Dream Teams: The Creative Alchemy of Flaura Atkinson and Eros V
Editor Flaura Atkinson and director Eros V have just come off an incredible festival and awards run for their scarily hilarious short film ‘Meat Puppet’ – see the interview they did with LBB here, when the film first came out.
But, beyond ‘Meat Puppet’ these two’s working relationship is something to behold. Meeting at the end of 2017, Flaura and Eros immediately started working on their first project together, Eros’ short film ‘Right Place Wrong Tim’ (RPWT). Introduced by a mutual director friend, timing was more than right – Eros was looking for an editor for his first “proper short” and he ended up finding more than what he’d bargained for.
“All my friend said was ‘Flaura is a genius and her dog Dink is a legend’,” says Eros. “Both of which turned out to be true.”
From the start, he knew Flaura was a “total pro,” and his opinion remains firmly unchanged. She, on the other hand, was blown away by the British-Greek director’s vision. “For somebody who had only directed a couple of small things before ‘Right Place Wrong Tim’, he had such a clear idea of what the film was going to be and how he wanted the edit to look.
She continues: “There was no ego involved. He had his vision, but was so open to ideas that it made the editing process a complete joy. I’ve been doing this a long time and have worked with a lot of different directors at varying stages in their careers, and Eros has always been consistently focused and authentic, right from the start.”
When Flaura initially read the script to RPWT, she thought it was, firstly, completely bonkers, but secondly and more importantly, extremely hard to pull off. Budget was, of course, an issue, but this project involved huge sprays of fake blood and VFX duplicates among other costly additions.
But, once she saw the rushes her awe of the idea took hold and she was ready to start cutting and putting it together.
“I knew Eros was going to be one to watch.”
This also ended up being the project that set the tone to Eros and Flaura’s working relationship. Technically challenging, riddled with janky compositions, and ‘What the hell have we gotten ourselves into’ moments, but incredibly rewarding, it became a beacon of what they could achieve together. “Almost seven years on, and we’re still doing technically challenging janky comps, and I’m sure Flaura is still thinking ‘What the hell have I gotten myself into’,” laughs Eros.
This, of course, leads us to ‘Meat Puppet’ – the longest edit for a short film of Flaura’s career, and as she puts it, the most rewarding one. “We pushed it in the edit and got everything we could out of it. It was so much fun,” she says.
Working with both the physical puppet and the VFX plates was an interesting journey to say the least – the first stage of the edit had the puppeteer Hugh Purves in all shots doing the voice of the puppet, whereas the second stage was to put in David Jonsson’s voice for the puppet’s voice. Third stage involved removing the puppeteers and adding a basic sound design, which altered the cut once more. “It was an intense process,” says Flaura. “But whenever we encounter a challenge, Eros simply finds a way around it. Nothing ever appears to be a problem, nothing’s ever dwelled on, we just move through it and find a solution.”
Underneath the calm and collected attitude, though, for Eros ‘Meat Puppet’ took an equal amount of blood, sweat and tears, but it was hearing how much audiences enjoyed it that made it one to be proud of. Another honourable mention he brings up is ‘Double Tap’, one they cut in Flaura’s uncle’s house. “I remember we both watched it back when it was done and were like ‘Hey, this really works’. I hadn’t had that reaction to my own work before,” says Eros.
A lot of the time, the two find each other at the opposite ends of many spectrums. Whenever Flaura thinks something might not work, Eros is the one to push her and the edit past the idea of what’s possible.
“There’s a lot of ‘Just hear me out’s coming from Eros and a lot of ‘I don’t think this is going to work’s from me,” she laughs. “I’m happy I ate my words a lot during the edit of ‘Meat Puppet’ because more often than not, what he had suggested did absolutely work!”
Eros agrees: “I can often be a bit of a wildcard, more scrappy and more instinctive. Flaura is so wonderfully creative, thoughtful and thorough. But you put those qualities together, and you have the perfect blend. Where my limitations are, Flaura excels and that is the most important thing to have when you’re a director – people who are better than you.”
When creative disagreement does come, the two have a rule – try everything once. “We’ve worked together for so long now that we have a completely open line of communication,” says Flaura. “If I feel like something doesn’t work then I feel comfortable enough to say so and we talk about it. Emotion is important and shows you’re invested, but communication and trust trump everything.”
Eros, thinking back on their numerous projects, struggles to find a “proper” moment of disagreement – “usually, we let the other person try out what they think would work.”
He adds: “Sometimes I have an idea, Flaura hates it, we put it in, it stays in for like 10 versions and then I admit I’m a moron and we do what Flaura suggested in the first place. It’s healthy.”
But like with most of our dream teams, the benefits of working with each other far outweigh any possibility for disagreement. Blending their humour, vision and skillsets is what makes Eros and Flaura continue looking for each other’s expertise, and healthy communication is the glue that holds everything together. Eros puts it quite simply:
“Having a creative partner means that you just don’t have to explain how much of a weird nutter you are every time you start anew.”
Looking at inspirational duos beyond their own world, Eros and Flaura both bring up Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese’s five-decade long working relationship. “She’s an editing hero of mine,” says Flaura about Thelma. “She said in an interview last year about Scorsese: ‘He gets a great new idea he wants to challenge himself with, and I’m being challenged with him. There’s never any boredom’ and I feel like that applies perfectly to how I feel about Eros and I’s working collaboration.”
No boredom, all fun, and constant limit-pushing is what defines Eros and Flaura, both separately and together. So while, yes, they don’t have to explain to each other their own weird quirks every time they meet on set for the next adventure, one thing does come anew repeatedly: “Every job we do together makes me remember why I wanted to do this as a career in the first place,” says Flaura.
