When devising the central conflict for her short film Sidney, writer/director Iris Breward set her opposing characters against each other by emphasising both of their weaknesses and in so doing, opens up a much wider conversation whilst also giving the audience a deserved laugh. Sidney, our central protagonist, is a classically trained clown whose career might not have reached the heights he was aspiring to, with financial pressures placing him in the awkward ‘jobbing’ arena of a children’s birthday party which will take an unexpected turn that no one wanted. Breward gives us a glimpse into the highly trained and diverse world of clowns, taking reference from classic characters such as Pierrot while adding the modern influence of the clowncore social media trend to form her aspiring performer. Sidney is very much a film of two halves both narratively and visually and a short we’re excited to premiere on Directors Notes today alongside our conversation with Breward in which she takes us inside setting up the perfect playground for her central power struggle, visually depicting the two realities experienced in the film and working closely with her composer from the project’s earliest stages to create a score that is integral to the narrative.
I love your depth of exploration of identity through a seemingly simple birthday party performance.
Sidney came out of a love for physical performers and clowns. I was inspired by Charlie Chaplin, Giulietta Masina, Gena Rowlands – visceral performances that generate empathy in the viewer mostly through gesture and expression. What fascinates me about this type of performer is the freedom and playfulness of the creativity, but also how vulnerable it is for the artist. When I wrote the script I was struggling with my own identity as a filmmaker and all the imposter syndrome that comes with creating. This led me to the central conflict of the film, which is about overcoming fear and pride in order to find freedom and connection.
I found it funny to think about a classically trained clown, someone who takes the craft really seriously and is totally absorbed by their niche subculture, being thrown into an undignified situation where no one really gets it. Our actor, Martin Bassindale, had gone to Jacques Lecoq clown school – and there’s a whole world of clowning that was really fun to dig into and contrast with the banality of a kids’ birthday party. He came up with most of the opening ‘rehearsal scene’ stuff from warm ups they would do. It was fun to find that intensity and weirdness for what is ultimately a children’s entertainer gig.
Once the idea had struck, was it immediately going to be a children’s birthday party and how did your writing progress into this script of escalating clashes and conflicts?
I wanted to explore the idea of this artistic, classically trained performer being thrown into the ‘daily grind’ of a jobbing clown. The children’s birthday party as his first paid gig felt suitably unglamorous. It’s the moment where Sidney’s dreams and aspirations meet the reality of needing to make money. Suddenly he’s less in control of his artistic practice and faced with a room full of kids. There’s so much tension in this feeling of being seen by children, because you know they can’t disguise their reactions. The challenge of winning these kids over forces Sidney out of perfectionism into being more responsive. On set, the kids organically became a barometer for truth and helped elevate everything so much. It was my first time directing children and honestly, it was such a delight. We had them all there for one day and the whole crew really missed them when they were gone, because they brought such a sense of energy and instinct to the whole experience.
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In terms of the events unfolding during the party, it was mostly about making sure Sidney and the Dad were grounded on opposite sides of a conflict, and then having them push each other’s buttons, and letting things escalate from there. I didn’t want to follow a predetermined path, I wanted the events of the story to feel like they were happening in the moment, especially in that middle section of the film where the romanticism is stripped back and it’s more immediate. It was just about setting up a fertile ground for the power struggle and then letting it unfold naturally. I wanted the conflict to be mostly non-verbal, and basically sordid and degrading for both adults. So part of the process was just thinking about what the most childish way to one-up each other would be, and building that up towards catastrophe.
It was just about setting up a fertile ground for the power struggle and then letting it unfold naturally.
You really do pit two very opposing male personalities against each other!
I developed the two lead characters by imagining them as two (almost internal) opposing forces – one geared towards expression and one towards repression. We start with this very contained and controlled rehearsal scene, so the middle birthday party scene was about unravelling that and creating chaos. The obvious weak point for Sidney is his perfectionism and ego – so making the battle a kind of power struggle of masculine competitiveness felt right. I wanted it to be depressing and humiliating. The fight choreography itself needed to feel a bit pathetic, very much the opposite of the planned meticulousness of the routines. It was about them really debasing themselves.
Making the battle a kind of power struggle of masculine competitiveness felt right. I wanted it to be depressing and humiliating.
It feels like a film of two halves on so many levels which also comes through the cinematography. The start and end are more luscious and inviting compared to the more stark, harshly lit birthday party.
Absolutely, Sidney is a film of two realities. You have Sidney’s fanciful perspective pitted against the abrasive real world. It was an interesting challenge to balance these tonally, and I found that using the heightened sequences as bookmarks at the start and the end helped define them. We had so much fun shooting that opening sequence because there was a lot to play with, the beautiful production design from Beatrice Karpovic, the physical warm-ups and improvisation, and various camera tricks to create an even more immersive feel. The most successful of these was shooting into flexible mirror sheets to create the distortions on Martin’s face. This was inspired by the opening of Seconds (1966), which I sent to DP Dani Perales and he loved. So we decided to try and create something similar for Sidney.
I would say there is a bit of a visual segue as we arrive at the birthday party, moving from surreal to real. We used a large ladder pod for the overhead shots of the kids in the garden to convey a sense of dread and elongate the unsettling tone of the opening. Gregory Crewdson’s Hover photo series was a reference for that because those photos do such a good job of capturing suburbia through an alienated lens. But once we’re inside the house, it’s more grounded in reality. I still wanted the action to have a clear sense of subjectivity, but with the intrusion of the Dad and the chaos of the kids it’s harsher and less controlled. Especially once the fight breaks out, there’s a marked departure from the careful choreography of the routine.
I found that using the heightened sequences as bookmarks at the start and the end helped define them.
For the ending there’s a return to the romantic, rose-tinted feel – but maybe in a slightly more rough around the edges way. We had a very DIY dolly setup because, due to budget, we didn’t have any tracks and the platform was pretty bumpy so we found these long wooden planks to run it along instead. Which was a good bit of problem-solving from production! I think it’s nice because it leans into the sense of freedom of the ending and the looseness that Sidney has found.
That opening scene is so much more natural and fluid, was this shot differently to capture the other side of our protagonist?
The whole film was shot on Arri Alexa Mini with a vintage Angenieux lens, but it was a zoom lens so we did choose to go super close for the opening scene. I wanted to set up Sidney’s inner headspace and introduce him as an artist first before we see him as a clown. This sequence needed to contrast tonally with the birthday party as well, to raise the tension of entering that house and show it as a break from Sidney’s usual world. The opening was mostly improvised and was a lot of long takes where Martin just let loose and did lots of weird stuff and I tried not to laugh. It was amazing though, because he pulled out all these wonderful ideas and then we could pick ones to focus on and run with. I also wanted the room to be dark so that the natural light of day is a bit of a comic shock. I think that dingy bedroom full of curiosities really establishes Sidney as a bit of a creature and a freak, which just makes it funnier when he finds himself in suburbia in front of a room of kids.
Martin’s performances took me through a world of emotions. Were you always looking to cast someone with classical training as he has?
I was definitely looking to cast someone with a physical performance background, but I was open to whether that was in dance, physical theatre or clowning. The casting process was quite lengthy because I wanted to find someone who could deliver a truthful performance above everything else – but obviously they also needed to be able to pull off a clown routine. Sidney is so central to the film, and it was vital that the audience could root for him.
The warm-ups he’s doing in the opening scene were from that training, and it meant he understood the idea of this high-brow clown, and the specificity of that subculture.
I didn’t work with a casting director due to budget restrictions so instead it was a lot of research and word of mouth. We held auditions and I actually invited Martin to audition on recommendation. He blew us away in the audition with an incredible mime performance called The Sleazy Bartender. Kieran Dee, who plays the Dad, was cast at that point – so in the audition room they were able to run a scene together. The energy between Kieran and Martin was so charged and electric that it was quite obvious he needed to be Sidney. Martin’s formal training at Jacques Lecoq clown school brought a lot to the role. The warm-ups he’s doing in the opening scene were from that training, and it meant he understood the idea of this high-brow clown and the specificity of that subculture. He related to it so quickly and brought a beautiful depth to Sidney because of it. But importantly he was also able to bring a Chaplinesque charisma to all the routines and throw himself into it comedically as well.
I want to know more about costume and makeup, and making sure he was the right type of clown as I can imagine there are a lot of clown variants.
Obviously there are so many directions you can go in with a clown. Most of the clowns we see on screen today are horror clowns, so I wanted to keep some distance from that. I was interested in an old fashioned, Pierrot vibe – something quite effeminate with frills and ruffles. Partly because I love that look and partly because it plays into why the Dad finds Sidney such an affront because he’s not conforming to traditional masculinity. The pointy hat with pom poms really tops it off. I also knew I wanted the costume to include tights, to establish theatricality during the opening before Sidney is fully dressed. The costume designer, Callum Anderson, and I toyed with patterns for a bit, wondering how fussy to go. But we settled on a more stripped back white and red because there was so much colour everywhere else. Also, it was important that the costume felt like something Sidney could have made himself, so the base is a cheap white boiler suit which helped because we needed to make two versions of the costume so that one could get splattered with cake!
In terms of makeup, Alicia Erskine and I spent time finding the right level of caricature whilst still letting Sidney’s real face come through. I loved the painted on red nose, and the rosy cheeks. I pulled a lot of inspiration from the clowncore trend on social media (shout out to the clown girlies). Again we leant into femininity, with the blue eyeshadow, red lips and drawn-on lashes playing on a traditional face of women’s makeup.
You must have had a lot of fun with the music, ensuring it gelled with the story’s tone and your very traditional influences.
The music is integral to this film and I knew that from the off, so I started working with the composer, Harry Winstanley, long before shooting. In rehearsal we devised the birthday party routine to music that Harry had prepared already, which helped enormously in finding the movement and the tone of that routine. For the party sequence, I wanted the music to signal that this isn’t your traditional birthday party clown, but something a bit more avant-garde. For the movement, I looked at Chaplin and Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, but also pulled from Bob Fosse dance numbers and people like Lindsay Kemp and Marcel Marceau. It was about finding a very specific tone that felt particular to Sidney and something he himself would have crafted from all the things he was obsessed with.
That’s also why the opening is this off-kilter, sultry jazz. We went back and forth on the music for that scene a bit because it was hard to find the right balance between tense and odd, but not actually scary. Harry was amazing and worked with me for months to fine tune it all until we found exactly the right tone. The ending music was the piece we ‘found’ the fastest because the tone of that scene is so clear. Jaeden (who plays the little girl) delivers so much life and sweetness, as does Martin. The main thing with the music for that scene was dialling the whimsy, having it be joyful, but not twee or saccharine. Harry understood that totally and I remember him delivering the music for that ending and it all just clicking perfectly.
It’s also about stepping outside of self-consciousness and the interiority of his headspace to find connection – which is what making art is really about.
You treat us to such a beautiful final scene.
The ending is about letting go of taking yourself seriously, being OK with things going wrong and maybe actually finding relief in it. I wanted Sidney to be at his most free and truthful at the end, once he’s unburdened himself of that pressure he’s able to actually have fun. It’s also about stepping outside of self-consciousness and the interiority of his headspace to find connection – which is what making art is really about. That feeling of being seen and accepted by someone else and also for them to identify with you and join you in whatever experience you’re sharing. I looked at the dance sequence in the Lovers on the Bridge (1991) for that as well as the ending of Nights of Cabiria (1957). The train station was a classic romantic setting for this, but also I liked the fact the characters couldn’t directly interact or speak – so it was more about visual communication.
What are you working on now?
November was a big writing month for me. I wrote my second feature, which is a satirical comedy about a low-level bureaucrat put in charge of installing traffic calming measures in a town full of motorists. I’m also a finalist for The Pitch Film Fund 2025 so I attended their residency (which was great) and am working on my pitch for the finals in January. I have a horror short in development, which is about a woman’s depressive spiral manifesting into a rotting compost bin that her housemates don’t seem to notice. I’m really keen to explore horror, but having done a lot of very low-budget filmmaking now I’m hoping to be able to secure funding for this one. And my latest short Afterplay, a 5 minute comedy, is starting on the festival circuit in January so hopefully I’ll be going to some festivals with it throughout 2025!
