 |
| Jaques De Silva in The Umbrella Men |
John Barker's music-filled heist comedy thriller The Umbrella Men was one of the most entertaining film s to screen at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, and if you've read the first part of my interview with director John Bsrker and stars Jaques De Silva, Shamilla Miller, Keenan Arrison and Bronté Snell, you'll have noticed that it seems like it was just as much fun to make. In the second half of our conversation, we discussed favourite moments, the importance of getting the chemistry right, and the excitement of hitting the festival circuit.
I mention a line in the film about the importance of not basing a heist on what you’ve seen in recent films.
“Yeah, I mean, we had to use that,” says John. “And also, because the heist is such a popular genre and there are so many films, we didn't want to look like we're stealing off one particular one. We're paying homage to all the greats – John Pierre Melville, and all the great filmmakers that have made films about heists.”
 |
| Shamilla Miller |
“But that the line where Rob [van Vuuren] goes ‘It's been popularised in many, many films,’ that’s one of my favourite lines,” says Shamilla.
We discuss favourite moments in the film.
JK: We have four minutes left now. So I'm just going to throw it open to you and ask if there are any favourite moments from the shoot that you want to talk about
“The day that they shot the carnival,” says Shamilla, without hesitation. “Keisha's not involved. And so I came to the set just to be a part of it. It was one of the best days because of the energy of everyone from the community who were extras or viewing the shooting that day, and you guys looked like you had so much fun dancing. It was amazing, it was such a beautiful day.”
“One of my favourite shots in the film is really the moment in the film where the audience goes, ‘They made it,’ says Keenan. “You know, we looked cool and we looked good, and we shot it at how many frames per second?”
“150 frames,” says John.
“It’s beautiful,” says Bronté. “I mean, I think every shot was great. Like I remember, I wasn't like in a lot of those scenes, but I was there that day. And so in the tent John’s sitting with his with his headphones, and he's just jumping because the music is going, and he gets up and he's like, ‘That was great! That was great. It was perfect. But let's try it again.” They all laugh. “I just love so much,” sahe continues, “when he takes off his headphones, we've cut, and he goes to the band - past the actors, saying like ‘You guys are great,’ and then he goes to the band and he just dances. It was electric.”
“One of my favourite scenes to make was the one after the funeral,” says John. “Watching Abduragman and Christian Bennett, who play Tariek and Appy, make their entrance. And at each entrance the two of them made there was another layer of ridiculousness, a line or something, another level of playfulness. Two wonderful, wonderful, wonderful actors.”
“We were sitting there and watching them,” Bronté recalls. “The guy that plays Appy, Christian Bennett, he would just come up with lines. I mean, he didn't have any scripted lines. In a lot of the scenes, so much was just on the spot. Like, these guys are just coming up with gold.”
“But also for John to have created that safe space where they felt like they could play and like there was time to fire those moments, it's also very important, because you don't get that on every set,” says Shamilla.
“But I feel bad for Christian because he was he was part of the original thing,” says John, “and then he had gone off acting. I hadn't seen him in a lot of stuff. So was he wasn't part of the film. He came in towards the end but unfortunately we had cut away his characterr. And I felt bad because he’d done it for ages, so I just kept saying ‘Let's do improv,’ and he cam up with some gems.”
I note that one of the things crucial to making a film like this work is getting the right timing between all the actors with the comedy, and with the snappy conversations during the action scenes. How did they approach that?
 |
| Keenan Arrison |
“Again, I think it's really about the casting, because I think if you don't get that, right, it's going to be very tough to get that kind of timing,” says John. “And also, the community has such a specific sense of humour about it. The characters had to get that. It was important that the cast had a an ease with the language. Abduragman Adams said that it's amazing because he never gets to speak like this. He always gets asked to speak English in a certain way or enunciate in a certain way exactly, when he wants to throw his words out, he wants to talk English and Afrikaans. And I said to the guys ‘Make it as natural as possible, make it feel like talking every day.’ And he loved that. And I think the actors loved it.
“So we didn't actually do that much rehearsal. We knew that the cast we had, these guys, were all going to nail all of those roles. We just had a read through and we tackled some scenes that we thought were quite heavy, right? We went through some of them, but the rest, I trusted them completely. I knew that they would be absolutely fantastic.”
“I had to change my accent slightly,” says Shamilla. “So that's the only thing we had to keep a lid on and just be like, ‘Okay, a little bit fatter,’ or ‘You’re going too deep,’ just so that I got the accent right. But other than that, we're all from the community and within that culture, so I think we know the language. And within the dialogue, we all added our little nuances. Keisha said ‘lekker’ so many times and it wasn’t in the script.”
They had four weeks to shoot in, John says. “With this kind of budget you normally do five days [a week] but we pushed them so we had six days. I mean, we only had one day off. I'd love more time, I think for the next film, we’re pushing for five weeks. On average, I like to do two or three pages a day rather than six. I felt we were pretty compromised on some days by the six pages. The tunnel specifically, we just didn't have options to do coverage, and you need that.”
“On any film really, you always want more time to shoot in,” Shamilla observes.
So after all that hard work, how do they feel about getting to Toronto with this and being back together as a group there?
“Yeah...” says Jaques slowly, with an expansive grin.
“It’s so amazing,” says Keenan.
“It's really cool, yeah,” Bronté chimes in.
Shamilla nods. “It's Bronté's first time out of the country. And...”
“...and in Toronto. Toronto!” Bronté enthuses.
“And obviously it’s her first time in Toronto,” Shamilla adds.
“It's really amazing,” says Bronté. “I think it took a few days to get used to, just settling with jetlag, but now we can actually enjoy it. But we've been so busy, it's been jammed. Interviews, parties...”
 |
| Dann-Jacques Mouton, Jaques De Silva and Keenan Arrison |
“We've been working, yeah,” says Shamilla.
Bronté nods. “But we came to work. It's lovely.”
“It's a beautiful city and the energy is really great,” Shamilla agrees.
They mentioned a next film. I ask if they’re planning to work together again as a group, and they all say yes at once.
“We're going into into production on Umbrella Men 2 towards the end of the year,” says Shamilla. “And so that is happening. It's awesome.”
“I really enjoy it because between the four of us and, in fact, a lot of the cast, people were passionate about acting and thinking, acting and performance,” says Jaques. “I think I think a lot of our obsession with each other is also that it's a mutual respect for each other's craft and process, and then we'll be able to share that so I can't wait to get...”
“One hundred percent,” Bronté agrees, before he can finish his sentence. “Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to work with you guys again. You guys are legends. I learned so much from them, but I think the next move is going to be so fun because we've done this before and we know each other's vibe, but there's more we can do.”
Shamilla remembers sessions spent standing around in a kitchen, going through every possible interpretation of every line. The response this gets from the others makes it clear that this is much more than routine work to them. They can’t wait to get the gang back together. Cape Town Banks beware.
