Jamie Flatters' Shoulders sits in the wilderness with eight young men as they watch for invasion. Armed with nothing but sticks, they’re left to unravel. Its world premiere was on the opening night of the 3rd Clapham International Film Festival.

I catch Jamie in the hubbub of Venn Street after Shoulders’ premiere. Our conversation has moments of pause as he fields well-wishers and rolls a cigarette.

BJ: The depth in the shots and the blocking. What was the intent? What was the construction?

JF: Well, it actually came from a disagreement me and the cinematographer and the editor had, who I work with a lot and I love dearly—Clara and Manny. They were like ‘If you’ve got eight characters, why shoot in 4:3?’, and I thought it’d be really interesting to do that sort of like 1960’s—or even earlier, 1950’s—Kurosawa thing and really try use depth of focus ‘cause that’s just the hardest thing to do on low-budget.

I thought, if you’ve got low-budget how can you confuse people to make it seem like you’ve got loads of money—and, yeah, blocking people Wes Anderson style and then, yeah—shooting deep.

BJ: Is that the black and white, too? Part of the con?

JF: Of course, yeah. More dystopian feel. And I like the idea of, like, using Wes Anderson style symmetry to, like, sort of explain the army uniform…ality as well.

BJ: Is he a big influence?

JF: Eh, not massively in the tone but in the cinematography—for sure. On the wide shots definitely.

BJ: Was it hard to find good sticks?

Flatters is elated I’ve asked this. He perks up.

JF: That’s such a good question—that’s such a good question! Every actor found their own stick.

BJ: Yeah?

JF: And actually, with three people I went ‘That’s not a good enough of a stick’.

BJ: Wonderful.

JF: So they had to find a new stick. But there was a full day.

Flatters now has to mingle. Even I’m approached by a woman I’d flyered the week prior. There is a veritable buzz. He returns shortly after, apologetic.

BJ: Your characters make a gun with their hands and we believe it’s a gun. It has power. Why do you think that is?

JF: Well, I think it’s justified by the idea of play—play is a necessity in order to try and stand up against a sort of unknown threat, and if the negativity and the enemy is conspiracy itself then you can sort of conspire beautifully in order to—uh— attack back. And I think that’s kind of my anti-war stance. It’s like, a lot of young people need… they always say about the anti-war bit but they never talk about actually how you can have this idea of like—positive—you can positively conspire something beautiful in order to fight back as well.

BJ: Wonderful. Enjoy your cigarette.