Fiona Joseph interviews Michael B Clifford
New member of The Producers’ Forum, Fiona Joseph quizzes BAFTA-winning director and film-maker Michael B Clifford about the creative decisions behind the making of BICYCLE.
You work with award-winning producer (and CEO of The Producers’ Forum) Pip Piper. How did that collaboration come about?
I saw his documentary film Last Shop Standing, which I really liked. At that time I was looking to get back into making documentaries after being focused on drama for a number of years. When I saw Last Shop Standing, I thought Pip was someone I wanted to meet and hopefully work with, so I pursued him for a while and eventually got a meeting with him. We talked about possible ideas of things we could do. Just as I was leaving the meeting and about to get on my bike, I suddenly thought, Ah, Pip’s into cycling as well. I said, “We should do a film about bikes.” That grabbed his attention in a way that the other ideas we’d talked about hadn’t.
We committed to do that in 2012, just after the Olympics, so there was a lot of excitement in the air. We felt the target would be 2014, because that was the Tour de France year and also the Commonwealth Games were being held in Glasgow.
How separate were your roles as director and Pip’s as producer?
They do overlap. Producers have responsibility for the editorial and creative shape of the film and collaborate closely with the director to make that happen. But they also have sole responsibility for the financial aspects of the film. So with BICYCLE, Pip was involved along with Sarah, the other producer, for raising money for the film.
The driving question behind BICYCLE is ‘Why are cycling and the bicycle back in fashion?’ How important is it generally to frame your films within this type of question?
That’s a difficult one. I don’t know whether a film has to have a driving question, but it’s certainly a good thing. With BICYCLE I wanted to go on a journey in Britain to learn about where cycling has come from and where it might be going. The idea of cycling being back in fashion raises lots of questions. People are interested in cycling but we have no real infrastructure for it, especially when it comes to commuting. I was keen to find out why that was and it was a really fascinating journey. There were lots of things I didn’t know – in particular, the reason why the motor car has become so dominant. It wasn’t inevitable – it’s evolved over time – and is to do in part with government policies.
I’d like to ask you about the different story-telling elements within BICYCLE and find out more about your creative decision-making. For the historical part of the story how did you go about finding the original footage and other archival elements, such as period photos? What did you select and discard?
We had to be quite creative with the archive, because we were working on a limited budget, which does restrict you somewhat. One piece of archive that we wanted was of Chris Boardman winning the Olympics in 1992. And that was really the start of the story, of cycling’s rebirth ‒ the reason we’ve got so many successful cyclists now goes back to 1992 and Chris Boardman’s win. But we couldn't afford the archive, because it belongs to the Olympic Committee, who charge an extortionate flat fee which is non-negotiable.
How did you get round that?
What we did was to interview Chris about it and other people involved and then we made an animation sequence of the event, which was done by NiceMonster, who are based in Digbeth. Then we got even more creative. Hugh Porter commentated on the 1992 Olympic race and he lives Wolverhampton. So I did an interview with him. I took my Scalextric velodrome set with me and set it up in his living room and asked him to commentate on the race to the Scalextric, which we filmed to create this whole new sequence.
So that creative solution came out of the constraint you had?
Yeah, and I didn’t mind because we already had track races in the film anyway. And then with the other archive we got a fantastic deal with the Media Archive of Central England (Central and ITV News’s back catalogue) and they came in as a supporter. We also used Coventry Transport Museum and Warwick University as our main sources. They were all very supportive, either not charging at all or charging very little.
That’s great. Now moving on to the more subjective elements like the people you interviewed … How did you choose who to approach? How successful were you in getting people to say yes?
There were people we really wanted for the film. And the criteria was very much about people who had a good story. Some of them are a ‘live’ narrative. For example, we were following a young cyclist from Solihull, Danielle Khan, and you don’t actually know what the story’s going to be. You’re picking up on things as they happen. We filmed her leaving home and going to live in Manchester to be part of the Olympic team.
Then with other people their story is entirely retrospective. We did a story about Sustrans telling the highlights of their story from 1980 to 2000. It was about who were the best people to tell that story. Then if you get more than one person you can counterpoint them. You tell the same story but maybe they disagree with each other and you can get some drama with that.
How do you get the best out of subject experts or sports personalities when they’re in front of a camera?
The thing with sports personalities or perhaps personalities in general, is that they’re usually asked only to give sound bites. If you come along and say, “Look, we’re doing something really in depth and we want you to tell the story,” and if they can find a slot to do it, then chances are you can conduct the interview well and get lots out of them.
The other tip is to develop interview techniques. I try to engage people. It’s not a conversation, because it’s one way, but you can do a lot without speaking, just by keeping eye contact with them and enthusing about what they’re saying rather than looking at your notes or being too preoccupied with the questions you want to ask. You have to keep everything in your head: to think about what they’re saying, to record everything, to be able to pick up on the things they haven’t quite answered … and to do all that without looking down at your notes, because once you do, you break the conversation. That’s about practice.
Tell me about the role of narration in BICYCLE.
The narrator is me, which we never really intended to do. We had a bit of debate about that – some people don’t like narration. Some documentaries don’t have it – for example, Amy doesn’t – and they’re great. But it wouldn’t have been possible for this film, because it covers so many different things and how would you tie it all together without narration? Pip was firm about it when he said, “You can only have narration if it’s the voice of a film-maker. It would be much more authentic than having a third party do it.”
So did you script it?
I had to script it. Because I’d never narrated a film before, I was reluctant to do it. Eventually it came to the point where it was the only option. And I’m really pleased with the outcome; I think it works really well actually. We did it quite late on in the film so you only see me a few times. It’s quite a light touch and the narration is kept to a minimum. The fact that I’m in it frames the film and answers the question of why this film’s being made and why it’s been made by me.
And where did you get the musical score?
That was interesting. For this kind of film you’d often work with a composer but because of the tight deadline we couldn’t. So we went to a music library and we found a piece I really liked, which is the opening music for the credit. Then Nina Jones, the editor, delved further into the library and found more pieces by that composer. It worked out really well.
How much of the film’s vision did you get down on paper beforehand in terms of a treatment/proposal? Any advice you would give?
That was tricky actually. I wrote several half-finished structures and treatments. The reason they were half-finished was because on paper they didn’t look like they would work [laughs]. But when you sit down with it during the edit, you realise you can make it work. I wouldn’t get too hung up on that. When I went back to the treatment, it was quite similar to the film’s structure anyway.
How confident were you about finding an audience for Bicycle?
Pip was always very confident about that. Because of Pip’s experience with Last Shop Standing and because he’s a cyclist, he felt very strongly there was a big audience for the film.
You and Pip are collaborating on another film. Where are you at with MOUNTAIN BIKING: THE UNTOLD BRITISH STORY?
We’ve done some initial filming and we’ve had a successful crowdfunding campaign. We raised £17,000 and our initial target was £10,000.
Fantastic. How did that feel?
Very good. I was a lot more involved with it this time, in putting the campaign together and also marketing it. So I’m getting used to shouting about things a little bit now.
Perhaps we can finish by asking if you have any advice for non-shouty people?
We should all probably do a crash course in marketing. Once you become more aware of marketing and observe how companies and people market themselves, you realise they’re sending out the same messages over and over again. And the whole world is used to that, so we all have a choice over whether we do something or not. But it’s getting over the feeling of being uncomfortable doing that yourself. You say, “I’m doing this. Get involved.” And you say it again and again. It’s being aware that only a small percentage of people are going to take that up, but if you get that percentage you can make it happen. It’s hard because we want to tell our stories and we like to hear other people’s stories, but we don’t like people to brag. We don’t necessarily like boastfulness or brashness.
An English trait perhaps?
It’s partly a British thing. Americans don’t have the hang-up of being up front about what they’re doing and how well they’re doing it. But I don’t think it’s wholly that. It’s a case of learning it and getting into the habit of it. I had a five-day shoot last week and I took pictures on my phone everyday and put them on social media. The effect was interesting. Although it went out only 50 to 60 people, it actually created a bit of a buzz, so it was worth doing. Previously I’d have been of the mindset, “I’m busy making a film. I don’t have time to document it at the same time!” But once you’re in the habit it becomes second nature. If you have a big audience getting behind these behind-the-scene photos, it’s going to have a much bigger effect.
Thank you, Michael. It’s been great to learn from all your insights. Best of luck with the new film.
Fiona is an author and speaker from Birmingham with an interest in filmmaking.
Her best-known books are the biography BEATRICE The Cadbury Heiress Who Gave Away Her Fortune and her Cadbury-women-in-WW1 novel, Comforts for the Troops.
See fionajoseph.com or for more info.
What do you think?
comments