Scrapper Interview: Charlotte Regan – ‘The child-like perspective gave us licence to go a bit mad with it’.

After crafting a string of shorts and music videos, writer and director Charlotte Regan presents her debut feature Scrapper, bringing colour, humour, and vibrancy to a street-smart working class tale. Georgie (Lola Campbell) is a 12 year old girl grieving the tragic loss of her mum to an illness. Fending for herself, she and her partner in crime Ali (Alin Uzun) steal and sell bikes to make ends meet in their East London council estate. Before long, her estranged father Jason (Harris Dickinson) turns up on the scene and the pair slowly begin to form a connection. I was fortunate enough to sit down with Charlotte Regan to discuss the film…

The film has such a vibrant colour palette that really cuts through the sadness of the story. Can you tell us a little about the visual style of the film?

This idea came from always wanting to tell a working class story that didn’t have to be desaturated, grey, and depressed. Everything we did was based on that and the child-like perspective gave us licence to go a bit mad with it. We painted the houses so that even if it was pouring with rain the film would have a bit of pop to it. I was obsessed with The Florida Project and I think the colours of the motel did a lot for the happiness levels in that film. It was the same with the costumes too. If the weather was grim and we couldn’t make it look like a summer holiday, we wanted to drag it out of that cliché of the British working class film.

I know you’ve made a lot of shorts and music videos previously. What was the biggest challenge around doing your first feature?

I think the need for stamina, in the editing particularly, to rediscover energy and love for a story that you’re struggling with at times. The edit was proper Lord of the Rings vibes so the challenge was to keep looking at it fresh!

Did you have any key influences or artistic inspirations that you drew from the create the tone of the film?

I love the tone of some of Taika Waititi’s films and how he can deal with heavy subjects but isn’t afraid to mess with how those stories are told. He can experiment and even if some of those experiments are a little flawed, he takes risks. There were other things like Paris, Texas or Paper Moon or Shane Meadows’ work with young people. My DP Molly (Manning Walker) and I have always made music videos so I think style-wise we referenced music videos a lot of the time too.

You strike a lovely balance between the comedic elements of the film and the melancholy of the story. Was this tricky to pull off?

I think this was probably trickiest for the editors because it’s easier to think something will work in a script, but until you get to the edit, you’re not sure if you’ve gone too far one way or the other so it’s a constant battle. It still feels like that now because it can’t all be perfect and some of its dodgy, but me and my producer Theo (Barrowclough) always said we’d rather make a flawed film that took risks than to play it safe.

What was the biggest lesson you learned during the process?

Just how bloody long an edit is I guess! In some ways I find short films harder and it’s a weirder art form because you’ve got so little time to make people connect. If they don’t grab my attention within a minute, I’ll turn it off which I know is terrible, but features get a lot more time! I think I also learned the importance of the combination of people involved!

Harris Dickinson is going from strength to strength of late with his roles in Triangle of Sadness and Where the Crawdads Sing recently. What was it like to have him on set? I can imagine Lola Campbell would’ve got a lot out of working so closely with him…

Harris is incredibly selfless and did so much to support Lola and Alin! I think he taught Lola some bad habits too though because I remember in rehearsals we had a week and a half and I’d give them scenes to learn and come back and they hadn’t learnt anything because they’d been climbing a tree or throwing stones at a bottle for an hour. She would say ‘don’t worry, I’ll do it on the day’ and she stresses she didn’t take that from Harris but I’m pretty sure she did! But he’s incredible. He’s obviously an amazing actor but he also cares so much about the scene as a whole. He’s very much a storyteller in that regard and doesn’t go in just thinking about his performance.

What does it mean to you to have this film screen at Edinburgh International Film Festival?

It’s amazing! I was part of the lab ages ago and I met so many people that I’m still in touch with and I just love this place. I lived here for almost a year doing an Apple TV show so loads of my friends are local now. It’s so good to be part of the festival and outdoors too if the weather holds up later!

What was the Apple show you were working on?

It’s called The Buccaneers and it’s coming out pretty soon I think!

Apple are really killing it at the moment – every show they release has been brilliant…

I can’t lie, I don’t actually have a subscription. I thought we’d get one for free after doing the show but I think that email must be stuck in drafts! [laughs]