DYNAMIC DUOS
DYNAMIC DUOS
The two halves of this editor-director duo recall their collaborative journey, from Somewhere Boy to Mary & George and, most recently, Spent
INTERVIEW KATIE KASPERSON
ALEX WINCKLER: Paul came in and made a few simple storytelling decisions, in terms of how we were shaping the material, that suddenly made the whole thing sing. I think that forged this unshakeable bond of trust in Paul’s judgement and taste. PD: Alex had been on a journey with the project until that point. We were both uncertain of whether we would match up creatively. Watching his rushes, I could feel his sensibilities; we turned out to be on the same wavelength from the jump.
DEF: WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU COLLABORATED ON, AND WHAT’S UNIQUE ABOUT YOUR SHARED FILMMAKING STYLE? PD: The next project we did together was a show called Mary & George , which was very different in scale. I knew that was my opportunity to re-engage with Alex’s work and make him trust me all over again. You sing a song and see if that person wants to harmonise with it or says ‘actually, no, change the instrument’. AW: How Paul likes to work – and I like to work – is by watching something, then saying ‘how did that make you feel?’ It’s that simple. You’ll recut the episode and go, ‘I found myself getting pissed off with that character in this version’, ‘I found myself being moved by that moment’ or ‘I got lost here, I found myself getting bored, why was that?’ It’s the emotional reaction first and the ideas second. PD: On Spent , we printed off little thumbnail images of every scene and put it on a wall. Each morning, Alex would come in and we would just stare at the wall together. We might go, ‘I don’t know, I’m not feeling it’. So Alex might go off for lunch, then come back and say ‘right, I’ve got it’, and we’ll try it again.
DEFINITION: TELL ME ABOUT SOMEWHERE BOY, WHICH WAS THE FIRST PROJECT YOU WORKED ON TOGETHER. PAUL DINGWALL: The producer approached me and said, “We’ve got this fantastic project – incredible director, incredible script – but for some reason, all of those elements aren’t generating something cohesive. Everything people responded to in the script, for some reason it’s not quite connecting on screen.”
FINAL PIECE OF THE PUZZLE Winckler found Dingwall’s presence on Somewhere Boy (above) invaluable, as he came in to help tie the direction, script and imagery together
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