Motherhood – a vastly complex hotbed of joy, pain, change and the ultimate redefinition of self. Three from filmmaker Amelia Sears and her writing partner Matti Houghton – who also stars in the film – came together as a way to express the experiences, frustrations and emotions engendered by having a baby, which are often obliviously invisible to those closest to you. Three poignantly delves into those moments where your identity shifts and questions how you are expected to handle this immense change whilst caring for a baby and simultaneously not forgetting to uphold a relationship and intimacy with a partner who you might feel at times a stranger to. In her refreshingly realistic short Sears focuses in on those small private moments that no one is supposed to see but that unflinchingly ring true, be it examining your changed body or desperately trying to bring yourself back to a semblance of self with a quick flash of lipstick. It’s a remarkably honest directorial debut and one that we were keen to sit down with the award winning writer/director to discuss how she overcame losing the lion’s share a shoot day to flooding, habituating herself to assessing takes through a monitor compared to her approach in theatre and how the urgency of losing light during their pivotal beach location filming resulted in some of the film’s most beautiful atmospheric shots.
How did you and Matti Houghton come together on this project?
Three was born out of mine and Matti’s experiences of the identity crisis of motherhood. We both felt that the experience of becoming a three after you’ve been a couple for a long time was a turbulent ride and that, for women in particular, what happens to your sexuality and relationship with your body is akin to a tsunami. We also felt that it was something we had never seen explored on screen and we were both really keen to examine it in ways which were challenging and nuanced. I had worked as a theatre director for a long time and that was how Matti and I met. She is the one who encouraged me to try writing and directing for film because I think she could see that my attention to detail and character would suit the medium. We began writing the script in tandem by agreeing on a structure and then writing individual scenes separately, eventually these scenes became melded into a coherent whole. Because we both had young kids the process of writing took well over a year because we struggled to get time together.
Getting the ending to sit in the right place of optimism, honesty and grief was a real challenge.
I love your approach to the writing, how did you mould those scenes together and make sure the narrative flowed as a cohesive whole?
We honed the script over months and months. Always pulling back. Always looking to minimise dialogue and say more with what was happening than what was being spoken. We had certain images and moments we knew we just had to see, so in a way the arc and narrative flow of the piece took care of itself. Ellie’s search for herself and for Nic was the key, but getting the ending to sit in the right place of optimism, honesty and grief was a real challenge and we had many different versions of it before we settled on the right one with the right words.
Once the script was finalised were there any particular hurdles you faced in the production process?
When we finally had a script we set about finding a producer and that proved much harder than we had anticipated because neither of us knew anyone. After a couple of unsuccessful collaborations we found our hero in Steven Atkinson who was a theatre producer I had worked with before who was just moving into film, so it was very fortuitous. We had by that point raised the funds mostly via Kickstarter and were able to set about building a team. This was really tricky to do because it was still during Covid, and there was very little equipment and everyone was busy.
We lost our initial DOP two weeks before the shoot and had to pivot and find someone else. Fortunately, we found the incredible Ronnie McQuillan who brought such beauty and skill to the shoot and who had a real tenacity when it came to getting all the shots we needed. He taught me so much about how to look through the lens and also hold the edit in my head. The shoot took place over three days, the first of which was mostly a write off because our location flooded and we were up against time as a result. Miraculously we got all the shots, but a lot of it was touch and go as it was exterior shots including Matti swimming and the light was fading rapidly by that point. The second and third days were a lot more relaxed and by then I had a better understanding of how to work with the camera.
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As this was your short film directorial debut I would love to know more about your approach when it came to directing Matti for screen rather than the familiarity of the stage.
Matti is my favourite actor and I knew there would be no one better to play Ellie, to show the rage and raggedness of her, and also to really step into the experience which was so lived and personal for both of us. Because Matti and I had written the script together we knew everything about Ellie. We had worked through a very thorough back history of her and Nic’s characters and relationship which is a key element to how I direct when working on a play. We spent a day before shooting working with Ken Nwosu, the beautiful actor who plays Nic, talking through the relationship, and all the beats in the script. We worked out a few of the more complicated moments at the end of the film which related to the physical tussle Ellie and Nic have as we knew we would need a strong foundation for that before we started shooting. Occasionally when we were doing pick ups I would talk the whole way through the take so that Matti knew what was going on and where to look and react, and for the more intimate scenes, she and I worked them through in detail beforehand, trying not to get hysterical with laughter as we discussed positions for masturbation!
Once we were shooting I could be very light touch with both Ken and Matti, offering up feedback on a beat which might not be landing on the screen, or giving them something else to try. It was a steep learning curve for me looking at a monitor when we were doing a take as I am so used to working on live performance for theatre but I eventually got used to it and was able to see what was or wasn’t legible. I am also a director who really loves the act of collaboration with my actors and I think that actors often know more than I do. I am always looking to work collectively with my whole team as opposed to dictating what and how something should happen, except in the moments when time is of the essence and we just have to get it done quickly.
There is a genuine shock about the way your body has changed as a result of being pregnant, then giving birth and then breastfeeding. It is miraculous and incredible as well as being curious, sad and disturbing.
The intimate, heartbreaking scene of Ellie naked in front of the mirror is so powerful. Tell us more about writing that scene and the internal dialogue of the character that you had in mind as she inspects herself in the mirror. It feels so key to the wider narrative. Was there any hesitation from Ellie about the vulnerability of it for her as an actor?
We shot this with most of the crew in another room and me and the DOP working alongside Matti in a sort of dance. Before we filmed we talked over in detail what the camera needed to capture of Ellie’s relationship to herself as well as every detail of Matti’s body which needed to be captured. This was such a personal scene for both of us. Both Matti and I ended up having emergency C-sections with our first children and having a part of your body cut open, then stitched back together again never stops being a completely wild and mind blowing experience and memory. There is a genuine shock about the way your body has changed as a result of being pregnant, then giving birth and then breastfeeding. It is miraculous and incredible as well as being curious, sad and disturbing. I hope it is finally being recognised that becoming a mother is the biggest identity shift a woman will ever go through. Certainly for Matti and I it was, and we both knew that the female body was the perfect way to show that disorientation to an audience as it is so raw and vulnerable. The female form also has such a long history of being objectified and immortalised by the male gaze, especially when it comes to motherhood, we wanted to offer up an antidote to that.
Matti has a very robust sense of her body as being a tool for performance and because we knew the importance of what we needed to show, there was no hesitation from her when we were filming it.
In the script there is a line which says, “She doesn’t recognise the woman staring back at her”, and I think that comes across in the scene. What was also important to us is that there was a profound beauty to the fact that sitting on the bed beside her is this magnificent child who came out of her, and the curve of her body and the curve of her child will forever be bound together. That same child could also fall off the bed at any moment, adding a sense of danger which parents are always having to deal with once their child becomes mobile. All of these things were meant to capture the ambiguity of motherhood. The way there are so many feelings and sensations all at the same time. The final beat of the scene which is about Ellie just having to get on with it, and try and make the best of things was important too because there is rarely a moment to dwell or reflect when you have a young child and these moments of revelation happen so fleetingly.
In terms of filming the scene and the nudity required, Matti has a very robust sense of her body as being a tool for performance and because we knew the importance of what we needed to show, there was no hesitation from her when we were filming it. From working with each other multiple times there is a very deep trust which enables us to be courageous together. We embolden each other to do things which are uncomfortable – and I think that is often what makes good work.
For me, those night shots also lie at the heart of the film’s emotive power.
I’d love to say that this was all meticulously planned, and to some extent it was, but the reality of how we shot it was an absolute white knuckle ride. We’d lost loads of time as this was the end of our first day of filming which had been squeezed by at least four hours due to flooding. I remember running like a mad woman up and down the beach shouting at everyone to get down there because the light was fading fast. We got one or two takes and that was it. A lot of what I’d planned got lost but then a whole load of new and beautiful things happened due to how dark and moody it was.
How did the knowledge that you’d be shooting in overcast weather and at night inform your camera and lighting choices? What did you shoot on?
We were mostly just working as quickly as possible to make sure we didn’t lose the natural light as there wasn’t any significant lighting for the exterior scenes. We shot on an Alexa Mini 4:3 with a set of Lomo Anamorphics. My knowledge of cameras and lighting is super basic but Ronnie and I had shared many references when it came to how we wanted the film to look and I trusted him to make that aesthetic work. It no doubt helped a lot that we weren’t managing super sunny weather because it fit the tone of the experience Ellie is having and also meant we weren’t struggling with sunlight continuity in the edit.
Tell us about the editing process and how the film came together for you. Were there any unexpected changes?
I found editing hard. I hated the first cut and I had to come to terms with not having an audience to test things with, which is something I’m very used to in theatre. Thankfully my producer Steven reminded me that the edit was another opportunity to write the film and once he said that things became a whole lot easier. I also shared the film with trusted people early on as I really rely on outside eyes to help me when I’m going blind after too much time spent with something.
I hope it is finally being recognised that becoming a mother is the biggest identity shift a woman will ever go through.
Did any specific feedback come from their watching the film that was incorporated into the edit?
The main question for me was whether to begin the film with the flash forward of a nearly naked Ellie pushing an empty pushchair through the town at night. This image had come to me so strongly when we were doing a rewrite for the script that I was certain it was a good start to the film, but when I shared an early edit, I shared two versions – one with and one without that opening. Perhaps unsurprisingly there was split feedback, so in the end, I had to follow my gut and stick with how I’d imagined it from the very beginning. The rest of the feedback was tiny suggestions on how to move something along a little quicker so we could get the film to run at under 15 mins.
There’s a sparse use of score with naturalistic sound design taking prominence rather than music. How did you arrive at that balance for the film’s soundtrack?
I knew instinctively that the film shouldn’t have a heavy score. The details within it are too fine, and there is so much intimacy with Ellie throughout that to have music would have felt like I was leading the audience which I really didn’t want to do. I love music and use it a lot in my theatre work, but with this I just knew it should be light touch from the beginning and fortunately, Composer Lindsay Wright was totally in agreement with me on that so it was easy to work out the moments which should have support.
The most difficult scene to nail was the one where Ellie gets undressed – I knew it needed underscore but anything too heavy would have been out of place, yet it is also such a massive moment for Ellie that I knew it needed something. I was actually only able to find exactly what I wanted once I was in the sound edit and could mix sound and score in a more detailed way to give that sense of vertigo she has when seeing her naked self.
How did Jodie Whittaker come on board as Exec Producer and in what ways did her involvement help the project?
Jodie and Matti are old friends. Being a mother herself, when Jodie found out that we were writing a script about the identity crisis of early motherhood she asked to read it. Thankfully she loved it and was really keen to help us find a way to make it. She helped a huge amount in terms of finding connections to crew and calling in favours. She was super helpful in post production too where she could really pull in connections for music and the post house Onsight, as well as helping to organise our cast and crew screening.
There is a real difference in the way women tell their own stories. We all have to keep working to find and grow our audience and to make sure that the work gets seen.
Three is a shining example of the type of female-centric narratives we need more of! What does it mean to you as a woman and a filmmaker to be able to bring such an incredibly powerful and relatable story to screen on your debut outing?
It means everything. It’s why I keep going. Because even though there are now more ‘female stories’ out there, a significant proportion of them are still being written and directed by men and I think there is a real difference in the way women tell their own stories. We all have to keep working to find and grow our audience and to make sure that the work gets seen. Commercial producers tell us that there is no market for stories about mums, but I know that simply isn’t true. Stories about mums are universal because we’ve all had a mum and many of us will become one or have lived much of our lives being one. Understanding female experience is key to making the world a better place and I want to be a part of that til the very end.
We’re very excited to see what is coming next from you…what you’re working on at the moment?
I’m working on a few features, one with Matti and another of which, Ceres, (a feature of the short I made in 2022 with Hannah Morrish) is currently in development with Candle and Bell. It’s great to be working with such a brilliant company and though it’s early days, we’re really excited about where the collaboration is taking us.
