BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION

01/04/22

This week, after a string of festivals and nearly a half-decade of work, Phil and I ushered our first feature film as screenwriters, BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION, into our homeland. In a lot of ways, that’s a huge deal for us and in light of its release, I wanted to come here to say thank you to the scores of people who have helped us get here. Films take an awful long time to make and, if anything, the two of us know now what once we only suspected: that to bring a film from the page to an audience is a delightful, strange and incremental series of magic tricks, performed by so many people that the American Academy would rather cut several of those categories from the televised broadcast than have you know their names.

So, very simply, thank you. Firstly, to all of the people who have supported us and watched our work since we started writing and directing together way back in the oh-so-2010s. Nobody deserves the ill fate of having to attend a short film night in a room above a pub just so that we can show you some stuff we made, but attend you did – and sometimes it was rainy and bleak, but mostly we got to drink whiskey and beer together afterwards and see stars in the sky over Manchester.

This movie was made a long way from Manchester, in Chicago, by a lot of people we haven’t met in person. So, secondly, thank you to Giles Edwards and Queensbury Pictures, who picked up this script and brought it to life with the director, Jacob Gentry, and Harry Shum Jr. who makes this conspiracy thriller mystery come alive in every frame.

And thank you to everyone we have had the pleasure and the privilege of working with all these years. To Matt North, who shot every film with love and artistry and an unrivalled sense of humour. To Daniella Herbert (nee Pearman) and Frances Darvell-White, who so perfectly designed them. To Rupert Hill, our leading man and acting hero. To Josie Long, who starred in our first film together. To Dan Nightingale for his cinematic brain and those short film Steadicam sequences. To Andrew Connor, with whom we have spent more long nights in small dark rooms than is usually acceptable outside of marriage. To the score-makers – Jonn Dean, James Hanley, Adam Hynes and Denis Jones. To Jason Wingard, for his guidance and expertise. To the incomparable Tom Langfield for movie posters that quicken the heart (and which I have framed for walls outside of this rented basement suite I’m writing to you from now). To Dave Sexton for writing notes on the edits. To Claire Kennedy for doing everything and being brilliant at all of it. And to Joe Patrick, Tim Bunn and Jackie Thompson, without whom I wouldn’t have had the foolish, youth-struck bravery to have a go at making films. This film stands on the shoulders of giants.

A special part of my heart today recognises Vincent Coulson, James Hanley, Will Herbert and my old mate Alistair Harford, whose untold influence on me are as unquantifiable as they are profound.

But tonight, more than anything, I offer my thanks to the universe for meeting Phil Drinkwater. If it wasn’t meant to be, then it sure as godammit feels like it was. We’ve done a lot together, us two. We’ve written a lot of scripts, and tried very hard, and dreamed in Technicolor, and made each other laugh for so long that I’m glad we finally get to share this most personal of movies with you.

So, from us, to you – thank you.

This one is scary.

But the next one is a love story.

Promise.

x

P.S. Steph, on the off-chance you read this, you’re also pretty great.