There’s something unequivocally magical about childhood summers, those seemingly endless days where imagination transforms the mundane into something extraordinary. In his latest short film Rocket Fuel, Jordon Scott Kennedy taps into this universal experience with a vibrant authenticity that defies conventional depictions of working class life. Kennedy, winner of Directors Notes partner Slick Films’ £10,000 Grand Prize Fund at last year’s Bolton Film Festival and the Bradford 2025 Forge Film Funding, eschews the desaturated, piano-scored bleakness often imposed on such stories by directors dogmatic about capturing a social realism milieu despite never having step foot on an estate, and instead infuses his film with colour, cinematic flair, and an infectious sense of adventure that reflects how children actually experience their world. Rocket Fuel stands as a testament to the writer/director’s evolving filmmaking philosophy, one that acknowledges the legacy of working class film depictions but pushes beyond those skewed constraints – the result is a short that adults and children can enjoy together, finding different layers of meaning in a story that celebrates childhood resilience and imagination. With Rocket Fuel making its debut today on BBC Three at 9:50pm (with a second screening at 1:45am 24th May), we caught up with Kennedy for a chat about the instant dynamism of his two young leads, why he is drawn to telling stories from a youthful perspective and harnessing where he’s from and the childhood experiences of his young actors to bring authentic stories to screen.
[The following interview is also available to watch at the end of this article.]
It is such a pleasure to be talking to you today about the finished film after having a front row seat to the live Slick Films Fund pitch finale at Bolton last year. How did you come to apply in the first place?
I’d always followed Chris and Rachel’s story, I was inspired by how they just came out of nowhere and won an Oscar. I attended the Forge Lab in Bradford and Chris was one of the speakers. I was buzzing because I’d never met him before and after the session, he said to me, “You need to apply for the Slick Films Fund”. Then it was like the Champions League, you get down to like the last 32, last 16, then I got down to the last five. I didn’t even realise until the day that audience votes counted, I probably should have read more details, but maybe it was good going into it a bit blind because then you don’t get too nervous.
People seem to think I’m a public speaking master but I hate public speaking. The one bit of advice I always give people is, don’t prepare too much. The first few times I used to get dead nervous and I realised it was because I was prepping so much. I was trying to remember everything I prepped, whereas I just started winging it and then I started enjoying it more. When I’m sat watching a pitch and I can hear someone shoehorning something in, something that’s got nothing to do with the context, it’s just there because they’ve prepped that, it’s almost like robotic. One thing people always tell me I’ve got going for me is I’m myself and I’m always authentic.
I wrote this draft in four hours and sent it out. I honestly didn’t believe I stood much of a chance then it ended up winning the Forge Fund Lab, then it won Slick. The next thing I know, the BBC were on the phone.
Now tell us all about Rocket Fuel.
It’s been an absolute game changer. I always said that the film I did a couple of years ago, Youthless, changed my life but I think this has even more so. I got this idea that I was going to do something like Scorsese’s After Hours. I’d been ruminating on it for ages, but I can get bored of an idea if I think about it for too long, then I put off writing. Then one day I went past a field and there was a burnt out car and I thought if I found a car like that when I was younger, that was my summer, then I was buzzing to write that down. I wrote this draft in four hours and sent it out. I honestly didn’t believe I stood much of a chance, then it ended up winning the Forge Fund Lab, and then it won Slick. The next thing I know, the BBC were on the phone. It was annoying because sometimes six months of writing doesn’t go anywhere, then with this, it was just like it was catching lightning in a bottle.
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What do you think it is about the idea that’s made it so appealing?
I worked it out last night. When people come up to me about the script or about having seen the film, they don’t talk to me about the film. They don’t pick out scenes or lines or anything like that. When people talk to me about it, they talk to me about their childhood and stories from their childhood. Everyone can relate to it because it’s not just about estate kids, everyone has a childhood and it’s what you get up to. Rocket Fuel pays tribute to that.
I’d love to know a bit about the development of the project. You had your script, won two funds and had the BBC engaged, how did you move into production?
It happened really quickly. We got the BBC on board back end of last year and then it had to be done by May. I wasn’t ever going to make my first draft, as much as people were like “Mate, what more can you do to it? BBC have no notes at all, which is unheard of – go and shoot it!” But I wanted to develop it as much as I could, and I did. I was conscious of the fact that if I did too much, I might ruin it or undo certain parts but it was a rare one where every script revision I did seemed to improve it. Often, people develop a script then start rehearsing but personally, I think you lose something, especially when you’re working with kids. The workshop process should be about getting the script on its feet and letting the kids go for it. They are experts in their characters, these kids can teach me more about kids today than I could write.
It was about having the confidence to dismantle it and let it get messy. The first couple of days there was loads of fun, but there was also that tightness of the script being unravelled. It’s like when you tidy your bedroom, it gets messier before it gets better, then that process starts to click. I treated it like we were doing theatre, we had five days of rehearsals and then we were going to shoot it on the fifth day, and that’s what we did. The kids did it live, they did it without any interruption as if it were a play. These kids have never acted before and the way they did it blew me away.
The workshop process should be about getting the script on its feet and letting the kids go for it. They are experts in their characters, these kids can teach me more about kids today than I could write.
I pulled out a line from your local open casting call because I loved it. Lenny had to have “a gob like a foghorn Yorkshire accent.” How many applications did you get?
Absolutely hundreds, that casting process can often be about casting who they think the best actor is, whereas it’s not just about that, it’s about the dynamics. When Elif Riley came in, for Lenny, she literally kicked the door open, she swaggered in with such confidence. Everybody was well behaved and sat down, and they’d done what the parents had told them to do – whereas she just charged in. Then we started pairing them up, and it just so happened that she got paired up with Logan Ludbrook, who already had the mullet and when they were together I just knew straight away.
We all know there are more restrictions around filming with children. Did that cause you any issues when shooting?
I think I’ve got a bit desensitised to it because the last three films I’ve done have mainly been kid casts. The biggest one for me was the amount we had to get in the days that we had. The first day was a bit of a killer because we’d done a studio day where everything had gone well, then we were on set, on top of a moor, and the weather was horrendous. It was freezing – it’s supposed to be the middle of summer but then, the next day, the sun shone.
I’d love to know why you are drawn to telling stories from the point of view of children.
It’s a good question, I’ve never been asked that before. When I was a kid, you had to grow up fast. My first few years I lived on Dewsbury Moor Estate, which is a great but also rough place to live. Then I moved to Ravensthorpe, which is even worse, but I had a great childhood. So by the time I was five, six, seven, I remember my mates getting rid of their toys because they all wanted to be rugby players and boxers – we all grew up dead quickly and we all wanted to be like little adults, and that’s why my characters often behave like little adults.
I always saw childhood quite objectively and I think it’s definitely influenced my work.
Sometimes you look back and you think you missed out because you grew up too quickly. But also because I saw myself as a little man from being nine/ten years old, I always saw childhood quite objectively and I think it’s definitely influenced my work. It’s also the absurdity of it, like in Rocket Fuel, Lenny just whipping out a candy stick and smoking it like a cigarette. Those little things happen in all my films, and it’s me laughing at myself because, as much as I thought I was a little man, people must have just found it funny that I was definitely still a kid thinking that I were a little man. I also just find working with kids dead fun. I’ve got other stuff I’m doing about adults. My feature was about an adult and a kid, but every two or three films, I’ll always come back to a story about kids because they just fascinate me.
You can talk about so much and also draw in a much wider audience with those stories.
Someone said to me last night their favourite thing about the film is that she’s finally found a film (and if it becomes a series) that she could watch with her two young sons. Everything she wants to watch, they don’t want to watch, and the stuff that they want to watch isn’t her thing. I write stories that probably have 15 certificates, but knowing full well that kids will watch them, so I’m conscious of that. I’m conscious of not putting content in there that goes too far, but I don’t really tame the way that the kids speak. You hear people complaining, “Oh, kids don’t watch TV anymore, it’s because of their attention spans.” but also it’s because there’s loads of crap on telly as well – they’re not entertained.
When I was a kid, I wasn’t watching stuff that was marketed to me. We were all watching South Park and we all watched Terminator and Alien, even though they were 18 certificates. They knew that kids would watch them films because they sold the toys in Toys R Us. What’s happened is we’ve become dead conscious of it, and I think we’ve removed too much edge from kids’ programming. With Rocket Fuel and Youthless, I know full well that kids are going to watch it, but we also aim it at adults because the adults will get things that the kids don’t get and vice versa. Every now and then there’s the odd naughty word but I’m very conscious I don’t want to put too much in there where kids are watching stuff they shouldn’t be watching.
You had your cast and crew screening last night. Was this your first time seeing the film with an audience?
Yeah, the first time I’d seen it on the big screen. We were sat in an editing suite on Friday, and then Monday, here we are. Most of the kids in the film are Bradford kids who have never acted before so it was the first time they’d ever seen themselves on the big screen, and that’s why we wanted to do it before it went out on BBC. It was just so amazing, the mums were so emotional and it was such a good vibe. For me, that’s what filmmaking’s about. It’s not about the awards, it’s about when everyone who put so much into it gets together and they see it on screen. Some of them might not make another film, they might have to go off and do other things but they’ll always look back on that moment.
So what’s next for Rocket Fuel?
It goes on BBC on Thursday, 9:50 on BBC Three, then it’s a case of seeing what the reaction is. Hopefully, people will like it, share it, and comment on it. But I’m confident we’ve done everything we can. Everything is out of our hands now. The aim is to get a series and I think it speaks for itself. The one thing that people always say is there’s no reference, there’s nothing like it, it’s just its own unique thing. It’s obviously set on a council estate but it’s not something that mocks them. It’s also not all doom and gloom, sad piano and desaturating the imagery. It’s about kids who don’t know they’re working class, because when I grew up, I didn’t know I was working class until I left Dewsbury, and when you’re a kid, it doesn’t matter.
A lot of stories about working class people are obsessed with this idea of social realism, which is very external. What we don’t see is how people see the world around them, especially kids. When you’re a kid, your point of view of the world is so different to what we’ve seen on screen previously and Rocket Fuel is literally about that. Why can’t working class stories be cinematic in the sense that they pay tribute to great movies? For me, that’s what it’s about. It starts as a social realism, then it goes into a completely different world.
When you think of realism, the core of it, the start of it, was made by people who couldn’t first-hand relate to estate life.
We’ve all come to expect a certain look and feel from films about estates but you come in bright and bold and using special brew as fuel, which is very refreshing.
I loved growing up on an estate. For me, it’s like a badge of honour, it’s not something to be ashamed of. Growing up in a working class area, people know you’ve worked, you’ve lived. I were working from being 10 years old and it definitely builds your character. I always laugh at social realisms, they’re always dead bleak and quite often not made by people who are working class themselves. You know what makes me laugh? Someone sat in a colour grade and made it greyer, made that sky bleaker. Then someone’s actually gone in a garden, tipped a wheelie bin up and poured loads of crap all over because they’ve got a point of view on an estate. Where we shot were lovely!
People’s references of Northern life and estate life and working class life are from films that were made back in the ’60s by middle class to upper class directors. So when you think of realism, the core of it, the start of it, was made by people who couldn’t first-hand relate to estate life. Growing up there were films that obviously blew me away, especially when I first saw Kes. I had a mate that was just like Billy Casper, he always had a green jacket on, out in the woods and stuff like that. Then as I got a bit older, I saw This Is England, which was a massive one where you felt the authenticity. But also, when my family first sat down to watch the first couple of seasons of Shameless, before it went off in a different direction, I thought they were amazing. When I first saw Lip Gallagher, I was like, “This is a young lad that’s aspirational, he’s intelligent, but he’s on a council estate,” and it really connected with me. But I don’t think we see enough of it. I think we’re always too sympathetic to working class life and what we need to do is to represent from within. Working class filmmakers represent themselves.
I’ve done it myself when I made Suicide Kelly, which is a film I’m really proud of – the first feature I ever did made on a budget of £10K. I was watching a lot of Mike Lee, Ken Loach, even John Cassavetes and Vittorio De Sica, and so I was thinking if you’re doing working class characters, it’s got to be really stripped back, raw, almost documentary style, desaturated. I watched Naked by Mike Lee about 50 times when I were doing it. You can see them seeds of the films that I’m making now in Suicide Kelly but also I remember watching it back and as much as I love it, it doesn’t didn’t have enough of my point of view, my sense of humour, the way that I see life to be absurd. It has elements of those and it is a very optimistic film in the end, but I wanted more of that. That to me was me finding my style and I’ve pushed it with every film. Each of my films have become more colourful and even more my own style, but they’ll always have those tributes to realism. Just don’t get bogged down by it, there’s enough Shane Meadows knock-offs – you’ve got to be yourself.
Definitely! Audiences can feel it when you are being honest, they know when you’re bullshitting them.
I’m almost 38, and people would see it a mile off if all I did was just write what I think a kid’s life is today and put that on screen. Whereas people come to me and they praise me for my authentic dialogue. Yeah, because I nick it off the kids that I’m working with and I take all the credit for it! They’re your first-hand research. That’s why if you’re casting an estate kid role, that kid’s probably not in drama school and so maybe a kid who is in drama school isn’t the right person to play that character. Obviously, when you’re casting adults and they’ve been through training, that’s a completely different kettle of fish. For me, I’ve always just gone and tried to find the kid.
