INTERVIEW with Mark Agar
Can you explain to the audience your career?
Just like everyone in the industry, I believe my career started when I fell in love with film and television as a kid, I wrote stories based on my dreams and my passions and knew it was something I wanted to do forever. When I left school I finally got the courage to pursue acting wanting to be part of what I’d loved for so long. After a while however like most actors, waiting for the next job became tedious and so I began to make my own projects, this is the first time I’ve finally gotten to direct something I helped write as well so it was incredibly exciting and I’m beyond excited for what comes next, now struggling to only be an actor on set for anything I’m working on!
How many years have you been making movies?
I’ve been acting for almost 9 years now, writing for about five years and now finally taking the leap to directing, it’s felt like a long and sometimes difficult journey but I’m happy I’ve gotten to where I am today, I wouldn’t have had it any other way!
Why did you start making movies?
For my love of stories and the impact that they can have on people. Going back thousands of years, humans have used theatre and art to show new perspectives on life and create entertaining and engaging stories meant to elicit emotions from the audience viewing them. I find that it’s one of the most important and powerful things we have and to be part of that and to even make one person question themselves or think about something they never considered before is an incredible feeling.
Tell us a little about your project. What will the audience be able to see in your film?
Hopefully a new perspective on what is such an important issue we have today.
Consent is such an important topic for many reasons and not just the obvious ones. I find that sometimes we can be so focused on ourselves and our wants and needs that we forget that another person might have completely different ones altogether. Hopefully the film will help people see that, and also to question their own bias towards someone who might seem friendly on the surface but deep down isn’t the person they might think they are, no matter how nice they appear.
Why did you do this project?
For the love of movies and teaching a valuable lesson to our audience. I love the concept of being too quick to judge someone for how they appear whilst ignoring the root cause of why they are that way, and the concept for this film just embodied that so well, I couldn’t help but become excited and needing to work on it.
One of the problems some directors encounter is directing actors and dealing with some actors, especially in the amateur world. How do you see this topic? What kind of work do you do with them?
As an actor myself I said from day one that it was going to be a collaborative process, we would perform it as if it was a theatre piece that all the actors had a say in and could bring whatever they wanted or felt to the table. We were lucky enough to be able to do that whilst having an incredible team work around us to film what we got.
You’re only as good as the people you work with and we were lucky to have an amazing team on all ends helping out, couldn’t have done it without them.
A good movie takes care of all departments. But normally we can not allocate all the resources to have a good photography or spend a lot of money on sound post production or budget to hire actors. In your project what % have you allocated to. I don't just mean money but time as well. Of 100% of the time/money, what % did you dedicate to each department?
This was a big lesson for me and I was lucky enough to have very talented people in every department so it’s hard to quantify in percentages but I hoped I did it evenly all round. Obviously hindsights a fickle thing and there’s definitely some areas like direction and sound and post production that I wish I’d put more into, but it’s a lesson learned for the next project .
-Direction: 15% time
-Photography 15% time/money
-Sound 20% time
-Postproduction – 20% time/money
-Work with actors – 20% time/money
-Art direction/locations: 10% time/money
If you could go back, what would you change about this project? (1 thing only)
Having more time. Very cliche but considering we shot 90% of the film over 6 days was obviously a major challenge and it didn’t leave us much time to really play around with some shots or performances and as happy as I am with the final product, I’d love to go back and be able to take our time with more of the scenes. But that’s filmmaking for you!
What are you happiest about this project?
So many things it’s hard to say just one, and it changes upon every viewing, but I’m in a love with a lot of the performances, especially from our lead Siobhan, and the score done by Caela Murphy which I still listen to by itself as it’s so emotionally driven and just downright beautiful.
Make a wish to the movie gods. What do you ask?
For people who watch our movie and come away from it questioning their usual biases. A good movie in my opinion is one that sticks with you long after you’ve watched it, and if the movie gods will allow more people to watch and still be thinking about it long after it’s done, I can die happy, knowing we’ve made one change in the world for the better!.
What movie would you have liked to direct?
I wouldn’t change anything about the movies I love because what would be the point when they were perfect to begin with. However if I could I would kill to be able and redo the latest Star Wars movies. Being a massive fan since I was a child, they let a lot of people down by not having a plan for where they were going to go, and seemed like an amalgamation of three different directors at work. Cohesion and proper planning is
all they needed and I feel I would’ve at least done a better job, couldn’t guarantee perfection, but I’d at least stick to my plan for a cohesive trilogy.
What kind of cinema do you like? Genre, directors, actors?
I do my best to watch a different genre every night, too much action gets boring which is the same for every genre of film. I love them all for different reasons because they all elicit completely different emotions out of me which in amazing to feel exhilarated one night from a action drama to then be laughing whilst crying the next night watching a romantic comedy. Film really is incredible in that regard.
Imagine that all the movies are going to be lost. If you could save 3 movies, what would they be?
I would pick Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” for it’s hilarious yet telling view on the end of the world and probably why all the movies got destroyed. Then this Japanese film called “Shoplifters” which I still think about to this day and left me emotionally reeling for weeks, which shows the importance of family or the family you find yourself. And finally for my own guilty pleasure I would Zac Snyders “300” just because I’ve such fond memories of it, it led to my love of ancient Greece and Rome and besides some of the best action scenes put on film, every line is an epically quotable line of dialogue.
If you have more projects underway, can you give us a bit of information?
I’ve two that are in the pipeline and then a lot more ambitious films after that I plan to make once I can get the right budget for them.
The next one I’m about to undertake is about a guilt ridden guy who takes in a shellshocked Ukrainian refugee and throughout their travels across Ireland they learn to laugh and love once more, it’ll deal with themes of guilt and forgiveness and where we truly make our home, is it where we make it or with who? It will also deal with refugees in a big way that will hopefully open people’s eyes and make them remember that they are human too.
After that I plan a home invasion story that deals with the crimes of a father being passed down generation to generation and how do we stop it if we allow our children to carry the crimes or revenge of the father. Hopefully dealing with the neverending violence we see across the world that seems to carry on generationally.
Then I would love to do a big budget story of Brian Boru who’s an Irish king who was the only one in history to unite all of Ireland as he vanquished the Vikings from our lands.
Very exciting few years ahead!