have done this successfully on many films (Tina Goes Shopping, Tina Takes a Break, Mischief Night and Exodus). Street casting offers an authentic edge which you cannot get any other way. In my experience, involvement in a high profile project has many benefits afterwards including professional work for those who participate. (For example Kelli Hollis, Qassim Aktar and Sarah Byrne from Mischief Night are all now employed in Shameless, Holly Kenny from Mischief Night starred in BBC’s White Girl which won a BAFTA. None of them had acted before.)
This is how we did it: I knew quite a lot of people already and asked them to come to the auditions and also printed a thousand fliers saying simply: ‘Rappers, Music Producers and Actors wanted. British film for the cinema to be filmed locally this summer. We have parts for young people, boys, girls, women, mothers, fathers and grandmothers. No experience necessary.’
We held three days of auditions in the top floor of a mini cab firm. The first two days were for music producers and rappers. Hundreds of people turned up, some with CDs of original beats. Rappers turned up prepared to rap to their own beats or to hip hop or grime beats we provided. Some funny moments stand out: a tiny little girl came with her mother. She was four years old and after some persuasion from her mum sung a wistful version of ‘The wheels on the bus go round and round!’ Then there was the young rapper who said he wanted to spit some lyrics mocking or ‘merking’ a girl who thought she could rap. Dylan told us that there was a girl rapper outside so we invited her in to battle with him. She was very quiet and sweet hiding behind a big anorak hood. I thought “Oh dear.” So the boy laid into her very rudely and she smiled sweetly and nodded politely. Then it was her turn. She opened her mouth and a lion’s roar came out and she slaughtered him. That was Fiasqo and I wrote her into the film.
We asked the rappers we liked to return for the acting auditions. On the third day, we ran acting auditions for those who turned up and our call back rappers. It was one of the most exhausting days of my life. They came into the room in groups of five to ten and I set improvisations for the group. Dylan Duffus was going to be on the crew as an assistant. I wanted him close to the action because I was, and still am, convinced that he will become a talented filmmaker. I asked him to play the part of Flash in some of the auditions so that people I was considering for Angel, Evil or the Baby Mothers would have someone to play against. At the end of the two days, I turned to him and said “I’m sorry Dylan but you have to be Flash.” And he was cool with that.
Our floor runner Tobeijah – an excellent rapper and producer in his own right – knew young Ohran White and talked him into coming thinking I might like him for Pest. He was right.
We didn’t find a grandmother or a mother in the open auditions so we hunted for them. Micah who plays Apache was in the office when I said we needed a strong woman to play Flash’s mother. “You should meet my aunt”, he grinned. Carol came in and got the part and also cleaned our offices.
Marina, Dylan and I went to Hector’s exercise class for the elderly and explained to a large number of elderly Jamaican ladies that we were looking for a grandmother who would be able to tell Flash off for not doing her shopping. There was a thump from the very end of the hall, up on a little stage. It came from a small but redoubtable figure bashing her cane on the floor. “Buoy, you go buy me five green bananas and one dozen egg.” She spat on the floor. “And if you not back when dat spit is dry I beat you!” That was Monica Ffrench. The kindest and most warm hearted woman you could ever meet. She is in her seventies and deeply religious with a profound conviction that the good Lord is taking care of her. I explained exactly what the film was about but that her character was not involved in the drugs or violence or swearing and she chuckled and said: “That’s cool, man.” She was highly amused by the film making process and worked long hours with great enjoyment. She had never in her life imagined that such a thing would happen to her but she was a natural.
I had written a scene where a Pastor rescues Flash and talks to him about the cycle of violence resulting from his life style. This is a crucial scene and I didn’t want it to be preachy. Many people said: “You must meet Bishop Webley.” They were absolutely right. Bishop Derek Webley is the only person who has managed to bring members of different crews together in his church and he starts where the young men are, not where he wants them to be. “Crime does pay, otherwise people wouldn’t do it but it’s the consequences of that crime…” He is driven by his faith and has the respect of the community across the spectrum because he tells it how it is. We were very fortunate that he agreed to come on board. He has buried at least ten young men as a result of the situation on the streets.
Why did you work with non-professional actors?
We used street casting for the film particularly because we believed there was a huge amount of untapped talent in the community. We simply held open castings to which everyone was welcome. Nearly 300 people from the community came and we picked the best singers, music producers and actors for the parts.
Why were you interested in black gangs rather than white or Asian gangs?
I have made three films in marginal communities in Leeds – ‘Tina Goes Shopping’, ‘Tina Takes a Break’ and ‘Mischief Night’. The first two were on white estates while ‘Mischief Night’ explored Asian and white culture. I was keen to make this film in the Afro-Caribbean community which originated the urban music (hip hop and grime) which is at the centre of the film. Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambata both had Jamaican parents. The pressures on young men in inner cities and the way they react to them are not particular to any single community.
How did you engage and work with the community?
I wandered around the streets and went to into Blues, attended church services, went to schools and after-school drama groups, youth clubs, community centres, pubs, to a bashment; I followed my nose, followed leads. When I met people I liked I gradually met their families and friends and tried to figure things out. I think it’s a little bit like anthropology field work. Nothing makes sense at first, behaviour seems random or strange but then you start to put a picture together of how relationships work, what the power structure is and discover the meaning of the unfamiliar. Everything that seems chaotic at first until it comes into the light and patterns start to emerge. Every microcosm whether it’s the tennis circuit or an informal gang structure has it’s own rules, it’s own pecking order and financial and social structure.
What was it like filming in Birmingham…
Community Police called the office and thanked us for giving some of the young men they work with a chance to do something positive. Malcolm, our location manager, told me that when he asked the Police for permission for a two day re-shoot they retorted: “Why don’t you film for six months, the crime rate went down when you were last here.”
I think when people have something really interesting to do across a whole community, something engaging, something real not a phoney community service project, that’s when things start to change.
Why is ‘1 Day’ a musical?
I thought about it being a musical as soon as I decided to make it a fiction – and of course as soon as soon there’s a gun in a film it’s a fiction - unless it’s on the News.
I walk past groups of boys in the street rapping to beats on their mobile phones all the time. Hip hop and grime are an authentic expression of street life. It’s the way people tell their stories – like the spirituals and the blues for earlier generations - it gives a voice to people who don't have one. I love the rawness of it and the energy and I wanted to understand it better.
Anticipating the film’s reception…
If people say that this film offers no redemption then they’re right. Redemption is up to us, you can’t just stick it on the end of a film to cheer yourself up. Young men involved in drugs are making money. As the pastor says in the film ‘I know that crime does pay, otherwise people wouldn’t do it.’ Illegal drugs are a global business worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Where illegal drugs come from and the extensive corruption and government involvement in that massive trade is another story. The guys in my film are at the very bottom end of it and so are their clients. The alternative career option for them is flipping burgers at minimum wage and they’re simply not going to do that. Most hip hop films have a nice young man with a psychotic friend who leads him astray. He wants to get out of a life of crime but the friend messes things up. Bullshit. Nobody is born wanting to be a drug dealer but it is an ambition for boys in those communities and people don’t see an alternative. In Bradford, I asked a group of high achieving Pakistani and Bangladeshi children what they wanted to be when they grew up. All but one replied: “A drug dealer.” In white estates, around Leeds the white kids say the same answer. It’s not a black thing. It’s a thing. And it’s true whether we like it or not.