What is Blue Bear?

Blue Bear is a short film written by Joe Deacon that follows 'Jay', a young man simply trying to get through what appears to be a significant day in his life. It is a story of love and loss, and the journey someone must encounter on their way to moving on. 

After being inspired by an interview with actor Jason Watkins, as well as music by Nick Cave, Joe wanted to write something that explored those years after a loss, dealing with grief at the same time as a personal endeavour of self-forgiveness and closure. 

We know what you're thinking: no, we're not just making this film to bum you out. In fact, quite the opposite. The main theme we want to portray in this film is love. Within the script, we explore relationships - past and present - and the beauty that comes with, simply, human connection, and how crucial that is for a journey like Jay's. 

The film will be around 10 minutes in length and will star its writer, Joe Deacon, in the lead role. Up and coming filmmaker, Kristen Brookman, will be directing, and TV veteran, Olivia Phipps, will be producing. 

This is well and truly a passion project, with the core team doing it all just for the love of filmmaking and to tell this story. We hope something may have caught your eye here and you may consider supporting this project - we won't let you down (hopefully)! And if you have any further questions at all, please don't hesitate to get in touch with one of the team! 

Meet the team...

Joe is an actor/writer and musician based in Hampshire. Beginning in the local stage school Joe started performing supporting roles such as Jacob Marley and Fezzywig in A Christmas Carol, as well as Friar Lawrence in Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream. After studying Drama at Queen Mary's College and performing in plays such as Blue Room and Brecht's Mother Courage,

Joe went on to study Drama & Performance at the University Of Portsmouth, where he graduated with a Bachelor Of Arts in 2015. Since graduating, Joe has acted in a mixture of big and small budget short films, as well as performing in local theatre productions such as Peter Whelan's The Accrington Pals and Fiddler On The Roof. In 2016, Joe played a background role in Christopher Nolan's WWII epic Dunkirk, released in 2017.

Kristen is an up and coming writer and director from Basingstoke with two short films under her belt so far. Her first short, Uninspired Moments starring Joe Deacon, was released last year and went on to be selected for numerous film festivals, including Screen Power Film Festival where Kristen won the award for 'Best First-Time Filmmaker'. The script was also included as a finalist in 2020's Golden Script Competition.

During lockdown, Kristen held a live virtual event for her Zoom short film, Hi Stranger, starring Penelope Yeulet and Tom Lewin. A reviewer at Film Forums established the film as "one of the most sensitive and realistic depictions of mental illness that I have seen on screen to date", and the events' host said it confirmed Kristen's directorial trademark: hope.

Olivia is a producer, writer and stand-up director working in TV and Film, currently in the Development Department at Locksmith Animation. She has over 7 years experience and has worked on such award-winning shows as ‘Detectorists’, ‘Inside No. 9’ and ‘Home’. Her recent producing credits include the webseries pilot, ‘Tall Dark Friend’ (winner of a New Voices Award at the Edinburgh TV Festival 2019) and the short film, ‘Fayde’, which opened the 2019 Underwire Film Festival. She has worked with companies like the BBC, Hat Trick and Tiger Aspect; written for the British Comedy Guide, Chortle, Succubus and The F Word; and directed Tom Mayhew’s critically-acclaimed 2019 Edinburgh stand-up show, ‘I, Tom Mayhew’, which sold out its subsequent 2020 Soho Theatre run and is currently in production as a Radio 4 series.

Where is my money going?

Good question! We have, of course, stripped back as many costs as we possibly can, but sadly films can get pretty pricey to make. Most of the team will be working for free, but we would like to be able to compensate some outside members that will be helping us make this, such as a Director of Photography who will be bringing their own equipment to the film and some brilliant actors who will be travelling to perform in small roles.

Any additional equipment required, such as lenses, lights, microphones, camera accessories, will have to be rented as well. It's also important to us that our characters are costumed in the right way, as this is such a personal, character-driven story. This will all simply help to us make the film look good so we can do this story justice.

We will be shooting the entirety of the film in our hometown of Basingstoke, and we've planned it in a way where we will shoot most of the scenes inside Kristen's house and nearby public areas. However, there are a couple of scenes that require a building that is not our directors house! We intend to use a local community centre as our 'cafe' and for the final scene, which does have a small cost to rent out. 

If the film turns out as we hope, we would love the opportunity to enter into some small festivals and maybe even get the chance to watch it with an audience. There is nothing more special! We'd really appreciate any donations - big or small - to help us achieve this.