Owen Oppenheimer Cuts a Mini Kevin McCloud for Save the Children

Owen Oppenheimer from The Quarry recently edited this charming Save the Children spot, ‘Den Day’ for Director Karen Cunningham at Pop-Up Films. 

Kelly Cook Jackman spoke to Owen about his contribution to the project.

KCJ>  An absolutely charming film and such fabulously cast little actors, was there a lot of footage to get such natural performances from these children?

OO> Thank you… And aren't they!  There was quite a bit of footage to look through. Not just to find the best performances for the scripted parts of the film, but also to find the momentary gems when the kids were just being kids. Karen is always really determined to get the very best performances she can, which can often mean quite a few takes. You might think the children would get exhausted or distracted, but somehow she's able to keep them engaged and energized. She's also brilliant at casting kids that are able to act like kids. You never get a hint of stage school.  Probably because they're not from stage school!

KCJ>  What was it like to work with Director Karen Cunningham?  What other projects have you worked on together?

OO> Karen's great.  She's as dogged with me as she is with the children.

We might haggle over different takes or what to leave in or leave out, but luckily, even though we might have different ideas, we're usually pulling in the same direction.

We've done a few things together now - another project for Save The Children, which featured Elvis and SuBo in a nativity play, and a lovely ad for Rugby Sevens with a family of monsters.

KCJ>  Love this idea of Save the Children's ‘Den Day’…Is the film close to the original script?  How did you contribute in terms of editing?  

OO> The overall structure ended up being pretty close to the original script - though we played about with it quite a bit.  The hardest scene to put together was probably the football pitch design scene.   It needed quite a bit of construction to make it funny, with lines and looks taken from a lot of different takes. One look was stolen from ‘between’ takes.  The scenes where the kids are actually creating the den are mostly captured while they played - so not scripted at all. And Little Kevin's interviews with the den makers at the end are off the cuff and totally genius.  It was really hard to decide which lines of his to leave out.

KCJ> They say you should never work with kids and animals…Does that hold true from an Editors PoV? 

OO> Let's just say that the dog was much more demanding in the edit suite than the kids.