FilmFocus Diaries #1 - Letter From Nick DATE: 12/05/2006 When Nick Love asked us to play a part in documenting the making of his new film, Outlaw, starring Sean Bean, Bob Hoskins and Danny Dyer, we were thrilled. So we asked Nick a favour in return: pen us our readers a letter breaking down Outlaw for those unfamiliar. And he's done just that. In the first of our exclusive diary entries, we hand the pen to Nick Love to introduce us to Outlaw on the day cameras begin to roll on the film.

Welcome to Outlaw. Production has begun and it’s going to be fucking manic. We’ve started earlier than we were originally going to do and that meant putting everything together really quickly. Sean Bean, Bob Hoskins, Danny Dyer, Rupert Friend, Lennie James and Sean Harris. And I’ve sort-of wiped my slate clean of crew too; I've spent the last few months looking at hundreds of crew members, DP’s, designers and stuff. It’s hard, because a lot of the cast and crew to date have been involved in at least two of my films so there’s a sense of loyalty – I’ve already heart whispers of gossiping and of people feeling rejected but I always say, “Well you don’t take me on every job you do, do you?”

More than on my other projects I’ve been looking at the intrinsic look of the film and how it’s going to look and feel. It’s a much more mature film and a much more mature script and so I always felt the whole theme should change. If the content of the film is changing – and it’s not a fucking off-the-wall comedy, it’s more a social-realism film – the crew and cast have to change with it.

With them locked it’s down to the process of shooting the thing. I live in the country and the whole film is going to be based right where I live, which is a big change for me. London just isn’t film friendly anymore, there’s so much red-tape and bureaucracy that goes with shooting there, so we’re going to double up places like Cardiff or Gloucester for London for a few moments, but the bulk of the script is set in Gloucester.

The whole idea of the film is about how crime and disorder in this country has spread into the market towns and bigger villages. It’s tackling issues that are happening all over England. When you hear about these kids getting killed it’s not necessarily happening in fucking Lewisham, it can be anywhere. Bored, listless kids growing up in all of these provincial places in England who’ve got that same sense of anger or that same sense of social malaise that people have growing up in London.

I’m very proud of the South London thing in my films but there comes a time to move on and I think this is it. There’s a lot to think about with the film and it’s a much weightier film than something like The Business or The Football Factory.  It’s not just wall-to-wall violence, there are actually a lot of quiet moments. And that’s surprised a huge number of people who’ve read the script who were expecting me to write something like Mad Max, a world of outlaw gangs and stuff. It’s not like that at all.

But it’s certainly been tougher to write. The film is essentially an ensemble film so there are five or six big characters to write for. To try and give them all their own identity was tricky. It’s been tougher but ultimately it’s been much more rewarding. I just think this film has the potential to be really strong and really important as opposed to another kind-of blokes’ film.

All through the process, we're going to be staying in touch with the guys at FilmFocus and you'll be able to get loads of updates about the progress of the film here and at the official Outlaw site. Because I want the fans of my previous work to be a part of this film, and I want it to attract a whole new wave of fans, we're going to be so open about the process of making it.

We’ve got a tough period of production ahead and then it’s on to post before delivering the film in 2007, but at this point I just can’t wait. I hope Outlaw is going to surprise a lot of people and provoke discussion from a lot of people. Ready to go to war?
By Nick Love.

Got anything you're keen to ask Nick? Drop him an email and we'll do our best to get your questions to him as FilmFocus tracks the progress of Outlaw.