Potting Black

Aim

Potting Black is an original short film set in 1976 Britain about Pauline, a female snooker player in a game dominated by men.

The Story

Pauline, a barmaid within a snooker club in 1976 lives with a secret passion for snooker, a game she is barred from playing at the club she works at. Despite this, Pauline practices every day she works, coming in early to keep her passion a secret from the club members. The club's top player, Steve, is an egotistical misogynist who is treated as a God by the other club members for his achievements. Steve's most loyal advocate, Barry, wishes to improve his poor snooker skills to be just like Steve one day despite the abuse he receives. 

After Steve crosses the line with his disrespectful comments at the idea of female snooker players, Pauline takes the opportunity to confront Steve and bet that she can beat him in a game of snooker. Steve's ego takes over and he agrees, determined that this gamble will prove his superiority in skill and how his comments about women female snooker players are based in fact.

Potting Black is an important story that resonates the real story of Mandy Fisher and the journey she went on as a female snooker player in a male dominated sport. We met with and interviewed Mandy Fisher to understand her experiences and will include this interview in the credits of this film. 

The Team

We are all third year filmmaking students at UWE Bristol currently completing our final major project along with our dissertations. All the hard work and learning we have completed over the past few years will be put to the test on this film. 

Marley Hamilton - Director

As director, I am super excited to make this film. This story is rich with with historical influences and will take the audience on an emotional journey as they see Pauline stand up for herself and make a difference just as Mandy Fisher (someone I have admired for a very long time and then finally got to meet her) did. Because this story is so close to me on a personal level, I feel massive commitment to give this justice and really look forward to all we can achieve with your support. Your donations will help us pull off this ambitious and stunning film that gives a voice to a minority in a male dominated sport.

Samuel Pilsworth - Producer

When Marley fist pitched Potting Black to me, I was blown away at the idea and was immediately committed to making it a reality. I found that hearing the inspiration story that Mandy Fisher told us pushed me further into locking down a full crew to create such a fantastic film. I look forward to seeing the final product and look to you for your support to make this film as fantastic as possible.

Niamh Cassidy - Director of Photographer

I have always had a passion for moving image from composition of shots to lighting and colour and the dynamic movements that build a fantastic cinematic experience. I see my job to not only make this film look amazing but to gel the events and characters together in front of the camera to tell the story. As the director of photography, I can't wait to tell a visually strong and powerful story as I work with the Marley as she directs to create a film we look forward to seeing become a reality. Thanks to the technical skill and creativity of the crew as well as the high quality equipment I will be using, I am sure that we will create an outstanding film both in a narrative sense as well as aurally and visually.

On crew we also have:

Kieran Jones - Editor

Len Robinson - 1st Assistant Director

Evan Roberts - Production Designer/Location Scout

Jack Perry - Gaffer

Niki Kenwick - Costume designer/make-up

Didi Valer - Assistant costume designer

Jass Smrs - Sound Designer

Cosmo Elwes - Assistant Sound Designer

Jana Martakova - Sound Recordist

Ioana Bulai - Assistant Sound Recordist

Frankie Cilla - Colorist

Together, we have put together this story and are extremely passionate about it. Women and snooker are not often two things people think about fitting together. However, this is a part of our history and we want to change people's awareness of women in the sport both in the past as well as today.

The Plan

To make a film, there's a ton of things we need to do.

At the moment we are in the middle of all the hard work as we make final corrections to complete the script, casting actors that fit the characters in the script and general logistics of shooting.             

As soon as we are completely satisfied with the script, it will be passed to Niamh who will begin story boarding and planning how the film will definitely look and Evan will decide on the design of the set as he keeps in mind the year it is set in.

Locations

The location for Potting Black is a huge part of the visual storytelling of this film and is pivotal we get a location that fits within this. This location is also dependent on somewhere with snooker tables that allow for filming to take place. After viewing online (literally hundreds and hundreds) different snooker locations and going in person to a few dozen of these, we finally found a location perfect for this film in the certain of Bristol right under our noses. The snooker tables on the lower level of this building fit right into the feel of this film set in the 70s. There is also a bar right next to the tables which is also perfect for the story.

Filming

When we are done with planning, we will put it all into practice with the filming. Ultimately, on the day we will succeed by all pulling our weight and working together to get everything possible matter sorted out so that filming runs smoothly. This is where our budget becomes extremely important as the money we raise will help make our filming run as smoothly as possible. There would be nothing worse than trying to film a shot and being worried that we haven't got enough money to transport our cast and crew to location or to feed our hard working cast and crew.

All throughout this process we will be producing behind the scenes content too, showing the process we work through to make this film a reality.

How you can help

Any donation, no matter how big or small will really help us in creating this film. If you are able to like and share our social media pages to as many people as possible then this will promote our film and hopefully lead to more people hearing our story.

Rewards

As a team, we want to be able to thank you for a donation that you make. Each donated sum on the right will make you eligible for different awards. These range to things such as access to the film before its festival run to a credit as an executive producer yourself! How exciting!

For regular updates, please see our social media:

Facebook: @pottingblack

Twitter: @Potting_Black

This project successfully funded on 25th March 2020