Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) Bachelor of Screen Arts students and brothers, Sean and Jerome Kilkelly, along with SIT graduate, Grace Stapleton, are co-creators of a short film which has caught the eye of Sir Peter Jackson.
The film, The True Story of Billy the Horse, made by PlanetFoxFilms, was selected by Sir Peter as one of three wild card entries in the VF48 Hours filmmaking competition— where the films are made over a 48-hour period.
Christchurch-based PlanetFoxFilms is the brainchild of Isaac Giles - Director, Cinematographer, and Editor – who met Grace and Sean as teenagers when all three attended a Youth Guarantee course in Christchurch in 2017. “We hit it off and the rest is history,” says Grace. The team is now the four – Isaac, Grace, Sean and Jerome. Grace says they have gelled together through like-mindedness and work well together, adding “It’s great when you’ve got friends that have the same hobbies as you.”
In the competition, the teams are given a set of criteria they must include in the film; this year’s requirement was to make a buddy film that had to be about two friends. “The story needed to be based around this friendship,” Grace explained, and after spit balling some ideas, the team thought the criteria felt like a good fit.
Working in ‘Costume and Props’ for the production, Grace made everything from miniature buildings to a two-person horse costume. She thought Sir Peter may have picked their film because it’s engaging and humorous.
“I definitely think it has a lot of charm to it. We did a lot of outdoor filming in beautiful locations; visually it’s very beautiful.” In contrast to that is the horse costume which is very silly and goofy – “It’s those two things working together… I think it’s really funny. We try to make things that make us laugh,” adding “Maybe Sir Peter appreciates we’re a small team of people coming together to make something… that has a kind of spirit, a tenacity.”
Sean affirms there’s something special about creating and collaborating with friends. “I’ll never stop working with my friends. We understand each other better than most creative teams.”
For this film, Sean worked on the idea with the team, then wrote the screen play, and ended up playing one of the main characters, the notorious outlaw. “I’m not usually thinking of myself in the actor’s role when I’m writing,” he revealed, however, acting this character was his highlight of the production as he fitted the character and filming went well. “I feel this is the one where I enjoyed the acting and did the role justice.”
Sean acknowledges there are some pressure filming in such tight time frames and says it can be stressful; they’re a small team and each carry multiple roles. “We all feel it, but if we let ourselves be calm and remember it’s about having fun. We had a lot of fun making this.”
Jerome’s role was Sound, “I was the boom boy”; his skills were required at most of the film shoots and he was also the jack of all trades who did the odd jobs. “I had really deep pockets full of apples to keep the horses happy,” however, in keeping with the adage, ‘never work with children or animals’, Jerome admitted the most challenging filming involved the horse. “The first one kept walking off; the apples weren’t working. We had to find another, more well-behaved horse.”
Flexibility was important. “Initially you can be set on an idea, then you realise it’s not going to work; you kind of have to reel yourself back into what’s actually achievable given the tight timeframes,” Jerome explained.
Having competed in the VF48 last year, Jerome said he felt much surer of the idea for the film this time. Some things worked out early on with the production, which was serendipitous. “Grace’s sister worked with horses through her job…” giving them access to horses. The most satisfying thing was seeing “all the pieces fall into place nicely”, and Sean agreed.
The brothers, who were born and raised in Rotorua, took time off from their SIT studies to travel to Christchurch and participate in their production, and while they weren’t picked for prizes this year, they confessed they already felt like they had won because Sir Peter had picked their film, instead of the judges.
“We feel it’s a great claim to fame having grown up on Lord of the Rings. It’s slightly surreal to be honest. It’s cool that [he’s] seen our film, and we might have made him laugh. It feels a little bit full circle, even though we’re still students.”
To view the film: https://youtu.be/u1hdJLesdl4