Synopsis: Another child star who fucked up.

Feature Interview with the CRAZY RICHARD Directors, for the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

CRAZY RICHARD directors and stars Dean Francis and Katrina Mathers were on hand to talk about their wonderful film.

Take the subject of voyeurism; add some elements of truth and fiction, then rework into a documentary and finish off with a season of guerilla filmmaking and you've got the strange recipe for CRAZY RICHARD; a film, which has stirred the imagination of those who have been lucky enough to see it at the LLGFF.

This film was introduced at the NFT (National Film Theatre) as a powerful and intelligent film, a lament on the way in which reality is being assaulted in the media, part fact, part fiction.

The film came about as filmmaker Dean Francis was producing the sitcom I Can't Even Think Straight!, and was considering a being the scenes film about the show. Working with fellow filmmaker Katrina Mathers, the premise for the film started to crystallise."We started to talk about fictitious backstage persona's, the original stuff we shot was going to be a short promo for the sitcom, from the outset the performers were involved in the conceptualisation of the characters. commented an enthusiastic Francis. The original sitcom the film is based around was itself a send up of US sitcoms. He added, "We thought what if we all had fictional backgrounds to play with, not just Richard, we could play with the reality of being on set, following the pressures and the ego's." The film's drama comes from the dramas of real life, of making the show.

Like the reality TV shows of Pop Idol, Soapstars, or films like The Truman Show, CRAZY RICHARD raises issues of voyeurism. Katrina sees her character as playing with voyeurism, while Richard's character was about exhibitionism. Different characters had different reactions as they played off of each other., "Richard's drive to be on camera feeds into Katrina's." The evolution of DV technology also aids voyeurism. The film used the realities and problems of shooting as food for the story itself. Richard's death comes about as a result of thes actor actually going away, and telling the makers two weeks before his departure. The shooting practice was also determined by the premise of the film. Mathers explained, "We did few second takes, once you tried to redo stuff it was no longer reality cinema, that was a huge challenge to us." The performers themselves started to live their characters to a certain degree. "All the dialogue is improvised, the situations were set up," she concluded.

The film for Francis also sees reality TV as if it is a new cinematic format. "We noticed the trend of people sticking a camera in people's faces."

While Richard's character in the film is gay, the makers do not see this as being a gay film necessarily, however the film has found an audience amongst the gay and lesbian viewers and the film deals with how celebrity is made out of tragedy, something we all have to question.

It really is something to see and hopefully those fortunate enough to get a ticket at the festival screening will not be the only ones who will experience the crazy world of CRAZY RICHARD.

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Page last updated: 6 August, 2004