{"id":1611,"date":"2009-03-08T14:13:37","date_gmt":"2009-03-08T13:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/blog\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2015-03-27T15:40:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T15:40:30","slug":"clubbed-revisits-tough-world-of-80s-nightclubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=1611","title":{"rendered":"How a nightclub doorman’s stories became a film in ‘Clubbed’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"clubbed<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

It has taken many years for Geoff Thompson\u2019s book \u201cWatch My Back”, which details his time as a doorman at nightclubs in Coventry in the 1980s, to become a film. When \u201cClubbed\u201d, as the film version is titled, made it into theatres last month via Route One Releasing, it was the culmination of a lot of hard work and no little patience.<\/p>\n

Writer Jim Cartwright (\u201cLittle Voice\u201d) was a vocal supporter of Thompson\u2019s tale of a man who had to overcome considerable hardship to find redemption in a tough and unforgiving environment. Martin Carr was a lawyer turned film producer who took some persuading to even read the book because he thought it was about gangsters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at the cover and said I will never, ever read that book. I don\u2019t like that kind of film, they bore the fuck out of me,\u201d Carr says. But he finally did read it and bought the film rights to Thompson\u2019s story. Then at an industry affair at the House of Commons, Carr ran into Neil Thompson, no relation to the writer, who was there on behalf of industry body PACT. Thompson was well known as a maker of music videos and he and Carr hit it off right away.<\/p>\n

\"watch<\/a>\u201cMartin had actually gate-crashed the gig and I was a bit bored because I\u2019d done my duty, pressing the flesh and that, and I saw this long-haired guy with cowboy boots loitering in the corner. We got chatting and it turned out we had the same ethos of how UK films should be made,\u201d says Thompson.<\/p>\n

That ethos involved a great belief in script development, a sense that movies should be bigger and more heightened than TV, and a scrupulous attention to budget. Thompson signed on as a producer but once Carr and the writer saw his videos they offered him the job of director. \u201cNeil didn\u2019t push himself as a director but he\u2019s done 200 music videos with top people. He has a brilliant eye for story,\u201d Carr says.<\/p>\n

Carr had obtained \u00a332,000 from the European Commission\u2019s Media fund to develop the project and because Geoff Thompson is a local boy, Screen West Midlands chipped in \u00a3250,000. For the rest of the \u00a31.6 million budget, the filmmakers turned to industry sources and utilized Inland Revenue\u2019s Enterprise Investment Scheme.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically a way that you can set up a company, sell shares in it to finance the movie and the investors not only own the company with you but then they\u2019re entitled to tax breaks through the government. It really has nothing to do with the film industry. It doesn\u2019t have to be a film, it can be any business,\u201d Thompson says.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it worked and now Thompson and Carr with their company Formosa Films are planning a slate of films budgeted under \u00a32 million with two more this year. Thompson says he wants to direct more features but he intends to be choosy. \u201c\u2018Clubbed\u2019 was something I could put all my energy into and I thought Geoff\u2019s was a unique story that would work well in the UK market, especially on DVD. I knew there was commercial potential in it. I think you have to have that in mind if you\u2019re going to make feature films,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Formosa aims to make the kinds of films that will gain theatrical exposure and attract overseas markets but most especially will thrive in the UK DVD market. \u201cThere\u2019s a huge audience for these kinds of stories because that\u2019s a kind of ignored part of mainstream culture. That audience allows films like ours to exist and they kind of bypass the whole cultural beat of UK film, they go round the back and straight to the audience,\u201d Thompson says.<\/p>\n

With a cast that includes Colin Salmon, Mel Raido, Shaun Parkes (pictured) and Scot Williams, \u201cClubbed\u201d aims to deliver a smart picture that combines a keen sense of history with an appealing story.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an interesting time. We didn\u2019t want to make a big deal out of capturing that, it\u2019s very background, but it\u2019s all there in Geoff\u2019s story. We also wanted to make something in the tradition of gritty Brit films because that is a kind of genre. During the 2000s, films like \u2018Football Factory\u2019 have proved there\u2019s a good audience out there not only in the cinema but on DVD,\u201d says Thompson.<\/p>\n

This story\u00a0appeared in Cue Entertainment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett It has taken many years for Geoff Thompson\u2019s book \u201cWatch My Back”, which details his time as a doorman at nightclubs in Coventry in the 1980s, to become a film. When \u201cClubbed\u201d, as the film version is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[62,279,465,601,699,837,903],"class_list":["post-1611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","tag-clubbed","tag-watch-my-back","tag-colin-salmon","tag-geoff-thompson","tag-jim-cartwright","tag-martin-carr","tag-neil-thompson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1611"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6244,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions\/6244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}