Released in Irish cinemas this weekend, Barber is a new film about a private detective set in Dublin starring Aidan Gillen. Below, director Fintan Connolly talks about the making of the film.
It so happened we pitched Barber to Lesley McKimm in Screen Ireland not long before COVID-19 struck. I had been talking about the story of a private detective plying his trade in Dublin with Aidan Gillen, so out of those discussions I came up with this character of Val Barber. Producer and writer Fiona Bergin then picked up the ball and wrote the lion's share of the script.
In July 2020 we got the greenlight under the Screen Ireland micro-budget scheme. And in September 2020 we began shooting. We were only the second Irish film to begin production after lockdown and we shot Barber in eighteen days. It was a weird but exciting sequence of events - shooting on the quiet streets, wearing masks, being tested regularly. So very different from your normal film set. Shooting between lockdowns added an eerie emptiness to the city that suited both the story and the production. We see everything through Barber’s eyes - his Dublin.
Making films is a collaborative endeavour and I was lucky to end up with a great cast and a small crew of fifteen, including the talented cinematographer Owen McPolin, production designer Tracey O’Hanlon and sound mixer Robert Flanagan. Everybody was keen to get back to work after that first long lockdown and being mobile was important.
Actors are your best friends on a set. Aidan has been at the centre of the story from the beginning and he was a pleasure to direct. He was the first person to get involved and that was significant in generating interest in the film and getting it financed. And he drew the other actors in. I think we ended up with 24 speaking parts, courtesy of casting director Maureen Hughes.
The day after we finished shooting Ireland went back into lockdown, and production ground to a halt again worldwide. In the spirit of the times and as you could no longer sit in a room with an editor, I reached out to Nicolas De Toth who was living in Berlin and had some time on his hands. With a string of movies to his credit - he’s now editing Avatar 3 - Nicolas began cutting and delivered a first cut eight weeks later communicating entirely by phone.
We were using some Carter Burwell music as temp score and when I contacted him, he recommended Forrest Gray a young composer in LA. Again we worked together remotely and it went very smoothly. I love the soundtrack, even the incidental hotel muzak in the background that Forrest scored. And he brought in musicians and real instruments to get it spot on
RTÉ have picked up the TV rights and we’re really pleased that distributor Eclipse Pictures are releasing Barber theatrically on April 14th. Cinemagoers around the country will see a different side to Aidan as Val Barber. I hope we’ve made an entertaining film that people will enjoy seeing together on the big screen.
Barber is in selected cinemas nationwide from April 14th
