Q.        Please welcome the producers of the winner for best short film, Swimmer, Peter Carlton and Diarmid Scrimshaw.  Congratulations.  Big round of applause.  Obviously Lynne couldn’t be here, she’s preparing her next film at the moment, but this is a pretty good way to start off Warp Films because they were ten years old last year and this is the eleventh year now so it’s not a bad way to start.

PETER CARLTON:  It was ten years ago that Warp Films’ first production which was My Wrongs, Chris Morris’s short film, won a Bafta for best short film so it’s a nice kind of anniversary. 

 

Q.        Absolutely.  This seems like a technical challenge.  You said it was the most difficult shoot you’d ever done?

PETER CARLTON:  Yes, we were stuck in Devon in winter with very technical equipment and very short times you can put a swimmer in the water before there’s a severe risk of hypothermia and I mean this film is absolutely her vision and her vision knows no compromise and so we were being asked to do — or we were asking people to do extraordinary things as you can see on the film and I think it’s an incredible credit to her vision and the crew and to Tom’s endurance.

 

Q.        And Tom is the swimmer in the film, the name of the title.  Were you both on set during those cold days?

DIARMID SCRIMSHAW:  Yes.

PETER CARLTON:  Still got trench foot.

 

Q.        Dog Altogether which was Paddy Considine’s short that became Tyrannosaur, is that a blueprint for this?  Do you think it was a feature in this that maybe one day —

DIARMID SCRIMSHAW:  I don’t think so.  Dog Altogether was a narrative short whereas Swimmer is much more poetic and lyrical and I think it’s a standalone piece in its own right.  I would be very surprised if that turned into a feature vision whereas Dog Altogether just naturally evolved into Tyrannosaur really.

 

Q.        Okay.  Any questions at all for Peter and Diarmid?  Anyone at all?

PRESS:  Is it rather nice to have a legacy from the Olympic Arts Projects?

PETER CARLTON:  Do you want to go?

DIARMID SCRIMSHAW:  I think it is and I think the Olympics was a huge celebration of success and excellence and I think the fact that there was a parallel artistic strand recognised by Baftas is no bad thing at all.  I think the Olympics has inspired a generation in terms of sporting achievement and what we can all do as individuals and that’s something that we aspire to sometimes in our film making too.  So I would like to feel proud to be part of that.

PETER CARLTON:  I think what was interesting was that it was very much that brief of giving artists space to realise their vision that wasn’t in any way programmatic.  So I think that’s why filmmakers like Lynne would do it because there’s this attraction to go you’ve got half an hour to express yourself far more freely than you’ll ever do in a feature film, which is what — I think was attractive to her to do a short again after having obviously done a number of successful features.

 

Q.        Fantastic.  Thanks a lot to Diarmid Scrimshaw and Peter Carlton.  Congratulations guys.

PETER CARLTON:  Thank you.