Frankie's Tattoo: An Insight on Script Into Production

This still was released via Live For Films at the beginning of the week. It shows Frankie changing from his prison issues into his new disguise, cleaning himself up etc. Amber, still hostage in the car in an old junkyard, catches a glimpse of him through a window. Here's what the script snippet for the scene looked like on the page:

IN THE CARAVAN
Frankie stands with his back to the window. A crude prison tattoo covers his back: a newborn baby, on a crucifix, two big tears, one under each eye.

IN THE TOYOTA
Amber stares at the tattoo, fascinated, repulsed.

IN THE CARAVAN
Frankie moves away from the window, out of view as he cuts his hair.

As you will no doubt be able to see, the tattoo is not what writer/director JK Amalou envisaged on the page - or what script editor Lucy V Hay saw in her own mind's eye either. Instead of the newborn baby with tears from its eyes, we have a foetus on the cross instead. This was make up artist Lynda Darragh's work and shows the beauty of collaboration when rendering a script as image - and the importance of respecting that, rather than sticking doggedly to one's own original vision. We think the tattoo looks brilliant and really sums up Frankie's character as the "little boy lost", persecuted by the world.

It may also interest you to know the location found for Frankie's transformation is not a caravan either, but a broken down old shack. Producer Lara Greenway and the team worked very hard at finding locations for the movie that would reflect the hellish, nightmarish journey Amber finds herself on - and there had to be some changes made to the actual script to accommodate this idea, some of them (unlike this one) quite significant. 

It all starts with the script, no one on Deviation is ever going to argue with that - especially when the movie has such a fab script to start with. But it's also important to remember that every single member of the team can bring something to the creation of that script as a film. Congratulations to our fab team for working together so well.