Interview with Stuart Hazeldine
Interview
Exam Result “
Begin.”
So starts the emo/onal rollercoaster that is Stuart Hazeldine’s first full-length feature, Exam. Released this year, the film has earmarked the Bri/sh writer/director as one to watch. Exam’s claustrophobic se1ng is a sublime blend of psychology and mystery-thriller. Despite its original premise, its influences come from a variety of sources throughout writer Stuart’s career. “Being born in 1971, I was 5 or 6 when Star Wars came out. It was the perfect age to get hooked into all that kind of film. As I got older, I got into films by Ridley Sco0, Peter Weir and also Stanley Kubrick. They sparked me the most but there was also the
Hollywood influence - Spike Lee, Oliver Stone and of course Scorsese. The Bri/sh had their own way of doing things. David Lean influenced me from a distance - he was in a different genera/on to mine. But he was the big elephant in the room of Bri/sh cinema.” Those early seeds finally took root when Stuart was studying American History. “I started out at university in Kent. I was making bigger and bigger films every year but by the /me I got to 24, I had a script bought. So I had the choice of either staying on in uni or to finish my studies and get into a load of debt. There wasn’t too much thinking - I took the money and started making a career.” In 1999, Stuart sold his horror
treatment Rizen to Universal Pictures, and began one of many works in Hollywood. “Wri/ng for studios is different to wri/ng for myself. Over the last 12 or 13 years, I have been honing the different skills needed to complete different dra s. With Exam, I was financing it myself so I wasn’t wri/ng it to persuade a studio to buy it.” Exam is Stuart’s first full-length feature and has drawn much acclaim, winning at the Santa Barbara Film Fes/val and a BAFTA nomina/on for ‘Outstanding Debut by a Bri/sh Writer, Director or Producer”. “Exam was received posi/vely as it was made off the radar. We received no funding and we never even got a tax credit on it. We had a great premiere at the
We had a great premiere at the Edinburgh, and we won at Santa Barbara. We won The Panavision Spirit Award for Independent Cinema, which is given to a unique independent feature that has been made outside mainstream Hollywood. The ďŹ lm drew a lot more posi/ve a0en/on in the States than it did back home. “The idea for the story came about during a phone call I was having with my friend Simon Garrity. He’d said that he’d had an idea about some kids going into an exam and ďŹ nding a blank piece of paper. I thought it’d be interes/ng to raise the stakes, and to introduce these ‘A’ type characters into a life or death situa/on. There have been comparisons to the BBC’s topra/ng TV show, The Appren ce, but in truth, The Appren ce wasn’t as big as it is now when I wrote it. It was just a happy coincidence that the movie came
out around the same /me as The Appren ce was top of the ra/ngs.â€? “The highlight of my career to date was ďŹ nally si1ng back in the Hi-DeďŹ ni/on Suite and watching Exam from start to ďŹ nish. Watching the audience reac/on was just great. Of course, there was the BAFTA nomina/on this year, but another highlight is my adap/on of Milton’s Paradise Lost, which is considered by many to be the greatest work of English literature.â€? Stuart is ambi/ous too. Despite already having worked on many successful movies, (The Day the Earth Stood S ll and the Nicholas Cage thriller Knowing), Stuart s/ll has big plans. “I aim to be one of the most proďŹ cient writer/directors to come out of Britain. There are many successful writer/directors
Interview
in the US and also in France but not that many here in the UK. I want to create some classic ďŹ lms, to produce some original characters. To do that, my next ďŹ lm needs to be an improvement on Exam – it’s that ‘second album’ feeling!â€?
Filmography
Ba le Chasers (2012) (in produc/on) (writer) Paradise Lost (2011) (pre-produc/on) (writer) Exam (2009) (wri0en by) Riverworld (2003) (TV) (writer) Exam (2009) (producer) Nichts als die Wahrheit (1999) (associate producer) aka "A er the Truth" - Canada (English /tle), Interna/onal (English /tle) Exam (2009) (Director)
Exam’s taut storyline keeps the viewer gripped to their seats