Kingswood pair Richard and John turn lean years into big screen story

KINGSWOOD-raised filmmaking duo Richard Hurley and John Moran have been raising money for their new short film ‘In the Red’, set over the course of one day in Dublin.

The story of it is described as follows; after paying their rent, Harry and Kevin find themselves with almost no money left for the week.

What follows is a loose series of attempts to make “a few quid” back, selling clothes, wandering the city and talking about whatever happens to be on their minds.

The film turns its lens on the moments where people joke, daydream, worry about death, make bad decisions and look for meaning while trying to get by.

At its centre are two friends moving through the city together, turning an otherwise ordinary day into something unexpectedly revealing.

Richard and John met in college, moving to the United States together and producing ‘Out of the Blue’ in San Francisco and ‘After Eight’ in New York, before coming back to Ireland.

The Echo has sat down to interview Richard and John, who are making the film independently through Milk Farm Pictures and raising funds to cover production and post-production costs.

Donations can be made to cover the costs for ‘In the Red’ at gofundme.com; additional information can be found there, as well as on the Instagram page @milkfarmpicturesltd.

What was the inspiration for you and John to make films?

I suppose for us it started when we moved to San Francisco in 2016.

That is where we started to express ourselves and write our own scripts.

We were around a lot of people who were making films and music videos and doing photo shoots, and it really showed us how possible it is to just make your own stuff.

It was so accepted to follow your dreams.

We also started watching more and more films together, paying attention to what was making those films work, and then staying up late talking about them.

By the time we got to watching films by the likes of John Cassavetes and the Safdie Brothers, we were starting to take it more seriously.

Even before this we had been obsessively filming our lives, skate videos and random comedy videos for ourselves.

At some stage you just kind of decide that you want to make the kind of films you would like to watch.

Then, after being away from Ireland for so long, we kind of developed this new impression of it.

We were frustrated and inspired at the same time.

How did you devise the story for ‘In The Red’?

Well, the idea actually comes from that same time period in San Francisco. We were flat broke, but we were having the time of our lives and getting into a lot of mischief, getting closer as friends. We wrote down a lot of stuff from that time and made a funny script that we promptly tucked away in a drawer somewhere. We dug it out last year and couldn’t stop laughing at it. We started tinkering with it, adding things we’ve observed since moving home. It’s about friendship, and it’s about being in that weird period in your life where you’re kind of wasting your potential but you’re also learning so much about yourself. We decided to set it in Dublin because we’ve been around these characters since moving home, young people who are otherwise creative and full of potential barely scraping by.

How did you two get the idea to found your own production company?

It was something we had been thinking about for a while, and eventually we set it up after returning to Ireland.

We felt it was a necessary step to advance our career and to get more projects made.

It helps to have a production company with a certain vision that all of our projects can be created under as well as other projects for other filmmakers.

It was an idea to give us more control and guidance while trying to get our films made.

When you two first decided you wanted to make this film, did you anticipate there would be challenges with funding?

Was the idea to set up a fundraiser always in mind?

We tried to get some of the big short filming funds, but we knew it would be tough based off the type of film we are trying to make.

We always had it in the back of our minds to crowd fund and make it happen, and we are glad we did.

We received so much support from our friends and families who donated and helped push this through.

Do you have any ideas for future projects or films after ‘In The Red’ is done?

Yes, we have another script for a short film set in the area of Tallaght that we grew up in, based off real stories of when we were younger.

We have other scripts lying around, more shorts and the beginnings of some features.

There are a few stories that are really important to us that we’d like to do justice to and tell in a certain way.

We can only hope the funding and belief are out there for personal films like these.

‘In The Red’ probably fits easily into the comedy genre, but we want to explore other ways of telling our stories.

Who would you like to thank for helping to make this possible?

We would like to thank all of our donators and our families for the endless support and for putting up with us throughout the years.