Losing the Plot

Shortly before Adam & Paul screened at the Berlin Film Festival, Paul Farren talked to writer and actor Mark O'Halloran and director Lenny Abrahamson about the methodology of their outstanding low-budget feature.

Paul: So how did you guys get hooked up in the first place?

Mark: It was through Johnny Speers, the producer of Adam & Paul. he had seen some short plays I had written and he asked if I had anything I might want to submit. I sent in a somewhat garbled treatment for Adam & Pau with some scenes. Johnny passed them onto Lenny and he read them and thought he saw something within it that was worthwhile.

When you say garbled, how garbled was it?

Mark: It was really short; the scenes that I had sent were in it, but it was a kind of chaotic and open ended…

Lenny: A kind of one-pager about who these characters were and a plot outline which was the thing that kind of changed the most. But the sample scenes definitely captured the film in a way.

Mark: Sample scenes were the picnic in the park with Marion, and meeting the baby in the middle.

Lenny: I saw that this piece was brilliant; we met and talked, and saw that the bits that we were interested in were the same, and that would be the direction the film would go in.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 103