Written & Directed by Andrew Stevenson & Joseph Bisat Marshall
Izzy's unusual habit of smiling at her own reflection before turning off the light each night is an attempt to capture a positive image to end the day, like taking a photograph. But pop psychology tricks like smiling to make yourself feel better can only do so much when something genuinely terrible has happened...
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH THE FILMMAKERS
Tell us a bit about yourself and your filmmaking background.
Joe is a production designer, so has a lot of experience in that area, while Andy has been writing for a few years. We’ve been pretending to like each other since we were about six years old and, having finally run out of things to talk about, we started writing together. We finished the script for our first short (estimated budget: £100k) then a few attempts later had one that didn’t require selling any kidneys (leaving a very disappointed buyer). Once that was written it felt like directing it made the most sense – we wanted the opportunity to have full creative control.
What was your inspiration? Why did you decide to make Everything is Completely Fine?
Joe mentioned that he used to smile at himself in the mirror before turning the light off before going to bed, because he wanted the last image of the day to be a positive one. Obviously that's the behaviour of a psychopath, so we thought it would make an interesting film.
The film is about the limits of what we can do to help ourselves feel better when we're going through a traumatic period in our lives. Pop psychology tricks like smiling to make yourself feel better can only do so much when something genuinely terrible has happened to you – we thought there was something darkly funny about the attempt. It also feeds into the discussion that's become a lot more prevalent with the intrusion of social media into so much of our lives: photographs and images of ourselves are part of a fiction we create with even those closest to us, and ourselves. This story is our way of taking a momentary step back from that to admire its ridiculousness.
What obstacles did you overcome while in the making of this film?
The main obstacle is just the sheer number of things you have to organise to make a film of any size. Producing is a whole job for a reason. Restrictions are helpful etc. etc. but when your budget is that low, what’s really hard is that creative challenges can become administrative ones very quickly.
In terms of the writing, we wanted it to have a proper arc despite its duration. There's a tendency for shorts to be narratively ambiguous, which sometimes feels like a good use of the format, but often feels like there just wasn't enough time to tell a complete story. We challenged ourselves to write a structured narrative with one actor (ish), in a single setting, in just over three minutes.
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences.
We've mostly gone down a fairly traditional route of submitting to film festivals. There's a decision whether to wait to make it available online or to get it out there straight away; a lot of festivals won't accept submissions that have had an online premiere. We made the decision to just get the film out there – it was always intended as a way for us to jump into the deep end of directing and to learn as much as we could.
Words of wisdom. What advice would you give to other filmmakers?
Nothing can really replicate the learning experience of actually making a film. If you're someone who's been writing for a while and sending scripts off to contests that ignore you before starting your next, just do it. Go all Shia LaBeouf. I mean, don’t. Obviously don’t do that. But make something. Anything.
Also, don't forget Talent Release Forms. Blake Snyder never mentions those.
What are you working on now?
We're currently in the process of securing funding for our next short, about two friends who apply to be among the first settlers on Mars.
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
We're constantly recommending American Animals. It's an incredibly astute dive into the psychology of the American dream via a really original style of filmmaking.