PRODUCTION. NEON TANK
“What money we had, that needed to go on set design, things you’re going to see, the actors’ time – even renting the scorpions in the movie. The fish tank cost £200 alone. We needed an electrical box for one scene, and the prop companies charged about £500, which was a quarter of the budget just for that! We built one for £30 instead and lit it with a firework.” With Bharj’s character the primary focus in many of the shots, he had the flexibility to shoot these by himself. “I was lucky enough to have a friend of a friend who worked at a green screen studio in Marylebone,” he says. Hence, Bharj secured Broadley Studio for a reasonable fee — although he could only afford one window between 6-11pm. “In those five hours we filmed five scenes. We did the Chinese scene, that’s why it’s a bit clunky; the scene with the torture, which was all improvised, and then stuff at the end. My heart was beating so fast trying to get all that done.” SOUND DECISION Bharj also composed the film’s score, which has echoes of an early John Carpenter movie. “I wanted to save money, but always thought that I’d get someone else to do the sound. The original score was going to be electronic and techno with weird synths, but it was difficult to orchestrate with a musician. “I approached people, but the labels were like gatekeepers, and even the artists who were at a grassroots level. As I had
It’s Bharj’s character Styx who ties the story together. “I liked that narration aspect of noir,” he says. “It allowed me to pull the story together, although it took a long time – around six months during lockdown – to capture that flavour of an unreliable narrator without needing too much exposition. For that reason, we lent into the arty, noir and urban.” His biggest inspiration, he says, was Pi , the 1998 US neo-noir psychological thriller written by Darren Aronofsky as his directorial feature debut – highly stylised and ripe with mysticism. “I loved the rawness of that film,” Bharj beams. “You’re in the main character’s head, and he wasn’t a conventional hero. They
told the story with just a small cast, and there was a mystery aspect to it, but also spirituality – and it didn’t rely on any big action set pieces. “In our case, opting for that noir feel also allowed for the right aesthetics with costume and locations,” he adds. “We could use what we had to hand. We could film on the decaying urban streets; there are plenty of them around.” ON HOME TURF As well as shooting where he grew up in Harrow and Rayners Lane, parts of the film were shot in central London, in and around Soho, capturing pivotal sequences without incurring location costs. “In Soho, as long as we didn’t have a tripod on the floor, we were allowed to film,” Bharj explains. “A lot of shots are handheld. We kept a small footprint, with cameras on the actors’ faces. And for one of the big locations, we used the cemetery at Harrow on the Hill. “We definitely did not want to pay for locations. We relied on friends that owned bars, or who were managers at places.” He laughs, “Also my mum’s house! We turned a couple of rooms upside down, put all the furniture in the garden.
NEO-NOIR Bharj’s cyberpunk vision of London amalgamates souls, spirits, reincarnation, sophisticated criminal gangs and gripping dystopia
Did you know? The year 2012 saw Bharj win the London Comedy Store’s King Gong award, earning the chance to open for Hollywood actor and comedian Sarah Silverman during a UK appearance.
58. DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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