Casting with a Difference: A Conversation with Britain’s youngest feature film director Jack Spring for Destination: Dewsbury
DESTINATION: DEWSBURY is a daring piece of filmmaking – made on a small budget, with an average crew age of 21 – with irreverent, shockwave comedy that aims to fill the void in the UK comedy mainstream. With a touch of staple English sitcoms, iconic film comedies and a wild imagination, the film is a blend of exciting talent and tone. Director and co-writer Jack Spring sees the film as a “middle-aged version of The Inbetweeners. It's got real heart and strikes a comedic and emotional chord with a huge spectrum of people; it’s a proper laugh-out-loud comedy that touches the heart”. In the modern age of superhero blockbusters, reboots/remakes and endless sequels, DESTINATION: DEWSBURY is a fresh, bold comedy that harks back to the timelessness of a good laugh at the cinema!
With a relatable ensemble and a wild adventure that they embark on, you’ll be hard-pressed to forget the journey – which is packed full of laughs but also tugs at the heartstrings at points.
The film will have two sensational premieres to mark its theatrical road trip – the first on Saturday 23rd February in its hometown of Dewsbury (Showcase Cinema Batley), and its UK capital touchdown on the 24th February in London (Prince Charles Cinema). Attending the events will be the film’s main cast, director Jack Spring, and special guests.
Jack is Britain’s youngest feature film director. He dropped out from university after becoming disillusioned with his 'Film & TV' course and started Hello Hot Tubs and maxed out his student overdraft getting first hot tub. The company did well so Jack and his team were able to go back to investors a year later, eventually raising the money 18 months after starting. Jack made the movie aged 19 at a budget of £150k. His next one is being made at the end of the year, at a budget of £750k. And he has a seven-figure budget film in development with a major studio. Jack is a rising star, of that there is no doubt, and more information can be sent across with a truckload of more unbelievable stories.
In our interview, Jack tells The Fan Carpet's Marc Jason Ali about making the film, why he chose to make DESTINATION: DEWSBURY, his plans for the future and what impact he thinks Netflix has on Cinema...
What was it about Destination: Dewsbury that made you want to get involved?
It was my kind of project from the start really, it’s my baby. I dropped out of university, did a year at York and didn’t like it, wanted to go and make a feature film. So I dropped out, kind of worked out, basically due to the government tax breaks that £150,000 budget was tax supported so we raised that money, and yeah we started developing a script, the sort of script that if I saw the trailer for the film I’d go and see it, so a kind of Inbetweenersy rude crude schoolboy comedy that I love that hasn’t sort of been done since The Inbetweeners, so tried to replicate something along that lines, like (with?) middle-aged men, I’d go out drinking with my dads and his mates every year in Grimsby and I just found them hilarious (because?) they’d laugh at the same stupid sort of jokes as I would.
So yeah I just kind of cobbled together lots of little bits and ideas together and we worked on a script for a year while I went away and raised the money, so yeah it was kind of a natural process it wasn’t a case of a script landed on my desk and said “yeah let’s do it” so we put together a film that really was kind of ours I guess.
Okay great. You mentioned there that this was inspired by in part by The Inbetweeners and hadn’t seen something quite like it, so what was the initial impetuous of the actual story?
In terms of actual story, you know, it’s not a kind of groundbreaking story really, it’s four middle aged blokes go on a road trip across the UK to go and see their dying friend one last time. So the reason we wanted to do the kind of road trip movie is because I get very bored at films that are slow,
A road trip movie because by the nature you’re going from location to location, it doesn’t really ponder around much. And then I thought I love The Inbetweeners, Four Lions and Borat are three of my favourite comedies, all of them lack some heart somewhat, like The Inbetweeners Movie in Australia dying by a car you don’t really give a fuck. It’s like... I wanted to do something that was really funny but also had a deep kind of meaning to it, yeah we brought in the whole the mates dying, will they get there on time?, and kind of them all going through their midlife crisis and then kind of dealing with that together, yeah.
Great. Is the comedy genre where you’d like to stay or do you have ambitions to do as many genres as you can?
For now comedy, I think it’s always hard to predict too much in the future, you know, never say never but, you know, I’m only 22, I don’t know much else in terms of like what I’ve been through in my life, haven’t been to war, I haven’t fell in love, lost family members but I know what makes me laugh and I kind of comfortable with that and if it makes me laugh then, you know, you might, it if makes me laugh, you know, me being a 22 year old male and your something similar then your probably going to find it funny as well.
I’m the target audience if you like. So yeah, the next one I’m doing in June which has got quite a bit bigger budget is called Three Day Millionaires it’s a bit more of a drama it’s about trawler-men in Grimsby who come back to land for three days and go on an almighty bender and then run out of money and it all kicks off, but that’s cool.
DESTINATION: DEWSBURY is released in select Showcase Cinemas now. For more information, please head to Showcase Cinemas.
Cast and crew handles: Director @JackSpringFilm; cast @tomgilling75 @mrdanshelton @foreverkeogh and @MattSheahan
Keep up-to-date with DESTINATION: DEWSBURY on Facebook: @DestinationDewsburyFilm, Twitter: @Dewsbury_Movie and Instagram: @dewsburymovie
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