Spanner in the Works

Spanner Films is probably best known for a project that was expected to last six months, but ended up dragging on for ten years. The 2005 production of McLibel told the inside story of Dave Morris and Helen Steel, a postman and a gardner who took on the McDonald’s chain in England’s longest ever court trial (www.mcspotlight.org), following a compelling sequence of legal twists and turns that ultimately reached all the way to the European Court of Human Rights.

Now the two, highly-motivated environmentally-minded filmmakers behind Spanner, Franny Armstrong and producer Lizzie Gillet, are turning their guns on the complex relationship between the oil industry and climate change with a film called Crude. Funding remains a vital issue, with a vigorous campaign for anybody to make a donation or become a shareholder at the film’s website (www.crudemovie.net). But Spanner has set itself the challenge to have it already for the Sundance Film Festival next January followed by cinematic release in the spring.

“Basically nobody’s working for full pay, but they believe in what we’re doing,” says Armstrong. It seems to work. “When we got paid for McLibel we had a lot of debts to pay off, but what we had left we shared. This was a nice surprise for those who were fighting a cause, and ten years later got a cheque for £500.”  Despite having zero backing from the UK TV industry, Armstrong’s films have been seen by at least 53 million people.

Confessing that she’s more of a means-to-an-end type of person than a techno-geek, Armstrong reckons Spanner has “probably used most of the dealers in London at one time or another.” But now the company uses Derek Morgan at PEC Video in Dean Street. “He seems the friendliest, and it not at all patronising,” she says. “Derek allows us to try out stuff first, and gives us a good deal.”

For Crude, Armstrong and Gillet have trotted the globe with a HVR-Z1E and the smaller HVE-A1E, plus the compact Glidecam Steadicam. Some of the benefits of taking two HDV camcorders are obvious. Both can shoot at the same time, with the HVR-A1E especially handy for covert shots, and there’s a backup should one fail (which has happened). As ever, the two women squeeze the most from limited resources.

“We use the camcorders to make safety copies to post home in cast originals get confiscated, which happens quite often with contentious filming,” says Armstrong, “and sometimes the HVR-A1E just captures an extra stereo pair for post production.” How do they ensure tapes can be synchronised? “We point both cameras at one of us clapping,” she replies. “It’s easier than carrying a 4-channel mixer.”

“Although we're obviously shooting in HDV, we always use DV tapes,” says Franny. “We can’t afford HDV tapes, and anyway haven’t had any dropouts with DV. Soho’s Curzon cinema kindly let us test our HDV footage blown up for the big screen, and we were astounded with the results.” Crude will be conformed on HDCAM, including 5.1 audio.