Written, directed, PRODUCED & starring James Button
When a litterer doesn't pick up after his dog, he's taught a valuable lesson from a giant poo. This short horror comedy was commissioned as a public information corporate video (but was deemed too gross by the council!)
ABOUT THE FILM
The Foul started off as a commission from a council for a PSA about picking up after your dog. What was supposed to be interviews about picking up dog poo, turned into filmmaker James Button dressing as a giant poo. He delivered a short film deemed “too disgusting!” for his client, however, not many BAFTA/BIFA and world renowned festivals didn’t feel the same way.
The film played at over 30 festivals, including our Kino London Short Film Festival. Other festival highlights include BAFTA/BIFA qualifiers such as the London Short Film Festival, Aesthetica Film Festival, Carmarthen Bay Film Festival, Short Com International Comedy Film Festival, and Norwich Film Festival. International festival highlights include FilmQuest, Screamfest® Horror Film Festival, MotelX Lisbon International Horror Film Festival, Santa Fe International Film Festival, Monster Fest, Rome International Film Festival, Atlanta Horror Film Festival.
It was nominated for 'Best Costume Design', 'Best Welsh Short Film' at the 2021 British Short Film Awards, and won Best Monster Short Film at the Adbhooture Film Festival 2021, Best Editing & Best Special Make-up at the Indie Short Fest, Best Costume at the Horror Film Award New York, and Best Dark Comedy Short at IndieX Film Fest.
ABOUT THE FILMmaker
James Button is a double BAFTA Cymru-nominated writer/director of 23 short films, all gaining official selections and screenings. Mostly comedies, they've nabbed 60 awards at international film festivals and competitions. James has had fun making fun films for fun for the past 10 years alongside working full-time in commercial work. In 2024, Jame is focussing on longer-form projects with two comedy feature scripts in development- and a brand new comedy short in post-production.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH JAMES
Welcome back to our Short of the Week series. What have you been up to since we featured your last short "RoButler”?
Hehe! No good at all. I literally just got back from another (mad) comedy horror short film shoot that my friend Paul Marke (always typo-ed to Pual*) cooked up over the past few months! Mainly out of the frustration of a year of trying to get funding for a level-up project and that build of a creative juices had to go somewhere, otherwise I’d go crazy…so we made a crazy new film as a cure. Can’t reveal much about it just yet as it is a spoiler-centric title but will be releasing a teaser in the very near future so look out for that…it’s going to make The Foul look tame. Also have a few short scripts on the boil which I hope to continue to hunt for some funding for because they are too fun not to make.
Can you tell us about the genesis of The Foul?
To an extent I can! But won’t name any names! As it is a bit of a funny story… It started off as a commission from a council (tragically the first job that came my way after lockdown!) and it was to try to encourage people to pick up after their dogs. Was supposed to be interviews about how gross dog poo is but instead I risked pitching me making a ‘memorable’ comedy horror instead. After some convincing…I put 100% of the budget into getting a poo costume for myself created. I found an incredible talented SFX master called Jayne Hyman who created something beyond my wildest dreams…or nightmares. Just a few (skilled!) friends of mine then came together and blasted this film out in a few fun days…only for the client to deem it “too disgusting!”. But obviously I knew this was too important a message to keep on a hard-drive so nobly sent it out to film festivals to get the word out there instead. Ended up traveling to MotelX in Portugal, FilmQuest in Utah and a whole bunch of other surprisingly forgiving film festivals who literally screened dog shit. So yeah, pick up after your dogs…or else.
Any interesting/funny stories about filming in public dressed as a giant poo?
So…we filmed in three locations. The first was an alley not to far from my mum’s house (a notorious spot for fouling)- and right next to a wall where a resident had graffitied his own wall saying: “if you don’t pick up after your dog you twats I will fucking kill you”. Which seemed rather apt. This slightly scary individual came out during the shoot (I was doing a lot of screeching after all) but surprisingly instead of killing what was surely(?) the largest poo he’d ever seen, approved of our endeavors. Phew. So after giving us a rant (which we should have recorded), let us get back to it. The second location was my sister’s street, where she had JUST bought her house…and I ended up meeting all her (concerned) neighbours before she did. “Hi there, I’m Laura’s brother. Just making a film for the council. Sorry about the noise!”. Then the third location was a random airbnb we chose for the nice decor for the nightmare scene where Arran Fear (perfect name for the role) wakes up in a bed of shit. To this day I still pray that the lovely AirBnb host never comes across the film and recognises his lovely bed and whatever that concoction was we filled it with (can’t for the live of me remember…but seem to remember the smell of coffee, beans, carrots and syrup?). I’m sure he’ll understand we had to do what we had to do…for the message.
What were some of the main obstacles you experienced when making of The Foul and how did you overcome them?
To be honest, it was a load of fun. I think the costume struggled in thirty degree heat (of course it was the bloody hottest day of the year!), let alone me inside it…but found going method was the key there! The dripping and splashing you can see in the film coming of the glistening costume is assumed to be SFX, but can proudly say that is all me. I’ve NEVER sweat so much in my life. Jayne not only did an excellent job re-sticking the poo face prosthetics to my face but kind enough to regularly drain me. Literally cutting a little hole in my flapping hand parts and emptying it like a lil hose. Nasty. But I think the dehydration, migraine and whatever else was going on, definitely only helped my performance. The only other obstacle really was the client…as I was aware that they might not give final sign off unless we included all the key bullet points in their brief e.g. the maximum amount you can be fined in the magistrate’s court etc., so made sure to slip these in amongst the improv and manic laughter.
Tell us about the journey of getting The Foul to audiences, and what kind of reactions you got.
I still love the sound of the audiences cry out (must have attended like 10+ screenings) when that bed sheet is thrown back! I always whip out my phone because it doesn’t seem to fail to get a visceral reaction from a cinema of unsuspecting gentlefolk. However can’t claim that as good filmmaking, it’s literally just a natural reaction to a bed full of poo. But it still makes me giggle (as it did my character). So the journey from the originally intended public information film which might have gotten a few dozen views on Facebook to the accidentally commissioned horror comedy short which has now been seen at some prestigious film festivals has been quite a nice turn of events. But to be honest I think it is all worth it to be told by people (I’ve lost count) that they think of my face every time their dog does a shit.
What do you think is the biggest challenge short filmmakers face trying to break into the industry?
Oof. I won’t go off on one but I think film funding is notoriously difficult to get! Applying and forms (and all that nonsense) It is such a different skill that us creatives have to somehow learn and even then, have to just get super lucky etc. Not ever having had a decent budget (and not even knowing anyone rich and generous!) I can’t help but feel a chasm between what we’ve managed to do as a small group of creative friends dying to make more and what we could be doing if someone took a risk in one of our bonkers scripts. I think making the jump todebut feature (MY DREAM) is therefore even scarier because I’ve been guilty of exhausting myself and pushing to get ambitious small scale projects made but know that a feature is a whole different thing…it is much longer for one! But I think it is still all about still making weekend project and whatever else to keep the dream alive and the juices flowing because it can be really easy to give up hope so it’s important to remind yourself how much you love it.
What next for you?
I’m stupidly excited to have left a shoot last week with a full harddrive of bants to get editing. The bruises and aches haven’t healed yet but can’t resist diving into the edit because it was truly a fun one. (Paul and I thought, if we’re going to make something ourselves, we might as well make something no one would ever give us funding for and have some fun doing it!). So that will tide me over for now, sanity-wise. But I’ve got a fancy new comedy script, a next level one (meaning, I’m not risking me in it!) which I’m going to be seeking funding because it could just be the flagship short film I’ve been needing to showcase what we can do! RoButler and The Foul to me will always be 48 hour projects capped by film challenge restrictions (or client briefs!) so am so eager to get out there and pour some creative energy into a calling card bant.
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
I may have copped out last time on this question when I did the RoButler interview…but here I go again because it is worth repeating… Go to film festivals! Attend as many screenings as you can, bombard your eyes with short films great and small…and soak in all that work and inspiration. Then chat about what you saw, go into detail with (trusted) friends and collaborators. What would you do different? Which ones do you wish you had made? And what went wrong with that one? (Probably too long…that is usually the answer with short films…hehe). But yeah then dive into the next festival…or Kino Open Mic night (I’m not flirting I promise). I definitely learnt more about filmmaking from the shorts I’ve binged at festivals than 3 years at ‘film school’- plus even more so from the filmmakers (now collaborators/friends!) who made them! However one word of warning…be careful at film festivals about just how honest you are! Because although honesty is always the best policy, I will never leave a cinema shouting about which ones were “nonsense” because once I was lucky enough to screen a comedy film where I play a dinosaur as a warm-up for Jurassic Park at a open-air cinema…and when my silly lil short started and there I was naked and painted green, bouncing around like a bald raptor- a complete randomer turned to me (obviously not recognising me) out of the thousands of people there and went, “what the hell is this shit?!”. To which I obviously found hilarious and said, “pff, definitely not Spielberg, that’s for sure”. But does go to show that you never know who you’re turning to at a screening! Link to that film can be found on my website jamesbuttonfilms.com along with my full portfolio (the short film I mean, not Jurassic Park). Sorry for the shameless plug. Never sure how to sign off on these things! X (Thank you Dustin- keep doing what you’re doing please and promotion us silly little filmmakers who just wanna take play seriously and call it work)