I recently spoke to Daniel Audritt and Kat Butterfield, the authors and directors of a new short film Life Goes On, starring David Bradley. You can read my review of Life Goes On here.

Hello both, thank you for agreeing to the interview. Firstly, I’d like to ask what the writing process for the film was like?

KAT: It’s an idea that percolated for many years, very painfully and slowly coming through in random thoughts and themes, that I would tell Dan about, and he would tell me it wasn’t very exciting, and, he was right, it really wasn’t. It didn’t become exciting until one day I had a lightning bolt moment and said to Dan ‘what if he can’t die?’ We both kind of gasp-laughed and said ‘can we do that?’ which made us quite excited cos if an idea scares you, you may well be on the right lines.

DAN: I knew she had something at that moment – I saw the structure straight away and the time-loop device felt like a perfect way to get in all those themes of regret and this sense of time both running out and being infinite, in a way that makes Bill reckon with his own mortality. The journey for Bill became very clear, I mapped it out into its story beats, and we wrote it together in one weekend. By the Tuesday, we had David signed on.

KAT: We never usually write that fast. It was the closest thing to ‘flow state’ we’ve ever been in, and we’ve yet to get back into that state since.

Life Goes On is a funny, touching and life affirming film. To what extent do you think that when you’re dealing with death in a film comedy acts as a palatable counterbalance for an audience?

KAT: Life is made up of lightness and darkness, so I genuinely don’t see how you can have one without the other. A film should reflect all those sides of human nature. I think there’s always funny to be found, even in the darkest of settings.

DAN: Plus it makes hard subjects much more accessible – we want to let the audience into the story and make them feel in safe hands – and the best way to do that is to disarm them with laughter.

The film clearly has similarities to films like Groundhog Day, do you think that given the moving into the mainstream of science fiction ideas like time loops it’s easier for audiences to get on board with certain premises now in a way that was perhaps harder in the past?

DAN: Possibly yes. It’s also a really useful shorthand – we only had 19 minutes to tell our story, so for an audience to understand what’s happening and have certain expectations of that, was something we could use in our favour… they can get on board with his journey in a way that feels familiar, but different. We’ve taken a device people know and put it in a setting you would least expect.

KAT: We also hoped it would feel welcoming as a premise – fun, unique and a bit strange, but never alienating. We didn’t want it to feel science-fictiony, just really authentic and grounded which is why we made sure the dialogue and performances were naturalistic. Something weird is happening to him, but it somehow feels normal, and you’re very much with him the whole way.

What was the casting process for the film like?

DAN: Our casting director Francesca Bradley did a fantastic job – without her, this film literally wouldn’t have happened, so we really owe her one. Certain roles were people we’d worked with before and had loved working with, some we hadn’t ever met and everyone was fantastic. Getting Matt Berry involved was a case of right place, right time, being opportunistic and asking the cheeky question.

KAT: We literally only met him ten days before the shoot. People can be really generous when they like a script and believe in it enough to give you a chance. We still actually can’t believe he did it.

What has the reception to the film been like?

DAN: Better than we could have ever imagined, to be honest. We had no idea how this would play – our cast and crew obviously resonated with it, and so did we, but we never thought it would travel beyond the UK.

KAT: Bill says a lot of ‘northern-isms’ that feel very British, for a start. And we didn’t ever try to make it ‘universal’ – we just played it as close to the truth as possible. But in our experience, as long as the emotion is real, people will relate, no matter where they are.

How does the film compare to other films you’ve directed?

DAN: We’ve pretty much always been over-ambitious. We wrote, directed & produced our own Comedy Central digital sketch series a few years back, which we massively pushed ourselves on, but nothing compares to this in terms of scale and ambition. We threw everything we had at it.

KAT: Fairly recently we directed a sketch for Movember, which we’re really proud of, featuring Nick Helm and the music of Celine Dion – it was really silly and dramatic and epic and moving at the same time, and we had people commenting online that they were crying and couldn’t understand why – it made us think hey, maybe we can tell emotional stories – maybe we can be more than just funny.

What future projects have you both got coming up that you can talk about right now?

DAN: We are in the middle of pulling together the cast for our first feature film right now. It’s been an ambition for a long time now, and though we can’t say much about it right now, we’re really excited.

What do you hope that audiences take away from the film when they have seen it?

KAT: In a way I want it to feel like a warm hug for the audience – but before that we want to take them on a bit of a wild ride. A rollercoaster of emotions, but an enjoyable and quite cathartic one.

With thanks to Daniel Audritt and Kat Butterfield. Be sure to check out Life Goes On and you can read my review of it here.