PRODUCTION DEADHEADING
WORDS NICOLA FOLEY Director Jack Hughes and DOP Ash Connaughton on the Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF, exploding sheds, blending genres and finding the right look for Deadheading, a dark comedy about one woman’s murderous pursuit of an allotment
irector Jack Hughes’ zippy dark comedy Deadheading follows Doreen (Stephanie Fayerman), a woman determined to fulfil her
from a development perspective you can understand why people would want to build on them. But at the same time, it’s such a shame because allotments are an incredibly important part of our social fabric, especially within working- class communities. “That’s something that’s really important to me; representing those backgrounds on screen,” he continues. “Allotments originally came from wartime rationing, allowing people to grow their own food, and that history struck a chord. From there, I started asking myself: ‘How can I tell this story while giving it the dark-comedy edge that we love playing with?’” The most important thing he and DOP Ash Connaughton had to get right was the tone – a delicate balancing act when the story’s heroine, whom the audience needs to be rooting for, is killing people left, right and centre. To make sure it hit right, “we deliberately made her murders feel very ‘old lady’ in the way they are
dying husband Jim’s (Kevin McNally) final wish of securing an allotment plot – even if it means bumping off a few people to climb the waiting list. Made on a modest budget and shot in just a few days, this cosy, quintessentially English short has already picked up several awards, including the fiction prize at this year’s Sony Future Filmmaker Awards. The roots of the story came from a news piece Hughes read in 2023, which looked at the decline of allotments as land was increasingly eaten up by housing developments. He felt it was an important topic to bring to light, but wanted to do it in a way that felt fun. “The article interviewed someone who had been on an allotment waiting list for something like 25 years,” he recalls. “In heavily built-up suburban areas they’re incredibly valuable pieces of land, so
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