Written & directed by Sean Mckenna
PRODUCED by Jamie Macdonald
Daniel’s not going to the office today. A dying man asked him to deliver a letter. Though he’s not sure who the dying man was or where the person he’s delivering it to is. Or what, if anything, it has to do with his new neighbours, The Illuminated Brotherhood of the All Seeing Eye.
ABOUT THE FILM
Dead Whistle Stop was commissioned by BFI NETWORK and Film Hub North. Produced by Paisley Films and narrated by Kate Dickie (The Witch, Game of Thrones), the short film won the RTS NE Award for Best Short Form and has screened in competition at the BAFTA Qualifying festivals Aesthetica, POFF, Bolton and LA Shorts. We saw the film while attending the BIFA Qualifying Sunderland Shorts, a fellow member of AIFF.
ABOUT THE FILMmaker
Sean Mckenna makes funny, dark and often surreal films. Prior to Dead Whistle Stop he completed the short Future Perfect which was commissioned by Channel 4’s Random Acts and narrated byJulian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh, Flowers). It premiered in competition at Encounters Film Festival and was selected as Short of the Week following its festival run which included screenings at British Shorts Berlin, Aesthetica Short Film Festival and Reykjavik Film Festival, where it won best experimental short. He was also one third of Hot Gulp writing, directing and performing short form comedy for TV and online including writing a TV pilot for Bonefide Films and Channel 4 titled Storydweller starring Steve Oram (End of the F***ing World) which went on to win best sitcom pitch at LOCO.
Previously he’s also taken part in a comedy feature development programme with Screen Yorkshire and in funded development with Northern Film & Media on comedy sitcom Sea Bastards. In 2020 he was commissioned to direct a short comedy for Channel 4 online (1.7m views). Most recently he was selected for the Screen Yorkshire Talent Lab: Flex where he’s part of a newly formed team developing a mystery/drama TV series -All Souls. In 2023 he was selected for BAFTA’s Connect Programme. When not making his own work he works as a freelance filmmaker supporting young people and communities to develop their filmmaking skills. He works with a variety of organisations including New Writing North and Beacon Films.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH Sean
Welcome to our Short of the Week series. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your filmmaking background?
In my youth I used to work as a floor layer but after pulling up one too many stinking night club carpets I decided I didn’t enjoy that job so, as I’d always been the one in the group who liked weird (ie not mainstream) films, I decided to study film-making. I quickly discovered that most of the people teaching that in the college I went to didn’t seem to be enjoying their jobs either but I concentrated on using the gear and with friends to start making my own work. I’ve been making films since. And teaching film-making which I, fortunately, do also happen to enjoy.
For a number of years I was in a comedy group, Hot Gulp, with a couple of other of friends. We produced a lot of videos, writing, directing and appearing them – really as a collective but when we stopped doing that I returned to focusing on writing and directing my own films again. I was generally the one who’d be pulling for us to be a bit stranger and so now I’m back to doing my own thing that’s where I tend to gravitate. I still kind of think most of what I’ve done recently is funny. But it may just be a few people who are getting the joke now.
Tell us about the genesis of Dead Whistle Stop. This was produced with BFI Network, yes? What was that experience like?
I actually wrote the film several years before making it, before my previous short Future Perfect. When coming up with a follow up to that I was toying with an idea that I realised was like something I’d written before, so I dug it out and to my surprise I still liked it. BFI Network funded it and were great. I redrafted it myself, but really had very little requests for alterations from them and was left to my own devices, perhaps cause it’s so odd. Why take one odd bit out and not another?
Where the initial inspiration came from is hard to say but there are a lot of my own preoccupations in there. I would say broadly that we get fixated on some things in life, we want answers to mysteries and searching for the answers. Answers which mostly aren’t there. And all this distracts us from other, maybe more important things.
But then if you ask me this tomorrow I might say something else.
What were some of the main obstacles you experienced when making Dead Whistle Stop and how did you overcome them?
I think generally I was very lucky with Dead Whistle Stop. I had a group of people working with me who, despite wondering themselves what the fuck was going on a lot of the time, threw themselves into it and the shoot was a great experience. Having a team doing that in sync is a wonderful thing and all credit to producer Jamie Macdonald and AD Hal Branson for facilitating that. This was also the first time I’d worked with a casting team, Olly Gilbert and Katy Covell, and without them I wouldn’t have found Taurean or got to Kate Dickie for the narration.
I suppose figuring out how to travel round Europe without leaving the general Newcastle area was tricky. Finding places that could stand in for the other countries and arranging unit moves but overall that was quite good fun and finding the places got me out of the house during the fag end of the lockdown times.
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences. How have you found the online release of your film compared to its festival run?
The festival process is a long one but I’m very pleased to have got into where we got to. One word of advice for other film-makers, if you get the opportunity to go to festivals, go to them. I attended a few but wish I’d gone to more. Having the film released through Omeleto has also been great. It’s really helped get it out to a broader audience than it otherwise would have. I’m not the greatest at online self promotion. I may in fact be the worst. So having that platform has been invaluable. Having people see it online is different to a festival. With the latter you get people who love film, want to be supportive and, if you’re there, will say nice things to you. Online, when people comment, they have no association with you or your film so are free to mouth off and pull it apart if they don’t like it. There’s value in both.
What do you think is the biggest challenge short filmmakers face in the early stages of their career when trying to break into the industry?
If we’re talking about Directors, Writers and Producers, the biggest challenge is you don’t get money from it. You may even end up out of pocket. As a result it’s hard to sustain, to make more, mess up and get better.
Having said that, access to cameras to shoot, software to edit, even software to create incredible FX has never been easier to come by. A lot of great stuff is on your phone, but even stepping beyond that is easier than it was in the past. As a result there’s a flood of stuff and getting yourself noticed is a skill in itself.
Ultimately though, I think another big hurdle is how much people get in the way of themselves. Often people are too self critical and scared of failing, so they don’t just get out and do it. On the other side some people are too convinced of their own brilliance and won’t take advice from anyone and feel like they're being treated unfairly cause they don't get their hands in the small pot that's out there..
You’ve got to find a sweet spot – being confident without being an arrogant arsehole and having some humility without being paralysed with doubt. If you figure out how to do that let me know.
What advice or hacks would you give to other short filmmakers?
If you don’t feel confident – fake it. Everyone is faking it.
Get good actors and make sure it’s in focus.
Related note – if you’ve not already done it, do some acting. What actors do is a total mystery until you do it yourself.
Get a good sound recordist.
Watch more films and read more books. The greats all steal. You’ve got to know where the jewellery box is if you want to stuff it under your coat.
Download DaVinci Resolve and Unreal Engine. It absolutely blows my mind that they’re free.
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
I’m more inclined to say what not to watch, like Marvel films and the other big franchise behemoths that suck up all the air these days. If we don’t keep watching independent and leftfield stuff it will stop being made and we’ll miss it when it’s gone. One thing I’ll add is if you like someone don’t just watch what they’ve done, watch who they stole from.