Straightheads - staring Gillian Anderson and Danny Dyer.

Director Dan Reed, Producers Kevin Loader & Damian Jones, Mascot Films - 2007

Straightheads stars Gillian Anderson and Danny Dyer. They get attacked on their way home from a party at her colleagues countryside home. The film then takes a turn when their focus becomes tracking down their attackers to take revenge. 

Gillian’s character lives in a London apartment overlooking The City. I felt it required a balanced blend of stunning views, minimalist architecture, different floor levels, a terrace and enough space/access to fit an entire crew. We eventually found it in Clerkenwell. All personal belongings were removed and furniture, paintings and character dressing were installed.

I wanted to make sure I gave our DoP Chris Seager enough interesting light sources. For example, the backlit ice and glasses (below), large panoramic windows (above), standard and bedside lamps and even a brightly lit fish tank for a night scene.

Two teenage girls bedrooms were required; a very traditional one in 1985 (below) and the other in present day. This gave me the opportunity of using colour and texture to show the contrast in year and character.

Because there were very intimate scenes in the film I put a lot of detailed character dressing into the sets, here for example in this 18 year old girl’s bedroom there are signs of her country upbringing; horse riding rosettes and posters but also photos of friends, school band posters, an old computer, brightly coloured teenage makeup, against old-fashioned childish wallpaper as if she’s inherited the room from her deceased mother.