Production Notes
"About the story"
"Sometimes its hard to determine a future, we're born, we live, we die... We know it, we're reminded of it all the time. It becomes a part of us." Rex (LIAM HALLINAN), a 20-something graphic designer is in a relationship with his co-worker, Jamie (CHRIS CLYNES).
Their relationship is a secret because Rex cannot find the words to tell his father, Adrian (PAUL DEWDNEY) since he recently lost his wife (Rex's mother.) With grief playing a big part of their lifestyle, Adrian cannot feel anything other than anger and frustration and so when he finds out that his son is gay, his grief overwhelms him and he takes out everything on his son which leads to devastating consequences.
"About the Production"
The premise of "Crossroads" came to Katie Smith after she began researching into gay marriage as it had recently been made legal across the globe. "I wanted to write a film that had deep meaning and the LGBT genre is all about that, but to also move away from the classic "coming out to your family".
I wanted to use other emotions, deeper emotions that could be used to influence ones reaction, such as grief. I wanted my characters to have a deep and rich background that affected the way they reacted to something as big as "coming out to the family." "As I was writing a film about an LGBT genre, I wanted to show some of the diversity and the contradiction that exists within this setting. I wanted to mix this with a serious subject but also have some heart in it.
Although Rex and Adrian are both suffering from grief, Rex has someone. He has someone to rely on but Adrian doesn't. Adrian has lost his wife and his son is going out enjoying himself. It's like they have both stopped communicating since the matriarch is now deceased." Katie sat down and after thorough research she began writing Crossroads. A film set across the gorgeous landscape of Kent, UK. "Canterbury, Margate and Broadstairs are huge influences to me as a director. I went to University here, I experienced grief here and I experienced love here. I wanted to use my own emotions to help influence my characters in a setting I am familiar with." "The most appealing aspect to me as a filmmaker is to revisit my past, revisit personal events and listen to people with unique perspectives to make personal, emotional films.
Films that explore the human condition but also looks at the reasons why people react to situations such as being gay. I am a heterosexual female, but I wanted to make a film that reflects on important issues today, that are still very prominent in our world and relate them back to my own life, the lives of the audience really. I hope I've done that justice."
"Location/Design"
In order for Crossroads to have the ultimate impact we had to pick the locations accordingly. As the Director is from Canterbury, Katie decided that her house would be the perfect location for the house scenes. With bare brick walls and a 70s décor, it felt appropriate to use because we could make it appear more "run-down" which would bode well for the fact the caring, house-proud matriarch had recently
died. "This film had three main locations. Canterbury, Broadstairs and Margate. In Canterbury, we used Augustine House, a huge contemporary glass building for the office scene and we used the house scene as mentioned earlier. Augustine House was a great location because it was an escape for Rex. It was quite the opposite from his run-down home full of sadness to a bright, glass-windowed office full of creatives.
It meant that Rex could finally be himself in a place he felt release from, and that place had Jamie there. For Broadstairs we used the high-street and the beach scene for the major action scenes and for Margate we used the beach for the montage shots, the arcade and the Turner Contemporary Café. We were spoilt for beautiful locations and one of the reasons we decided on Kent was because of how gorgeous it's atmosphere is." Katie chose to focus on the beautiful locations (such as the beach and the Turner Contemporary/arcade scene) to cut through the emotionality of the characters. Having a gorgeous beach setting with seagulls in the background and the gentle waves hitting the sand, and then you have Rex - dealing with an insane amount of grief, sadness and toying with the idea of ending it. It's very hard-hitting."