CASTING - DAY 1 - Birmingham

James: I remember being hideously unwell and tanked up on ibruprofen for our first casting session. We'd hired some really dank studio space in the Digbeth area of Birmingham, and the alarm kept going off every time someone opened the front door.

Gabby: No James was not at his best. And this ‘ casting room’ was is large, old and shabby...slightly embarrassing.

We see a lot of good actors for the extra parts. First in was Jane Lyndsey-Smith, midwife turned actor. We were convinced from that moment she would be our doctor.

James: We were also particularly keen on Zak Lee, who demonstrated great talent. I remember thinking that it was a shame there wasn't a larger part for him to play in the script.

Gabby: We then run hideously late chatting to our last actor, she drives us to the station and just catch our train down to London for day 2 of casting.

No main parts even potentially filled. Even though it had been a productive day, I remember being slightly worried.

SHORT LISTING FOR CASTING

Gabby: Armed with over 350 CVS we quickly sifted out those who weren't appropriate. We were left with a fairly big 'maybe' pile and a very modest 'yes' pile. We wanted to try and audition a mix of people who would fit together as a family unit, so we laid them all on the floor in the television studio in Digital Arts Centre, in lines of each character. We picked actors who interested us, who we felt had a particular interest in the project, who had done interesting projects in the past and who felt would gel well with our other selections.

We than started to ring around. It actually took the rest of the week to finish getting in touch with everybody and arranging casting slots. Far longer than we thought, but then neither of us had ever really been involved in the pre-production of a drama before as our experience stemed from the technical production.

POSTING FOR CASTING

Gabby: We wrote a brief synopsis of the film, and character breakdown, and I then posted ads in PCR, on Shootingpeople, Castnet, and Talent Circle.

It was nerve racking but really quiet exciting. James and myself had cast together on a number of times before. We were confident in our ability to make the right choices, but then our past projects had always been shorts. I am not sure that we quiet understood then just how hard this process was going to be.

James: We kept the descriptions pretty vague, as we didn't want to limit the search at this stage. I'd argue that whilst we got later got lots of replies, the variety still wasn't that exceptional. There are lots of actors with similar experience of The Bill & Family Affairs and tonnes of student films. You get stuck as to what makes a difference. I'd hate to admit it, but some got in because of their photo alone.

James goes to Morocco

James: Yeah, so just as soon as we start, I head to Morocco. You can read more about that project at www.moroccanscrapbook.blogspot.com. Needless to say, this puts a bit of a stop on things temporarily...

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

James: Gab and I had batted the idea about Peppermint around for a while, but this was when we specifically decided to go for it. We have so many of the components there and ready to use; the camera, money, locations etc.

The idea for the film came years before. It was originally called 'Portrait Of A Kind', and the stories revolved around the people captured in one photograph. One was Beth, who was originally called Rachel, sat in a cafe window. This is the scene we see after she discovers she is pregnant. I suppose this was about 2001 when I began writing.

Slowly it morphed into Peppermint. The title comes from my fascination with how people hide bad breath with minty freshness, as if the bad has gone away. The taste has gone, but breath is in your lungs and insides! It is a surface thing.

The script was written over four years in between other work. I believe the script has plenty of shadows over it, where all the rewrites have left their marks. This created quite a depth which I think appealed to Gab.

The decision to make the film was borne out of our frustration with boredom. Gab and I had been put to the test a year earlier when we produced & directed 'Nightshift' for Channel Four. We loved being our own bosses!

Gabby: I had read an earlier draft of the script a year or so before, but when we revisited it this time, it seemed much more complete as a story. There was so many bits in the script that I fell in love with and could picture immediately, however at this point there was still a lot of work to be done on it.

James had been applying for funding to make the film, and when he had come so close so many times but no one had quite seen the potentially in the story, I said to James we should just make this. The first thing we actually did after this was set a date for production which gave us a date to aim for.