{"id":21040,"date":"2022-05-01T17:58:15","date_gmt":"2022-05-01T17:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/?p=21040"},"modified":"2023-02-05T15:08:38","modified_gmt":"2023-02-05T15:08:38","slug":"urban-ghost-story-1998","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/film\/urban-ghost-story-1998\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban Ghost Story (1998)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
by <\/i>Paul Lewis<\/p>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t In Glasgow, twelve year old Lizzie Fisher (Heather Ann Foster) survives a devastating car crash that kills her young friend Kevin. Following a stay in hospital she returns to the tower block in which she lives with her mother, Kate (Stephanie Buttle), and toddler brother Alex.<\/strong><\/p> Lizzie experiences strange phenomena at night \u2013 scratching sounds on the walls, at first, escalating to furniture moving across the floor. Lizzie struggles to convince Kate of her experiences, but when Kate encounters these increasingly aggressive supernatural occurrences herself, she becomes frightened for the safety of her children. Desperate for an explanation and finding the council unwilling to let her move to another flat, Kate contacts a reporter, John Fox (Jason Connery), who has recently written a story about UFOs for the local newspaper. Seeing the chance for a fantastic ongoing story for his newspaper, Fox involves a team of parapsychologists and neurologists, led by Quinn (Andreas Wisniewiski), from the university; with their high-tech equipment in tow, this team takes root in Kate\u2019s flat. Fox also contacts a psychic, Pauline (Elizabeth Berrington), who claims that Lizzie\u2019s near-death experience caused a negative entity to attach itself to her, and it is this that has been causing the haunting.<\/p> <\/p> Meanwhile, Lizzie seems to be heading for a different type of disaster through her friendship with wastrel Kerrie (Nicola Stapleton), a teenage mother who introduces Lizzie to drugs and various criminal activities, including robbing a pharmacy. As the supernatural events escalate, and Lizzie\u2019s life begins to spiral out of control in other ways, Lizzie finds herself wracked with constant guilt for her involvement in the crash that led to Kevin\u2019s death.<\/p> \u2018NO MATTER HOW CONFIDENT YOU ARE IN YOUR STORY, YOU NEED TO SHOW IT TO PEOPLE TO TEST OUT WHETHER IT\u2019S WORKING ON A PURELY MECHANICAL LEVEL\u2019<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote> Urban Ghost Story<\/em><\/strong> was made by the team of Genevi\u00e8ve Jolliffe and Chris Jones. In 1989 Jolliffe and Jones had founded the production company Living Spirit Pictures together, Jolliffe eventually entering the Guinness Book of Records as the then-youngest person to produce a feature film, The Runner<\/em><\/strong> (aka Survival Island), in 1992.<\/p> An action-thriller featuring Terence Ford, the brother of Harrison Ford, The Runner<\/em><\/strong> was directed by Jones, with Jolliffe producing. Though The Runner<\/em><\/strong> made money for its distributors, little of the picture\u2019s meagre profits filtered back to Jolliffe and Jones; desperate to make some income from their venture, Jolliffe and Jones swiftly turned their attention to making another film together. The resulting picture, White Angel<\/em><\/strong> (aka Interview with a Serial Killer,<\/em><\/strong> 1994), was a serial killer film starring Peter Firth. In an effort to keep the production logistics to a minimum, the bulk of White Angel<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s narrative took place in a single house.<\/p> On White Angel,<\/em><\/strong> Jones and Jolliffe shared the same credits as they had on The Runner<\/em><\/strong>: Jones acted as director, and Jolliffe produced the film. This was despite a prior agreement that they would swap roles on every subsequent film they made together, though was motivated by the fact that Jones already had experience of directing a feature film and it seemed logical to capitalise on that experience. White Angel<\/em><\/strong> cost approximately \u00a310,000 to produce, but in publicity materials Jolliffe and Jones had claimed the film was made for closer to \u00a31 million. (Disputes over the budget led to the pair being accused of money laundering and fraud.)<\/p> Following the release of White Angel,<\/em><\/strong> Jolliffe and Jones collaborated on the writing of The Guerrilla Film Makers\u2019 Handbook<\/em><\/strong> (1996), a \u2018do it yourself\u2019-style tome focusing on the perils and pitfalls of low-budget film production, and in which Jolliffe and Jones laid bare the experiences of making their first two features. The Guerrilla Film Makers\u2019 Handbook<\/em><\/strong> has subsequently been published in several revised editions, and has worked its way onto module reading lists for degree programmes in film production across the world: this is despite the numerous typos in the manuscript of the first edition, and possibly at least in part because the book came with a CD-ROM that contained a ridiculous array of highly useful documentation (contracts, clearance documentation, cue sheets, etc) for any buddying filmmaker. (It\u2019s worth remembering that the first two editions of the book appeared when the Internet as we know it today was still in its infancy, and copies of such paperwork were therefore much more difficult to source: simply by buying a copy\/ies of the book, an individual or institution had access to all the paperwork necessary for staging the production of a short or feature film, all on a convenient CD-ROM.)<\/p> Deciding to make another picture together, Jolliffe and Jones agreed to swap roles. Where their previous two feature films had attempted to ape Hollywood models, resulting in a mid-Atlantic tone not dissimilar to the confused accent of a radio DJ or trans-Atlantic pop starlet, the pair\u2019s third feature, Urban Ghost Story,<\/em><\/strong> abandoned this. The result was a film that was much more localised: a ghost story, based heavily on the Enfield Poltergeist case, that was set in a Glaswegian tower block. That said, though the film was set in Glasgow (and convincingly so), for budgetary reasons the exteriors of the tower block were filmed in West London \u2013 guerrilla-style and without permits. The production deceived the local council, telling them they weren\u2019t going to shoot on the streets but going ahead and doing this anyway. In fact, there are a number of \u2018B-roll\u2019 shots of the area around the tower blocks – featuring drunks sitting on benches, and so on, filmed with long lenses \u2013 that have a very authentic, cinema verit\u00e9\u00ad-like appearance, and one wonders whether or not these moments were \u2018grabbed\u2019 and unstaged. (They certainly feel like it.)<\/p> <\/p> The film\u2019s interiors were shot at Ealing Studios, and Jones has said that having Ealing Studios as a postal address gave the production kudos and helped to lever deals with financiers and distributors.[i]<\/strong> (The production of Urban Ghost Story<\/em><\/strong> also provided content for an additional chapter in the Third Edition of The Guerrilla Film Makers\u2019 Handbook,<\/em><\/strong> which was published in 2006.)<\/p> Urban Ghost Story was produced for around \u00a3250,000, and was shot on Super 16mm. 35mm was apparently considered but Super 16mm was deemed more economical, particularly in light of the youth of the lead actress: Jones has said that \u2018we didn\u2019t know if she\u2019d be a one take wonder or a take twenty six disaster,\u2019 and the lesser costs of 16mm negative film meant that the production could afford to shoot more takes, if needed.[ii]<\/strong> (Nevertheless, by all accounts Heather Ann Foster proved herself to be a more than accomplished actress, despite her youth.) That said, shooting on Super 16mm meant that the production could gather more coverage for each scene, and Jones reasoned that audiences generally weren\u2019t interested in whether a film was shot on 35mm, 16mm, or another format \u2013 as long as \u2018the story and characters were engaging.\u2019[iii]<\/strong><\/p> There was a distinctive effort to make Urban Ghost Story look as \u2018cinematic\u2019 as possible, with the use of slow motion, long lenses, and fast cutting. Jones has cited Luc Besson\u2019s slick 1994 picture Leon<\/em><\/strong> (aka The Professional) as a particular influence on the aesthetic of Urban Ghost Story<\/em>.[iv]<\/strong> (In fact, there are some fast-paced montages in the film, edited along with deeply 90s techno-inspired music, that feel very similar to sequences in the likes of mid\/late-90s pictures like Paul W S Anderson\u2019s Shopping,<\/em><\/strong> 1994, and Justin Kerrigan\u2019s Human Traffic,<\/em><\/strong> 1999.)<\/p> When prints were finally struck (and there is more on the film\u2019s tumultuous distribution history later in this article), the film stock was also apparently put through a bleach bypass process at the lab, similar to David Fincher\u2019s Se7en<\/em><\/strong> (1995), with the result that 35mm blow-up prints featured prominently sharp tones in their contrast levels, particularly deep blacks, and a heavy grain structure. (The latter would have been even more pronounced, considering that the film was blown-up from Super 16mm to 35mm for cinema exhibition.) Given this, it\u2019s a profound shame that the film\u2019s theatrical exhibitions were so few and far between, and since then Urban Ghost Story<\/em><\/strong> has only been viewable via a long out of print DVD release (in 2001), and a screening on the BBC in 2009 \u2013 and none of these viewing options offer an experience that approximates the qualities that the bleach bypass process would produce. (In fact, both the DVD release of the BBC broadcast presentations look distinctly \u2018flat\u2019 in terms of tone, definition, and grain structure.)<\/p> The film was edited \u2018on the fly\u2019 by Eddie Hamilton, who had a background in corporate videos, and would subsequently go on to edit some big budget Hollywood films \u2013 including a number of Tom Cruise pictures (all of the Mission: Impossible<\/em><\/strong> films subsequent to 2008\u2019s Rogue Nation,<\/em><\/strong> and the upcoming Top Gun: Maverick<\/em><\/strong>), and several films with director Matthew Vaughn (the Kick-Ass<\/em><\/strong> movies, X-Men: First Class,<\/em><\/strong> and Kingsman: The Secret Service<\/em><\/strong>). Hamilton used an Avid that was installed close to the sound stage on which the interiors were filmed.[v]<\/strong> The result of editing the film whilst it was still in production, was that a cut of the film was assembled within a couple of days of production having wrapped.<\/p> Jolliffe was devastated by the initial rough cut, feeling that \u2018It was a mess, full of holes and it just didn\u2019t flow.\u2019[vi]<\/strong> Some reshoots were quickly planned; during this period, an additional 50 or so shots were captured that didn\u2019t feature any of the actors. These were mostly exterior shots, used as establishing shots or as transitions from one scene to another.[vii]<\/strong> The edit was revisited and reworked, and the film was screened for test audiences in a version that was absent the (rather stupendously explosive) car crash that is shown, in flashback, towards the end of the picture. The car crash, which filled in some of the film\u2019s narrative ellipses, anchors the feelings of guilt that Lizzie feels for her role the death of her young friend, Kevin. This stunt sequence was shot and co-ordinated by stuntman\/actor Terry Forrestal, who had worked on a number of James Bond films and, recent to the production of Urban Ghost Story,<\/strong><\/em> James Cameron\u2019s Titanic<\/em><\/strong> (1997).<\/p> Following the insertion of the car crash footage, the film was screened for another test audience, who were quite vocal in their criticism of the picture. The film was cut again, and several subplots and characters were removed or reduced in screen time. James Cosmo\u2019s role as a minister, to whom Lizzie appeals for help, was reduced; as was Richard Syms\u2019 role as George, the caretaker of the block of flats. Test audiences mistakenly believed that George was the loan shark to whom Kate was in debt, and the father of the enforcer (Billy Boyd) who threatens the life of Lizzie. Jolliffe and Jones were startled that the audience believed this to be so, and Jones later commented that \u2018It was an important lesson to learn that no matter how confident you are in your story, you need to show it to people to test out whether it\u2019s working on a purely mechanical level. Do they understand who is who and what relations they have and do they understand where they are being led by you the filmmaker?\u2019[viii]<\/strong><\/p> <\/p> Jolliffe and Jones found that they argued in the cutting room over minute details of the edit \u2013 individual lines of dialogue, specific frames, and so on. Jones wanted to tighten the film as much as possible, whereas Jolliffe felt that there were nuances that were being lost as more material was excised.[ix]<\/strong> After another edit had been completed, it was screened for \u2018industry people\u2019 at Polygram, who said that the film was \u2018too slow.\u2019[x]<\/strong> In particular, the first half hour was deemed to be bogged down in exposition. A further 15 minutes were cut from the film, reducing its running time to a lean 86 minutes, and that was the final edit of the picture. Jones reflected in The Guerrilla Film Makers\u2019 Handbook<\/em><\/strong> that the process of editing Urban Ghost Story<\/em><\/strong> \u2018shows that with low budget films as you don\u2019t have enough money to write the script and go through as many drafts as is needed, you end up being forced to shoot before you\u2019re actually ready. The secret to making this work is to treat the editing as another screenplay revision and not be afraid to go back and re-shoot or invent entirely new characters, subplots, scenes, etc.\u2019[xi]<\/strong><\/p> \u2018LIKE THE EXORCIST<\/em> IF BRIT SOCIAL REALIST DIRECTOR KEN LOACH HAD MADE IT\u2019<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote> The genesis of Urban Ghost Story<\/em><\/strong> was in Jones\u2019 viewing of a television documentary about the 1977 Enfield poltergeist case, in which a London family, headed by single mother Peggy Hodson, claimed to have been the victims of a vicious haunting. Attracting significant press coverage and investigated by Maurice Grosse, the Enfield poltergeist case climaxed with the possession of one of Peggy\u2019s daughters by an entity that identified itself as \u2018Bill,\u2019 claiming to be a previous tenant of the council house in which the Hodgsons lived. What struck Jones about the Enfield poltergeist case was that \u2018it was very chilling, and it was very spooky, and not a lot happened.\u2019[xii]<\/strong><\/p>