Mr In-Between

Mr In-Between fell upon me out of the blue. I was approached to direct the project and within two weeks we were in preparation. There wasn’t much time to react. I was attracted to the hero’s precarious balancing act between the “real” world of normal, functioning citizens and the sinister region of his shadowy career. How can one deal with the collision of the life of a killer and the mundanities of, say, buying groceries? Is a professional criminal just that, a professional, or in some way a schizophrenic heading toward some inevitable rupture? I felt that the basic tension in such a character was quite fascinating. Mr In-Between deals with the unravelling of a man who tampers with the veil that separates the two worlds. I wanted to be there with my camera when it happened.

The script was rather involved for the budget we were working with, yet the spectacular team we were able to gather (both cast and crew) made the whole endeavour possible. I still cannot begin to be greatful enough to the gods who cast this film. Andrew Howard is Jon. While shooting the first scene, my “mind’s eye” vision of Jon melted away to be forever inhabited by Andrew. He brought such an intense level of focus and concentration to the part. His imagination never ceased inventing endless character details that would surprise me during every shot.

Geraldine O’Rawe and her Cathy brought a bedrock of honesty and normalcy to the skewed universe of Mr In-Between. She became the fulcrum of Jon’s perilous balancing act.

Geraldine’s work made it seem possible for this hardened man to question his fate and choose to alter it. She invested Cathy with humanity and compassion.

David Calder donned the Tattooed Man’s tattoos and ran with them. His daily descent into the darkest recesses of pure evil was terrifying yet delicious to behold. A master craftsman, David made my work so easy.

The shoot of Mr In-Between took me (a Canadian) to parts of London that I think most Londoners have no idea exist. We filmed below the city in dank, rat-infested catacombs, forgotten by a century of progress, mere echoes of the lost glories of the Industrial Revolution. In Bishopsgate rail sheds, production designer Matthew Davies built the Tattooed Man’s lair. We wanted to invest the environment with an “elsewhereness” that, while not grounding it to a specific geography, is unmistakably in London…somewhere. It was crucial to support, yet not specify, the scale of the Tattooed Man’s enterprise. He must seem all-powerful, all-seeing, unavoidable, inevitable. When Jon decides to part company with the Tattooed Man, it’s like an “auto-excommunication” - things can’t help but get messy.

The atmosphere of dread was so fabulously captured by director of photography Haris Zambarloukos. I kept saying to Haris, “I need to see the actors’ eyes,” and getting a menacing chuckle in reply…he took the dark tone of the story quite literally! There was a very conscious effort in all departments to avoid the enveloping cliché of “gangster chic” that had become so pervasive in the UK cinema. Presumably my Canadianness filtered the London underworld through naïve eyes. London definitely remains quite exotic to me.

The film has a very violent dimension that I’m happy to say is more subtext than subject. The film definitely makes people squirm, yet it’s surprising how much is implied rather than shown. My background as a cinematographer of fairly staid dramas did not prepare me for the relish with which I approached staging the film’s action scenes. Directing can be quite a mechanical job, and regardless of subject matter, you find yourself on the set with a small army of people looking for their marching orders. It’s rather exciting. I must confess it was thrilling to work on Mr In-Between.