The filmmakers behind the tense thriller, Game, tell us about the challenges of releasing an independent film on disc. “If you’re not being let in the door of the industry, then go in through the bathroom window” – Marc Bessant. Last November, the tense, trippy, blackly comic indie thriller Game began a tour of UK ... Game on disc | “Independent film works well when it’s kicking the doors in”
The filmmakers behind the tense thriller, Game, tell us about the challenges of releasing an independent film on disc.
“If you’re not being let in the door of the industry, then go in through the bathroom window” – Marc Bessant.
Last November, the tense, trippy, blackly comic indie thriller Game began a tour of UK cinemas. About a petty criminal (Marc Bessant) who ends up trapped in an upside-down car and being menaced by a disgruntled gamekeeper (Jason Williamson, of Sleaford Mods fame) it’s both hugely watchable and the epitome of economical filmmaking.
Bessant co-wrote the script with director John Minton, Rob G Williams and producer Geoff Barrow. The latter is also a respected musician (of Portishead and Beak fame), composer, DJ and the co-founder of Invada Records; Game is the first offering from its film production arm. Shot with a small cast and crew on a low budget, the resulting film is a lean, fast-paced homage to everything from Spielberg’s Duel to JG Ballard’s dystopian Concrete Island. And, having shepherded their film around UK festivals and cinemas, Game’s makers are preparing for a release on digital and physical media. (For the full story of Game’s making, see issue 58 of Film Stories magazine).
“It was always part of the plan, even while we were writing it,” says Geoff Barrow of its release on Blu-ray and other formats. “I think it’s well known now that you’ve got to basically push as much physical as possible. We’re all collectors and fans of physical media. Invada Records is a vinyl company, ultimately.”
We catch up with Barrow and collaborators John Minton and Marc Bessant as they prepare for Game’s a live stream premiere on the 19th June – essentially an online edition of the screenings they’ve already held in cinemas up and down the country, complete with Q&A. The disc release will follow on the 29th, with various bundles including the Blu-ray, vinyl, T-shirts and more besides. It is, just like Game’s cinema tour, an entirely independent production.
“We didn’t have a distributor,” Barrow recalls of last year’s cinema run, “so we acted as our own distributor.”
The filmmakers worked with industry stalwart Colin Burch, who helped them book it into cinemas across the UK. “He’d phone around cinemas and go, ‘Look, you know me. I’m working on this film, have a look at it, see if you’d like it in your cinemas’,” says Barrow. “A few of them did and a few of them didn’t.
“And then we decided to go on a tour, which is quite common now for independent films. How many places did we do? Fifteen?”
“Over 20,” says Bessant.
“And we could have done a lot more,” continues Barrow, “but obviously we’ve all got other jobs. We would love to have done that.”
Game played a clutch of festivals, including Leeds, Brighton and Mayhem in Nottingham. “Mayhem was amazing,” says Minton, “a full cinema on the opening night. I came away from it thinking it was a privilege to have that slot.”
“People were either ‘what the fuck was that’, or ‘wow, I didn’t expect that’,” adds Barrow. “Nobody walked out of it going ‘that was alright’.”
The team also noted regional differences in audiences’ reactions. “I think when we went on that first week with Jason,” says Minton, “the further north we went, the more expressive they were, and then when we went all the way to Glasgow, it was almost like coming back to London or Bristol again, they were a bit more reserved than we were expecting. The demographics were really apparent, like gigs, basically.”
“I think we were actually really lucky,” adds Bessant. “We were hugely appreciative of the audiences we got, because they were there to watch a watch a different sort of film. We almost felt there wasn’t a need to try and impress anybody… We always felt very welcome at all the cinemas we went to.”
Barrow is no stranger to touring, having played in the bands Portishead and Beak. But what was unusual about promoting Game was that, in many instances, they weren’t even in the room when the film itself played. “It was weird because when the actual show is on, you’re not doing anything,” Barrow says. “It’s what you’ve worked towards and when you’re in a band that’s your time. With Game, that’s when we’d go to the pub.”
Minton notes that they began to sit through the film less and less the more it toured – not least because repeat viewings prompted them to begin picking apart their own work.
“You’d get set up, check it was working and then it was, like, ‘are we watching it?’. We did that until Leeds, and then me and Geoff just started noticing shit. Things in the corner of the frame that I’d never seen. I thought this was dangerous, we should back off. So then we started to entertain ourselves while it was on. And as the more and more showings went on, the tighter the time was before we’d go back in the cinema ready for the Q&A.”
With the tour over, it’s time for the home entertainment release. Invada has partnered with Anti-Worlds Originals, a company set up by, among others, Andy Starke, Ben Wheatley’s long-time producing partner and an exec producer on Game for the release.
“Discs are still pretty cheap to make,” says Barrow. “You can compare it to vinyl… But like vinyl, at the moment, manufacturing just seems to take forever.”
An experienced graphic designer, Bessant put the package together. “The physical stuff was something we all knew how to handle,” Bessant says. “We didn’t have to go to some Oz-like creature behind the curtain, a big streaming company. We could make these things ourselves, we could design it how we wanted it. We take the chance on whether people will like it. We’ll happily take the fame or the blame for it.”
Invada has previously worked with some huge companies on physical releases – there’s a vinyl release of the score from Stranger Things season five on the horizon, for example. Working with a firm like Netflix often entails a lot of rules and guidelines that have to be followed, Barrow says.
“They come with stipulations,” he says. “It has to have this big ’N’ on it and that kind of stuff. This freedom [with Game] for us is really good. The physical stuff is our bread and butter.”
The disc release also gave the filmmakers the chance to record a commentary track or two. “Doing a commentary was on our to-do list, which was massive,” says Minton. “I did one with Ross James, the DOP, and then Marc did one with Jason. Ross hadn’t seen the version of the film that he was watching with me, so he was genuinely reacting to that… And then once we started, Ross couldn’t stop laughing, so we had to restart. He literally couldn’t say his own name.
“Once we got over that, we didn’t stop talking for the whole thing. It was cathartic, almost like a release.”
“Ours was the opposite,” recalls Bessant. “I realised we weren’t talking. We were just watching it.
And then I didn’t want to be rude, talking while the film was on. But that’s exactly what we were meant to be doing.”
“But it has its own charm, it was interesting,” laughs Minton.
While they didn’t purposefully set out to provide a how-to guide, the trio appreciate that their Game experience could prove useful to other would-be filmmakers. They’ve used social media to show the process involved (they’ve got a young filmmaker working on TikTok “because we’re old” laughs Barrow) and this does, as Minton says, act as a useful source of information, as do the Q&As.
“Even just putting out the film helps,” says Barrow. “The trouble is getting people to understand how to accept and promote really small budget films. It’s still the industry. You still need reviews, you still need marketing money. The industry still hasn’t let us in.”
“Independent film tends to work well when it’s kicking the doors in,” says Bessant. “Or if you’re not being let in the door of the industry, then go in through the bathroom window. You just have to do what you do with what you’ve got. And I think we’ve always liked that. Geoff’s always been that way with music.”
And physical media helps. As Barrows says, “We sell a lot of stuff – T-shirts and records, cassettes and DVDs. That whole physical thing is our company.”
All three have noted the renewed interest in physical media, which, Barrow believes, is going to come to CD too (“the price of vinyl is manufacturing is just so ridiculous. I think that people will start talking about CDs again”).
“It’s a quality thing as well,” explains Minton. “Our kids have grown up with streaming, but you put a Blu-ray in and you immediately [see the difference]. Resolutions have improved… There’s a menu, the whole experience feels different.
“One of my favourite things at the moment is just going to our local [used games and film retailer] Gamescene on the high street, and scanning the Blu-rays and seeing if there are any gems there. We picked up the Alien Anthology for £8. My 13-year-old watched it and was totally into it and how good it looked.”
“And they’re taking stuff off streamers all the time,” adds Barrow. “If it’s your favourite thing, you want to keep hold of it. You want the physical copy.”
“There’s so much stuff online,” concludes Bessant. “It’s just such a noise but you never feel like you ever own it. And actually, I wonder whether there’s a little bit of us that likes being able to reach up to the shelf and have it when we want it. Just like a record.”
Game has a digital premiere on the 18th June with a live Q&A, with a Blu-ray and full digital release from the 29th June and is available from invada.co.uk.
