Sara Proudfoot Clinch teamed up with Zoe Ball on Four Brothers And A Funeral for Zoe’s debut as a producer … Four Brothers And A Funeral shot on 35mm Anamorphic on location in Brighton, with a huge crane, pyrotechnics, five main leads, a cameo from Sayeed Jaffrey, loads of extras, 24 crew, night shoots, recreating the sacred river Ganges on the mudflats of Newhaven and at the Chattri Temple perched high on a hill behind Brighton where a huge shallow tank of water was built at the base of the steps and a burning funeral pyre on the groyne beside Brighton pier at night.
Sara met Zoe while attending a networking lunch in London. Zoe had just completed a film course at the Brighton Film School and was looking for a project to get her teeth in to, so she approached Sara and asked to read her short film script. Sara was delighted to meet her and being prepared, handed the script over to Zoe who read it on the train back to Brighton and texted Sara straight away. Zoe loved it so much she said it made her feel all warm inside and brought a tear to her eye. She was really eager to get going on it so they started immediately
For Zoe it was baptism by fire as pre-production lasted 5 months with every day being full on but also very exciting. A natural fund raiser, Zoe placed an ad in the Business Section of the Sunday Times and soon we had 4 local investors and 1 from the North of England. Zoe benefitted from Sara’s experience in producing, scheduling, budgeting and her contacts for casting, crewing up, locations, film equipment, film stock, labs, post production etc. and Zoe drew on her own contacts, donated a production office based in her home and worked very hard shadowing Sara, always smiling and positive – as a team they balanced very well and laughed a lot. The shoot in November spanned 5 gruelling days with 3 night shoots which is always tough. Everyone worked gratis including the mostly professional crew – everyone was there because they wanted to be, because they loved the script and were excited by Sara’s passion and of course to work alongside the delicious Ms Ball.
Zoe Ball on short films