It’s a well-known fact that actors’ egos can be very fragile. This is hardly surprising, considering how exposing their work can be: performing in front of fellow cast members and crew, pouring their own emotions and experiences into their portrayals, and having those performances captured on film forever, then screened for audiences everywhere. They have to trust their director and surrender themselves to a storytelling vision in which they hope to play an integral part, without being made to look foolish in the process. Max Clendaniel’s Dummy takes this notion and cranks it up to eleven. In this short comedy, an earnest performer comes face to face with a laughably grotesque fake body double, sending him into an existential and career-ending crisis when he cannot accept that anyone might believe the dummy looks like him. Clendaniel talks to Directors Notes about creating his largely improvised story, working with the three principal cast members who bring it to life, building the world of the film on a shoestring budget, and designing and constructing the inanimate lead character who serves as the catalyst for the ensuing chaos.
Congratulations on Dummy, it’s a brilliantly entertaining short. Where did the idea come from to have an actor so appalled by his prop-double that he’s willing to take its place?
Phew! I’m so pleased to hear you enjoyed it! I’ve always been a fan of Christopher Guest films and really wanted to make something that was heavily improvised. For my other projects, I usually have every shot and line planned out in my head, so the idea of keeping things loose and unexpected was both freeing and terrifying. As this was a little different to how I’d usually structure my comedies, it’s a relief to hear at least one person found it funny.
Seeing bad dummies in movies can immediately turn the darkest film into a comedy.
When I want junk food for the brain I’ll put on a cheesy horror film because sometimes they are unintentionally my favourite comedies. And that was definitely the case with Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling. For every dead body they used the same terrible ventriloquist puppet, even though it didn’t look anything like the actors – or even remotely human. Seeing bad dummies in movies can immediately turn the darkest film into a comedy. You’re not expecting it to be so poorly made so instead of a jump scare, it’s like a jump joke.
Off the back of this, I started thinking about how much I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when they brought that dummy to set and what the cast’s reaction to it would have been. Then I tried to picture it from the actor’s POV and how offended I’d be if someone thought I looked anything like the stunt dummy. So, this short came from watching a bad movie really. Since then I’ve definitely lied to myself that watching something terrible is considered research because who knows what will come from it?
Jordan Brookes is pitch-perfect as the actor whose good nature, insecurity and vanity collide to grizzly effect. What brought him to the project and what was the collaboration before and during the shoot?
I first worked with Jordan on a music video where he had to dress as a mermaid. He didn’t know me at all but without any questions he put on a tail and swam on a bed. His dedication to every role is why I always have him top of mind for projects because I know I can throw anything at him and he’ll nail it. Leading up to production of Dummy, I shot Jordan’s show, Fontanelle and it was honestly the funniest gig I’d ever seen. A surreal, dark theme hidden behind the jolly veneer of a musical. Seeing that show made me realise Jordan is brilliant at finding the balance between comedy and pain that I think works well in something as twisted as Dummy.
The only thing I wanted Jordan to follow script-wise was the beginning and end as I liked the idea of him saying the same lines but with different context.
For this shoot I wanted him be unleashed to his full potential so when I wrote the script I said he could improvise the middle section as long as he hit the story beats to keep the plot moving along. The only thing I wanted Jordan to follow script-wise was the beginning and end, as I liked the idea of him saying the same lines but with different context.
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Brookes is supported by Poppy Hillstead and Nim Odedra. Due to the improvisational nature of the film, what was the collaboration like between all three of them?
Since I’ve never directed something with so much improv I wanted to make sure I could rely on a cast with strong improvisational skills. Jordan and Poppy work together a lot and their chemistry is just glorious. The stuff they can say to each other without cracking a smile blows my mind. Then I always bring Nim on board to make things funnier. She can take a nothing role and give it so much life. And she has some of my favourite moments in the short and it was all down to her strange noggin.
So, the middle section of the short is just them playing around, adapting the script I had in place and then making sure I could capture every decision they made across four cameras at once. The benefit of having it take place on a film set is that cameras can be in the shot and filming another angle at the same time. Every photo of me from that shoot, I’m smiling because I got to enjoy their process of making jokes up on the spot and I never knew where they’d take it next.
The benefit of having it take place on a film set is that cameras can be in the shot and filming another angle at the same time.
The titular Dummy is an obvious scene-stealer. Can you tell us about how the final design for it came about and how the physical prop was made?
The dummy went through so many phases before settling on the right level of weird. I had a side story that hinted the dummy might actually be alive, but it’s never addressed, so every so often it’d gurgle and leak. Originally, I thought making it look creepily realistic in an ‘uncanny valley’ sort of way might be funniest but then I realised it had to be so ridiculous the audience was always on the side of the actor from the beginning. Plus, having it too realistic was just SO creepy and it diluted the comedy.
With this new direction in mind, I redesigned the dummy to look more innocent and cute. So I started with baby features like the completely round head, little curl in the front and the tiny milk tooth. Then I gave it the eyes of a possum and the nose from the creatures in The Brood. Last minute I added ear penises as an extreme feature which Jordan could focus on in his improv if he wanted to. Turns out he did! Even on the day we kept changing elements of the dummy. The penises looked way too real and I was worried it would get banned online so we just kept adding an insane amount of pubes to hide it. Seeing the wisps of hair that close to Jordan’s mouth really sends a shiver down my spine whenever I see it.
The production design ensures the singular space is immersive to both the world of the story and that story being told within the film. Was the newspaper-lined ‘murder room’ something you always had in mind?
I wanted the film to have two very defined spaces to contrast the surreal ‘film world’ vs the unglamorous reality on the other side. I feel like when you see BTS on film sets they always romanticise the day (this film is definitely guilty of that as well), of crew members caught mid-action doing something cool or collaborating with a happy cast member. They rarely show the sweaty director stress-eating fried chicken in a dark corner of the room looking at the rushes while the producer chimney vapes trying to keep everything from catching fire. So, having the heightened, movie world contrasted against the underwhelming, stress-filled set world added to the comedy for me.
For the murder room, I set the movie scene in an environment I thought I could make interesting for very little money. In the past I’ve used cheap materials like crate paper, bottles or balloons and by just layering them hundreds of times over it suddenly looks visually striking. So, by glueing hundreds of sheets of newspaper onto the set walls I can effectively make that whole space look distinct for about £30.
There’s a music cue that comes in when Jason decides he’s going to replace the Dummy. Can you tell us about the creative choice behind both the cue and the piece of music that you went for?
Jordan and I worked on his character to show a (somewhat) plausible reason to sacrifice himself. The plot is already so ridiculous but we tried to show his character’s ego clash with his need for people to like him. After being unable to hide his disdain for the dummy, he has a moment of realisation that he’s slowing down production and everyone is annoyed with him. So he comes to terms with the fact there’s only one option where he can get the film back on track and also not use the dummy. I felt that moment needed a minute to breathe to give Jordan a chance to convey this, so the music highlights his reflection and acceptance of his fate. If we sped through that section it might have felt too random for an already nonsensical story.
As Dummy was improvisational in execution, how did this experience compare to your work on other projects which were far more prescriptive?
It was a huge challenge! I was definitely nervous because a lot of my work is a balancing act of being funny and fucked up, so I have to control so much of my comedy to get the right tone. Also, I like to have a lot of technical shots in my films as there’s something funny to me about putting so much care into something so dumb. But with this, the DOP had to keep on his toes and find moments as the cast moved around a lot, so it had more of a documentary feel to it. Thankfully, we filmed on four cameras at once, which managed to cover us but definitely made it trickier.
I think if I did it again I’d have it lit more evenly to make sure we were covered safely from all angles, no matter where they moved to. There were a few hot spots that work if they stayed in one place but not as well when they moved around. But that’s what I love about trying new things and being more ambitious with each project. Even if you make mistakes you become a better filmmaker.
To be honest, this was a really hard movie to cut down because it was a balance of knowing when you needed a joke or when you had to move on.
What was your personal favourite piece of improv in the film and why?
Everyone had a shining moment for sure. Nim’s line, “So if we can clear the dummy please, the really ugly one… it’s the one sat down”, followed by Jordan reacting to that last minute insult is why I wanted this to be improvised. I couldn’t have written such a wonderfully mean comment like that. Then Jordan finally snapping at Nim saying, “Yeah, but fuck off, because it doesn’t,” gets the biggest laugh every time. Then Poppy’s line, “That’s just lobe and cartilage” when defending the penis ears is said so seriously, it kills me. To be honest, this was a really hard movie to cut down because it was a balance of knowing when you needed a joke or when you had to move on. I couldn’t kill my darlings so I’m glad I got Casey Boyle to be the bad cop and edit it down to a pace that was to the benefit of the film.
What’s next for you?
I’m just wrapping up post on my new short, Scrape, which will be done by the end of this month. It’s definitely more of a drama but because a lot of my work has elements of pathos and horror it was an easy transition to make. Thanks to Julie Bower’s incredible script it feels like a massive step up. We had stunts, special effects and a lot of access to locations, so I’ve felt like a kid in a toy store with all the new, fun things to play with. I can’t thank her enough for getting me on board to bring her twisted idea to life.
Other than that, I’m pushing a pilot I co-wrote with Sam Bailey (not the X-Factor winner) to any companies that’ll listen and prepping a very personal, very strange documentary that I was able to shape through NFTS earlier this year. Finally, I just finished a 1st draft of a feature I’d really love to make, which is a heightened version of the intensely stressful three weeks I had getting power of attorney over my mother earlier this year. It’s a comedy, I swear.
And finally, what short film by another filmmaker would you recommend to the Directors Notes community and why?
It has to be [WeAreDN Awards winner] Tell Me Where I’m Going Wrong by Kyle Jon Shepherd. I’ve had the pleasure of having numerous pints with Kyle and the pleasure of seeing this film at various screenings and it just gets better each time (as does Kyle after a few pints). I went to one screening with my cousin where it was playing alongside a sketch I made and she sooooo clearly preferred Kyle’s short to mine. I couldn’t help but laugh.
