One woman’s reluctant search of the beach to find her grieving mother’s wedding ring uncovers something far more valuable. This emotionally intricate drama about a woman and her estranged mother deals with the complexities of isolation, friendships and community at a rundown seaside town.
Carol, the writer, has lived all her life close to the sea in Southsea and as a filmmaker she has always been keen to write about the community there. When her own husband, devastatingly, died last year, Carol turned to writing to explore her grief and help her own recovery. The film is, therefore, both an exploration of that recovery and part of her own journey. She also wanted to share the beauty of the beach and pier in the changing seasons and tides. What emerged was a touching story about grief, the power of friendship and the symbolism of lost objects, set firmly in a unique area.
As a director, I recognised the authenticity of this story and its symbolic opportunities. It gave me a rare opportunity to use film’s visual medium to its full, being able to tell the story through the grand vistas, the changing weather and the initial bleakness of the rooms in the retirement home. The pier and the beach are also a stunning setting which further attracted me to shooting the film.
Grief is such a universal subject to explore that this felt like an important opportunity to be part of.
The Process
Between the Piers was partly set on Southsea Beach and its pier. The other half was set in the writer’s home, which we were able to spend time redesigning before the shoot. Having this location helped us plan, pre-dress, and therefore help balance the much more complicated filming on the beach.
We also needed to film in February. This severely limited the amount of time we had to film beneath the pier whilst the sun was up and the tide low enough to shoot – only 2 hours a day over a very set time span. Time and tide wait for no man or woman! On our small budget, this was incredibly challenging and sand and pebbles are a tough surface to shoot on. I therefore meticulously planned the location of each scene and scheduled the order of filming myself. Whilst this filming was incredibly hard with a small, inexperienced crew, they all worked incredibly hard to help us complete the days. We were also incredibly fortunate to get the ideal weather, giving us rain and gloom for the beginning miserable scenes and sunshine for the later more hopeful parts of the story, which also looked stunning.
Making shorts on tight budgets is always tricky, and filming on a beach is also a nightmare. There is weather, sand, moving tides, crunchy pebbles and uncontrollable members of the public. You have fewer people and less money, so you have to search for bargains or borrow all
your props and design materials. We were fortunate to have amazing set and costume designers who really helped us with this and loaned lots of their own things. The students who helped us were amazing and gave back as much as they learnt, as well as being enthusiastic members of the team. I had worked with Elen Rhys before and knew she would be amazing, but the rest of the cast were new, but all amazing and prepared to give their all. All in all, this was a hard but fun shoot with a great cast and crew.
Part of the story involved burying some treasure in the sand for our two young actors to find with their metal detector. Our standby props buried the coins ready to find, but with a couple of short delays, the sea moved incredibly quickly, and we all forgot exactly where the coins were and had to scrabble around, using the metal detector itself to try and find them. Luckily we found enough to carry on filming as the tide raced up the beach!
What It Means to Be a Finalist:
We are super delighted to be finalists at this amazing festival not far from my own home town. As filmmakers, we pour love and hard work into our filmmaking, so when that is appreciated and an audience gets to share our vision on a big screen, that is very rewarding. To move just one person makes it all worthwhile.
Where to Watch / Follow:
Our film is touring on the festival circuit at the moment, and it means a lot to us when people want to watch it. You can follow the film’s progress on our:
Website https://www.betweenthepiersfilm.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/betweenthepiers/
and me on Instagram @kate_cheeseman or my website www.katecheeseman.com and Carol @cazyounghusband
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