Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor release contemplative film The Future Tense, reflecting on identity, being Irish in England, and the state that our country is in, all filmed on URSA Mini Pro 12K.
The Future Tense opens with a shot of director Joe Lawlor, sat at a desk, script in hand, explaining that he’s standing in for the actor who was supposed to play him; a stand in for a stand in. As a film about identity, history and a reflection on self, the film could have had a weighty, poignant tone, and at times, it does, but thanks to the sharp, irreverent humour of the directors, it also has lighter moments like this one.
“The film is really quite autobiographical,” explains Lawlor. “It centres around a flight from Stanstead to Dublin, and our reflections during that flight, but it’s much more than that. We’ve been building up material for it for the last few years, including archive footage of my mother and footage of the places that Christine and I have lived and worked throughout our lives.”
“We started seriously thinking about the piece almost four years ago,” adds Molloy. “It’s effectively the second part to our Further Beyond documentary, but can also be watched as a standalone. We’d started filming bits and pieces with a DSLR, trying to assemble different strands of the footage, but when we came to the interview segments, we needed something different.”
“Quality isn’t just about pixels or clarity,” Molloy continues. “It’s critical in helping the audience to suspend their disbelief, and identify with the film’s protagonists, whether that’s a big Hollywood production or a documentary. In our case, we needed each person in the audience to believe that Joe or I were talking directly to them, and having a high quality production was critical to portray our thoughts, struggles and personalities realistically.”
The Future Tense features a large number of indoor and outdoor shots, including of Lawlor’s own brother and their daughter Molly. The URSA was used for the shots of Molloy and Lawlor as they provide narratives that weave in and out of each other, with pauses as Joe, for example, loses his place between two sheets of script, or provides an off-camera remark querying part of the writing.
“Despite its place in the air, the interview segments ground the film, so it was essential that we had crisp, high-quality footage that was distinct from the rest of the content. The URSA’s cinematic quality, combined with a Schneider 35mm T2.1 PL prime lens, really helped us achieve this,” says Molloy.
Lawlor and Molloy did the initial grade themselves in DaVinci Resolve before handing the film over to Splice for further work. Most of the editing was deliberately simple, with most of the work being done beforehand, in camera and through lighting.
“We wanted the interview segments to be very clear and crisp,” mentions Lawlor. “The grade was largely focused on colour, saturation and contrast, ensuring that the lighting was soft without being over-saturated, and without warming up the skin tones too much. We shot in our own house and had to use Resolve to keep the light relatively constant because we were shooting next to a window at different times of the day. We applied a LUT to the work, but overall, we tried to keep it as natural as possible.”
“The Future Tense is an exploration of whether we should stay in England, post-Brexit, how we feel about England and Ireland, and how history has shaped the two countries,” concludes Molloy. “Ultimately, it’s a very personal examination of whether we should stay or go, but in all honesty, we’re still thinking about it.”
–
The Future Tense premiered at the Telluride Festival in the US, and was also shown at the BFI Film Festival. In the UK, The Future Tense is distributed by MUBI.
