Alastair Siddons hated making his first film – so he made his psychological teleshopping parody Up The Catalogue a little differently…
Up The Catalogue is unusual, in almost every conceivable way.
Yes, it centres around the toxic work environment of a mysterious TV shopping channel, hoping to pawn off everything from HOLE_AID (an energy drink which promises spiritual enlightenment) to Permanent Bread (as it sounds). Yes, the show’s host (Lyndsey Marshal) spends the entire runtime desperate to go to the loo.
But the film’s production was far from ordinary, either. Shot over 11 days in February 2021, Covid restrictions helped create a sense of eerie isolation in the finished product, even while a unique profit share system meant that everyone – from runners to the director – was being paid exactly the same day rate. The film’s release, following a pitch-perfect parody TikTok account and a website stuffed with circular corporate-speak, is skipping cinemas entirely for a premier on its own website.
We sat down with writer, director and producer Alastair Siddons to talk all about a brilliantly unique beast…
What was the motivation behind Up The Catalogue?
It was called 4Q for a long time for a reason, put it that way. And actually, a lot of the motivation for it was to try and enjoy making a film, because so rarely do you enjoy the whole process from start to finish. In that respect, this film has been like a massive success, because I have really, really enjoyed making it.
You shot the film very quickly, but I noticed Lindsey Marshal has an additional material credit – was there a lot of improvisation on set?
I mean, we shot it fast partly because there weren’t many more than 11 scenes in the whole film. So we could really take our time, [but] we did stick to the script. But Lindsey really contributed to some ideas in it and some writing in it. What we tried to build from rehearsals onwards was really this sense of ownership, so that anybody could come to it and bring whatever they wanted. And because we weren’t too precious about anything in particular, lots of people had a profound impact on the film, and, I think, felt really empowered to speak up and give their ideas.
It’s a COVID film, and I think it really uses silence in an interesting way. We’re so used to film sets on screen being really busy, noisy places, but this felt so empty, so sinister…
My amazing sound design team put lots of sound effects in the background to make it feel like a working studio. But really, it’s not a working studio – I don’t really want to talk too much about the story of the film, because it feels to me like everyone interprets it differently. But there is a certain element whereby the whole film is set in the protagonist’s imagination. And so we just made the decision in the mix to quieten it down a bit.
It was February 2021, so it really was in the height of [lockdown]. Most of the film industry had been shut down, and you couldn’t get insurance, but our financiers were prepared for us to risk it, mainly because they understood what a desperate situation the whole film industry was in. Even though we weren’t paying them a lot of money, we were paying everybody the same amount of money, whether you were a runner or cinematographer. I do remember that there was a real feeling of gratitude on set that someone was able to make a film.
That must have really helped with that communal aspect, if everyone feels positive about being there…
Yeah, absolutely. And we made the film into a true cooperative as well, so that everybody who works on the film owns a little bit of it. I’m really proud of those elements of the film, how we made it, why we made it. There are some people that have worked in the film industry for 30 years, and have never had a profit share, never had royalties on anything they’ve ever done. A lot of my motivation now is to really prove that model works.
Usually with a lot of small independent films, you have the writer in the credits and that’s it. And I noticed you’ve got script consultants, story consultants, additional material, which we mentioned earlier. Were those people who you’d been bouncing ideas off and you just wanted to recognize?
Yeah, normally when you write a film, you’re surrounded by story editors and script supervisors and lots and lots of people to help you shape it. In this instance, I didn’t have any of that [in a conventional sense]. So there are four people listed as story consultants: one of them is a Native American Medicine Man. One of them is Peruvian Shaman. One of them is a Buddhist monk, and another one is a female Sufi scholar. I rang each of them up and talked to them about the film and the themes we were trying to make, and each of them gave me this wonderful feedback, all these wonderful insights into what I was trying to do. And so I felt like it was right to give a nod to them as well.
…And you’re thinking about these themes you wanted to get across, and you just thought this person might have something to contribute?
Absolutely! Sister Peace, who’s a really good friend of mine, I spoke to her about the dharmic wheel of suffering, and it was after speaking to her that I came up with the idea of the staircase and our main character being trapped in this loop. Actually, when Sister Peace watched the film, she said it was like a modern retelling of the dharmic wheel, which I was very pleased about.
I want to touch back on what you mentioned at the start of the interview… What is it about filmmaking you’ve not been enjoying?
It’s very rare that you’re allowed to make a piece of art. And by a piece of art, I mean where you get to control [what you’re making]. That’s the big difference between artists and filmmakers. Filmmakers are ultimately industry people, and even the top filmmakers quite often have very little control over what their output is, who they get to cast, and how they get to shape the film and who it speaks to.
I spent 10 years making my first film, and I had the most miserable experience of my life. I cried every single day on set, I really did. I’ve worked on films where you’re not allowed to cast who you think are the best people for the role. You’re not allowed to edit the film in the best way you think because of audience feedback, or whatever it is. I ended [my first film] thinking: ‘It just doesn’t have to be this way,’ you know? I’ve got friends who’ve had breakdowns and been through absolute hell and back making a film, and that seems to be the norm, as opposed to the exception.
The film’s website explores some of the same themes from another angle, taking the mickey out of circular corporate speak… When you were first writing the film, were you – not angry necessarily…
I think so. I think so. I was very conscious of that when I was writing it, and then when I’d come up with a new product, like HOLE_AID or permanent bread, none of them are too far-fetched. Do you know what I mean? We’re not too far away from a drink that promises spiritual redemption, or bread that lasts forever when it’s supposed to be a daily baked thing.
The shopping channel is called 4Q for a reason. Not just for the whole corporate industry, but also the elements of the film industry as well, where it’s so driven by the money or the market. It was a ‘fuck you’ to lots of things.
And there’s another element of it where I wrote the film for my partner at the time, the mother of my children, Lindsey Marshal, and then we split up in 2019. We made this film together after the fact. I’m the director of the shopping channel. She’s the lead actress in the shopping channel. And it’s an exploration of a relationship that’s breaking apart. One of the biggest themes of the whole film is control: control as a filmmaker, control as a writer, control as an artist, control on set, control within the characters and within the relationships. There was a lot of anger there.
And really, probably with a fair amount of anger in my heart, I set out to make a film that everyone involved in could have a positive experience, you know? And that was the most important thing from day one: we’re going to enjoy this film, and we’re going to hopefully make something really special that speaks to people.
We’ve so normalized the idea in filmmaking, people will work themselves to death. If someone says it an interview, they say, ‘Oh, I worked really hard on this’, but it’s often thrown away in a really light-hearted way.
It’s very rarely acknowledged. Because if a film is a big success, no one talks about the hard times. And if a film’s not a big success, no one talks about the film. And every step of the way, you’re having to compromise on so many levels. So, this film was really about that – we’re not going to compromise anything at any point. We’re going to do what we want, and we’re going to try and do it the way we want to do it, and we’re going to try and do it in a way that’s inclusive and enjoyable for everyone who’s part of it. And I hope, I really hope, that we achieved that. Certainly, from the people – my friends – who worked on it, I think we did.
Up The Catalogue is available on its own website now.
