PLAY CLIP

Written & Directed by Stuart Croft
Line Producer: Tom Dingle

Cast: Camilla Arfwedson and Simon Bridge

Director of Photography: Zillah Bowes
First Camera Assistant: Steve Annis
Second Camera Assistant: Paul Dain

Gaffer: Brian Beaumont
Electrician: Joel Rainsley

Grip: Rob Barlow

Sound Recordist: Mike Hasler

Low Loader: Bickers

Stills: Hugo Glendinning

Casting Director: Paul Fuller

Music: Mark Lo

Dubbing Mixer: Doug Haywood

Editor: Stuart Croft

Production Assistants: Daniel Johnson, Tatiana Marche

Telecine: Arion Facilities

Many thanks to:
Dean at Bickers
Liz Moore and Denny Cooper at Rushes
Vicky Earl at Arri
Laura Thompson at Arri
Sam Clark at Kodak

Fred Mann
Rachael Lawe
Michelle Duguid
Sandra Kemp, Jessica Rana and Robert James at RCA
John Wakefield
Cirrolite
Matt Nee
Will Timbers at Pink Pigeon

Financially supported by Arts Council England / Royal College of Art

Sponsored by Arri Media / Arri Lighting / Kodak

Co-Producers: Fred [London] Ltd

DRIVE IN
Stuart Croft
2007

8 min Colour Sound S 16mm/Digibeta
Gallery Loop

A couple drive an endless journey through an anonymous city at night.

The passenger, an American woman in her late twenties, delivers a shaggy-dog story to her suited, middle-aged, male driver. The woman's monologue checks all the boxes of the (male) fantasy desert island joke: some guy, washed up on a paradise island after a storm, stumbles across the woman of his dreams. She's not only built her own house, workshop, kiln, boat and cocktail bar - but she's an artist too. The guy, open-jawed, observes her 'crazy wood carvings of people screwing', and falls hopelessly in love. Her initial reticence fades (especially after he shaves off 'that fucking beard'), and they embark on the perfect relationship. Of course, the guy fucks up, and has an affair on the other side of the island whilst doing 'research' for a novel he writes with goat's blood. So he goes off on a fishing trip to 'get some space, that kinda shit' - and gets washed up on a paradise island after a storm.

Shot on glorious, sparkling celluloid, 'Drive In' appears to be a convincing 'slice' of a contemporary feature film. In the gallery space, however, any promise of narrative trajectory becomes fixed in endless, anxiety-inducing repeat. The woman's joke-monologue perpetually joins onto itself, whilst the man's silence is unnervingly eternal. The film's Hollywood production values are perversely upended and the maligned genre of the road movie, with its concomitant associations of existential discovery and resolve, is ensnared. The protagonists, denied arrival or conclusion, are doomed to drive their ceaseless road journey with only each other's bitterness for company.