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London director realises life-long dream with a little help from the Big Issue
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent8 Feb 2010
A film made for £100,000 after the director won a Big Issue competition and secured backing from TV drama king Paul Abbott is released in London this weekend.
Tony, a fictional account of a London serial killer, was made by Gerard Johnson, 37, who requisitioned help from his family including musician brother Matt, of The The, who wrote the score, and his actor cousin Peter Ferdinando, who plays the eponymous lead.
It was shot in the East End where they all grew up, the children of publicans who ran haunts of the notorious Sixties gangsters, the Kray brothers.
And it is the realisation of a life-long dream for Gerard Johnson who grew up a massive film fan. “My family has always been obsessed with film,” he said.
After working as a runner and in post-production set himself a target of shooting his first feature by the time he was 35.
“This was a bit of an experiment, whether we could do it on such limited resources. But Paul loves it, he's very proud, and so am I,” Johnson said.
His big break came when he won a competition through the Big Issue which offered a chance to work on the set of a planned new series of Abbott's State of Play.
Having already made a number of short films and worked on larger-scale productions, Johnson declined the offer but invited Abbott to a screening of one of his shorts.
By coincidence, his brother, Matt, had mentioned Gerard's work to Johnny Marr of The Smiths who also knew Abbott.
Having eventually caught a screening of a short film version of Tony, Abbott immediately telephoned to offer his backing.
“We struck up a friendship and he's like a mentor to me. He rang and said, Do you want to turn this into a feature? I think we can get enough money.'”
Abbott, the writer of hits such as Clocking Off and Shameless, put in £20,000 towards the £40,000 cost of a 12-day shoot and the UK Film Council also came on board. Gerard Johnson supported himself with odd jobs such as telesales and called in favours to complete it.
The story of a serial killer was inspired by childhood recollections of the case of Dennis Nilsen, the Muswell Hill murderer. “I remember hearing about him dressing up the corpses and talking to the corpses. And I was interested in stories about the loneliness of big cities.”
It is released in selected cinemas in London this weekend after being seen at the Edinburgh Film Festival last year.
Johnson, who now lives in Kensal Green, west London, is already working on his next which will be a cop thriller.
