Format: Digi-beta Running time: 27:15 mins Aspect ratio: 16/9 Edited on: Avid Media Composer IMDB page

NEWS!

Little White Lies film review magazine reviews Encounters:

"The Brief South West award went to the downright poetic I'll Tell You, Rachel Tillotson's visually lush story of lost friendship. The film is fine in every way, but for LWLies' money the stand-out local film was Maria from Paul Dudbridge, about a young prostitute who bumps into a familiar face in the classroom. It's a scrupulously honest treatment of a potentially salacious issue and Amy Burnett, once of TV's Skins, is great as Maria, all tough outer hide and asymmetrical eyebrows."

Encounters International Film Fesitval 2011 - Round Up | Blog | littlewhitelies.co.uk

STORY:

"Maria" tells the story of a teenage girl who tries to shed her old life of prostitution and take herself back to school. Things get complicated for Maria when her new class mates find out about her other life...

PRODUCTION:

"Maria" was born out of wanting to work with the talented young actors at the ITV West Television workshop based in Bristol. A first draft of a script was drawn up by Director Paul Dudbridge, who then passed it on to resident Hanover Pictures' writer Will Griffin for notes. But after half an hour of discussions, Will offered to do a pass of his own on the script. The structure and scenes pretty much stayed the same but the film took on a much darker tone and the ending was changed to help make the characters more layered and conflicted.

The main cast were found at the drama workshop and actors Amy Burnett, Kessie Bartlett, Lily Davis-Broome, Chris Green and Jenna Purnell secured roles after workshopping some ideas. Both Amy and Kessie had previously appeared in the hit Channel 4 drama "Skins", so a film of this type, with these themes was nothing new to either of them. The role of the Headmistress was cast after a call was put out on Casting Call Pro. Penny Lamport secured the part after the producers auditioned 5 other actors for the role.

Auditions were held to look for an actor for the role of Steven, the school teacher. After an extensive search Bristol based actor Jason Bailey was put forward for the role after being previously known to Producer Joanna Beard and after a successful audition secured the part. Jason is a very experienced actor with a number of commercials and guest parts in popular TV shows under his belt. Jason had his work cut out coming on to the project fairly late into pre-production with a part that contained large speeches towards the end of the film. "Steven has taken some wrong turns in his life and is pretty tormented as a result - so the performance had to capture that depth or the character wouldn't work." comments co-writer Will Griffin.

Principle photography took place in November 2010 in and around Bristol. A school location was secured by Joanna Beard after over 10 turned down the request to have the production filmed in their premises due to the nature of the story. Other crew members included camera team regulars Simon Pearce operating and Roger Pearce as Director of Photography, making this his third film after "Winter's End" (2008) and "We May Be Shadows" (2010). Xander McGrouther and James Hayward were on sound recording duties, Adele Lovett on Art Department, Natalie Ball on Costume and Lionelle Galloppa as Script Supervisor.

Over 60 extras were used to populate the school scenes. Young local actors were sourced from a number of places including the ITV West Television workshop, acting agencies Star Now and Casting Call as well as local school performing arts groups. Perhaps the big set piece in the film was a fight in the canteen. During a lunch break Maria gets attacked and exposed in front of the whole school. The fight was rehearsed weeks before shooting and was shot multiple times in front of a host of extras watching on.

The colour palette of the film was kept fairly dark to match the narrative. Where possible strong primary colours were avoided in lighting, sets, props and costume and the lighting was kept low key. The colours in the film will be altered again when it gets to the grading part of the post-production schedule. About 50% of the scenes were shot handheld, and very few dolly shots were used to give the film a slight uneasy and "of the moment" feel.