The making of T.P.C (Tissue Paper Crew)

I’ve had no experience with film, just school plays and drama prior to making TPC.

It was the first time making a film for the rest of the team - Mario, Gareth and Danielle - too. Anton Saunders agreed to mentor  and help us make a film for BFI (British Film Institute) in the NFT (National Film Theatre), the theme being ‘beautiful south’. We decided to do something hard hitting but funny, the idea was to act out the most recent events in our local area.

If you’re on the streets and you bump into someone, step on someone’s foot, look at someone the wrong way, you could end up in a fight, so we decided to portray the type of character who would fight someone over the smallest thing. Out of pure random observation we decided that the smallest thing would be tissue paper.

The tissue paper cost £20 in total, £10 for10 packets of 4 and LIVE bought all the actors lunch, which in total came up to £20, so all together the 10 minute film cost £40 -  cheaper then a romantic dinner for two!

Initially, the tissue paper at first was an item of principle, everyone would ask to have some, use some, buy some, but the tissue holder would be selfish and resort to violence if anyone touched it, in the end the tissue holder gets tied up with his tissue.

But the idea changed into what it is now, where a gang of youths would be protective over tissue, the tissue representing everything from garments to drugs and weapons.

We started with Anton Saunders interviewing T.P.C about tissue related issues. As the crew talk about personal experiences the film cuts into footage showing what happened.

There was no script, all the acting was 100% improvisation and we tried to make the film as real as possible - this included scenes of violence, explicit language and offending gangster culture.The film took 4 weeks to make, most scenes were shot around the LIVE building and one scene was at the old secondary school, Linen and Baileys.

Altogether the experience was terrific, I got to get back into acting and learnt how to use a film editing application.The film was screened at the BFI in the NFT and the feedback was incredible. All of the T.P.C crew had their photo taken for Timeout London Magazine and gained contacts within the film industry which will hopefully lead to funding for future films, which will make our production team 4YP (4 Young Peeps) the best youth production team in South London.

view video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K7BG2qKGwM

Words: Tony M
Starring Mario, Tony, Danielle, Gareth, Anton Saunders