Background

Neilson Black began writing New You in 2008, it was the third full length script he wrote. Originally the idea was about an obese woman with an eating disorder, developing from obesity, to bulimia and then full on anorexia. So the original story was about the cycle of the illness. Janine becoming a model was in the original draft as were a lot of the original characters such as Darcy, Taylor, Greg, Photographer and Chances. But a lot of elements had to be cut such as the obese theme partly due to budget reasons.

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Day 1

We started off at the church. The week on the run up to the shoot we struggled to fill this location with extras and unfortunately on the day we were very light on numbers. This required some of us to street pitch, which also was unsuccessful. In the end we had three extras along with the cast, which wasn’t enough but we did our best with the resources we had.

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The idea for this film had been in my mind before my previous short, The Voice.  I was pleased to take full control as the writer again as this creates my best work. Scripts evolve with its draft numbers; the original working title was Safe Haven, meaning to find a ‘happy place’ and the idea was always around spirituality. One of the original themes was yoga, and then law of attraction. But I eventually chose Christianity which meant the title changing from Safe Haven, to Haven, to Heaven and finally Paradis.

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Day 1

The day before the first day of shooting was extremely busy. Firstly I had to pick up the van in Southfields, I hired this to cater for the equipment and food. I then drove to Deptford to pick up Cal’s equipment, then to Soho to pick up the camera from the rental company. Went back to Wimbledon for the food and drink shopping with Carly, then to Carly’s house in Southfields to unload it. By this time Carly was my Production Manager and was going to cook for the crew. After that I had to get a few final bits before I went home.

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This film had been in pre production for over a year and the script/original idea was written by my friend Carly Gregory. I was introduced to Carly by my colleague and friend Rob Craine. Rob recommended I direct the film as this was Carly’s first project. I felt the script/idea was good, so I took up the offer.

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