“Do you remember that song? The “I Get Knocked Down” song? You know? “I get knocked down but I get up again”? Yeah, that one. I’m the guy from the song. Do you know the name of that band? It’s okay if you don’t; not many people do. It was Chumbawamba. Yeah, Chumbawamba. Do you know we were a bunch of anarchists who had existed as a band for 15 years before we were given the opportunity to subvert the mainstream and all because of that one song? It was crazy. One minute we were all living communally in a squatted house in the north of England, sharing money, sharing everything, right down to our underpants, the next we’re on The Late Show calling for the release of Mumia Abu Jamal or attacking, literally, attacking the UK’s deputy prime minister John Prescott on behalf of the striking Liverpool dockworkers at the 1998 Brit Awards. It was a rollercoaster. It was surreal, it was funny, it was a trip.
Problem was that no sooner had we found ourselves in belly of the beast that we just as quickly fell from grace. Disappeared without a trace. So how do I get back up again? How do I get back in the fray? I’ve still got something to say and I don’t want to fade away. So it’s my story, my journey, my adventure. It’s like a punk version of “A Christmas Carol” with my very own Ghost of Chumbawamba Past bullying and berating me. I’m your protagonist and he’s my antagonist. He’s called Babyhead; you’ll see why once you see the film. Come along!” Filmmaker Dunstan Bruce on I GET KNOCKED DOWN which is screening at SxSW 2022. Co-director Sophie Robinson also joins us for this interview!
I hear you are back at SxSW this year! Talk to us about what you have had here in the past.
Sophie Robinson: This is our second trip to SXSW. We were here back in 2016 in that glorious pre-covid world. I was premiering my film MY BEAUTIFUL BROKEN BRAIN and Dunstan came with me as we had just started developing I GET KNOCKED DOWN and wanted to come and test the water to see if there might be interest. That’s why we’re back here this year. Our last experience was so fantastic we were delighted to be invited and can’t wait to land in Texas.
How did this whole project come together? Give me a rundown from the preparation to execution to now!
Dunstan: I was working as a waiter in a cocktail bar when I met Sophie. We had a mutual editor friend, Jim Scott who we had both worked with and still both work with to this day. Jim recommended Sophie to me as someone who was a brilliant fundraiser, producer and director. There are some things she’s not so good at (Sophie: DIY, Latin and horse-riding) but these things; yes, she is. I had spent a couple of years trying to unsuccessfully get the film off the ground. It was a film I always wanted to make asking the question what can you actually achieve, as a political band, when you enter the mainstream? Can you subvert it? Can you make a difference? Can you change the world?
Sophie: I was fascinated by the whole story of Chumbawamba and really wanted to explore other aspects of Dunstan’s story as I only knew them for that one song. We were coming from completely different places and that difference ignited quite a chemistry, an alchemy almost, that meant we collaborated in such an interesting and challenging way.
Dunstan: Suffice to say, Sophie is an absolutely brilliant filmmaker and storyteller and she brought all those skills to the table whilst I brought my awkward, troublemaking, anarchistic past to the party.
Sophie: Sparks flew on occasion but here we are with a film we are both incredibly proud of, completely aware that it doesn’t neatly fit into any documentary box or genre but we wouldn’t want it any other way.
While working on a project, what’s your creative process?
Dunstan: What do people expect us to do? Let’s do the opposite. Chumbawamba always had this philosophy that we would never live up to people’s preconceptions. We always wanted to challenge our fanbase and we always wanted to challenge ourselves to come up with something different. We always wanted to take risks, do the unexpected, do the surprising. And we didn’t want to just fit in. Follow a formula. Play safe. So whenever Sophie and I were discussing how to present the story, explain an idea, create a scene, we always gave each other permission to come up with something completely bonkers, ridiculous or random.
We had a freedom in the making of this film as we were basically self-funding it, so we gave ourselves carte blanche to have as much as fun as possible in the creative process. How often do you get that chance? It’s rare, I guess. We embraced that freedom and experimented with the form. It was an absolute blast.
What was your biggest challenge with creating this feature, and what was the moment where you realized “Yes, this is IT!”?
Dunstan: It has taken us about six years to get here. Not that I think that’s an unusually long time for a documentary; I don’t. I think it’s pretty normal. I think the biggest challenge is just not giving up, not losing faith, not falling out of love with the project, not listening to the demons in your head asking you what’s the point? Who’s gonna watch this anyway? Who actually gives a shit about your film? Luckily whenever those ideas floated around my head I had Sophie there to convince me that what we were doing was brilliant or meaningful or relevant or special and to not give up.
We struggled financially so we had to be inventive and smart; find ways of making the film on a shoestring, pull favours, enthuse people in the film so they would be invested themselves.
As for the “Yes, this is IT!” moment; do you ever get to that point? I wish you did! That said, we’ve had moments where we have thought “Yes!”. When we starting using Babyhead as a device, as the voice in Dunstan’s head, as the antagonist, we were pretty pleased with ourselves because we we’re trying to find a way to tell the story that was different and fresh and unusual and we thought, yeah, he’s pretty unusual.
It’s a funny old relationship you have with your film though; if I was to describe my relationship with it on social media I would probably say “it’s complicated”. I love it, of course I do but there’s no plain sailing, that’s for sure. I am incredibly proud of it too. And will defend it to my death for all it’s flaws and foibles and fuck-ups.
I am a tech person, so I would love to know about the visual design of the movie from the cameras to the formats used and how it was made from a technical standpoint!
Sophie: From the beginning we wanted to make sure that the film didn’t turn into a talking-head/archive documentary. We wanted to follow the Chumbawamba ethos of never being predictable and pushing creative boundaries and challenging the documentary form. Sometimes that meant interviewing the other band members in situations that looked different on screen; Alice doing her ironing, Harry in pantomime, Boff on a camping chair at the top of Ilkley Moore. We let some of our interviewees decide for themselves how we might film them, hence ending up with a naked Penny Rimbaud. And then of course we brought to life the voice inside Dunstan’s head, his alter-ego, his Ghost of Christmas past in the form of Babyhead. For these scenes we used locked off shots so that Dunstan could play himself and then Babyhead, creating sequences where he is literally talking to himself. For one of the scenes where we wanted to discuss the band’s decision to ‘sell-out’ to a major label we filmed four versions of Dunstan in conversation about the decision. And then when we took all of this footage to our amazing colourist Katherine Jameson at Halo Post and she gave it a look that lifted it out of the world of documentary and into the realm of feature films. And then with our composer Nick-Norton Smith and sound designers Jay Price and Adam Johnson we created a sound-bed to bring to pull the audience inside Dunstan’s mind. I could do you a list of all the camera’s and software we used but it won’t be anything you don’t already know!
What are you looking forward to the most about showing your movie at SxSW?
Dunstan: I just want to be around people, shake hands with them, hug them, kiss them, get into conversations and discussions with them, buy them drinks, forget their names, bump into them again and pick up where we left off, dance with them, share recommendations with them, sit in the cinema watching other people’s films with them, all that stuff we haven’t been able to do. I want it all!
Sophie: I can’t wait to be immersed in a population of creative people and to be stimulated again to take risks, make art, tell stories and entertain. How lucky we are to do what we do and it’s been too long since the last time we were all together!
Where is this title going next? More festivals or a theatrical or streaming release?
Sophie: We have the amazing Caroline Stern of Canoe Films on board now as our sales agent so we feel assured that the films release will be exciting even though we don’t know what that is yet. We have more festivals happening this year in the US, Australia and Europe and so the future is looking promising.
What is the one thing that you would say to someone who is wishing to get into making movies, especially now as the world is changing at such a fast pace?
Sophie: Stay impassioned, stay enraged, be tenacious and don’t let anything or anyone stop your storied getting made.
And final question: what is the greatest movie you have ever seen at a film festival?
Sophie: TOWER directed by Keith Maitland at SXSW.
Dunstan: I was totally taken by surprise by Marwencol years ago at a film festival somewhere. That would’ve been about 2010 or 2011 I guess?
This film and many others like it will be showing at South By Southwest taking place March 11-20. For more information point your browser to www.sxsw.com!