PATHE PICTURES presents in association with the UK FILM COUNCIL and BBC FILMS a MISSION PICTURES PRODUCTION produced in association with

INSIDE TRACK

A DANNY BOYLE FILMMILLIONS

Alex Etel Lewis McGibbon James Nesbitt

Daisy Donovan

Filmlänge: 98 Min.

Distribution: Presse:

Monopole Pathé Films AG Esther BühlmannNeugasse 6, Postfach, 8031 Zürich Niederdorfstrasse 54, 8001 ZürichTel. 044 277 70 83 FAX 044 277 70 89 Tel. 044 261 08 57monika.billeter@pathefilms.ch mail@estherbuehlmann.ch

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MILLIONSSynopsis

When a railway heist goes wrong, an enormous bag of money falls from the sky into the hands of Damian and Anthony. There's only one thing to do - spend it like there's no tomorrow… because in 12 days' time Britain converts to the Euro and all sterling heads for the incinerator.

But how can an 8 and 10 year-old hope to spend a cool quarter of a million quid in just over a week? Anthony’s plans create a black market in the school playground, while Damian wants to help the poor – if he can find any. Oh, and the train robbers want their money back.

Will they manage to spend the money before it's worthless? Will the school authorities discover what's going on? Or will the robbers get there first?

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Millions Synopsis by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Britain is about to enter the Euro zone. Special secure trains criss-cross the country loaded with old money on its way to the incinerator, and new money on its way to the bank.

Meanwhile, the Cunningham family - Dad (Ronnie) and his two sons, Damian (8) and Anthony (10) - have just moved to a new house. Anthony is very materialistic and is interested in the investment potential of their new home. Damian is very pious and dreams of saints.

One morning, Damian is in his cardboard den - or hermitage as he calls it -down by the railway, when he is almost squashed flat by a huge flying sports bag. This turns out to be full of money. £229, 320. Unfortunately it’s all in sterling so it is only good for another 12 days, when the old currency will become worthless.

Damian is convinced that the money has come from God (who else would have that kind of money?) and that it is some kind of sign or challenge to him to do good. Unfortunately he makes the great mistake of telling Anthony all about it. Anthony understands money a lot better than Damian does. So while Damian goes about trying to find poor people to help with the money, Anthony goes on a spree. At school he buys power, influence, body guards, along with a new Game Boy, SP2, BMX Shogun Nude bike, and ... well the list goes on all the way up to a house, which he tries to buy for his investment portfolio.

During the course of this orgy of spending we realise that the boy’s motherhas recently died and perhaps suss that the extremity of their characters is perhaps a reaction to their bereavement.

As it turns out, it’s just as difficult for Anthony to spend the money on himself as it is for Damian to save the World. The two boys become increasingly frustrated and increasingly conspicuous. They come to the attention of a community policeman, and Damian even goes so far as to try and enlist the help of the lady charity worker who comes to the school collecting small change for WaterAid. Her name is Dorothy.

Anthony stops him just in time. He knows that the money has come from anotorious and well- organised robbery which involved sneaking a man onto one of the money trains and having him discreetly chuck suitcases of cash out at various slow bends along the way.

What he should perhaps have realised is that the original robbers would belooking for their missing money.

It’s not long before Damian’s railway side hermitage comes under the gazeof a terrifying figure, one of the robbers. Anthony manages to put the man off the scent briefly but by the time the school nativity play comes around, the man is on their trail and Damian who is playing St Joseph has to make

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a getaway while the three kings are singing their song. In his place, the real St Joseph miraculously appears in his place to cover Damian’s tracks.

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Damian tries to hide in the old house. But - alone and terrified - he hears someone at the door and screams. It’s his Dad, who has worked out where Damian has gone. And so Dad - to Anthony’s fury - finds out about the money. Even worse, Dad tells Dorothy.

And so Dad, Dorothy and the boys head off to Manchester to change as much of the money as possible. A growing intimacy develops between Damian and Dorothy and between Dorothy and Dad. A new (wealthy) family seems to be forming.

Meanwhile, however, the robber has sussed everything and warns Damian that he will be coming to collect the newly-changed cash late that night. With no choice, Damian agrees to help him, but keeps this from his family and Dorothy.

That night, the family and Dorothy celebrate the arrival of the new money by bringing in all their goods to the living room, and they paper the walls with leftover, now-defunct £10 notes. Damian begins to see that his Dad and Dorothy are starting to fall in love, which only adds to the stress he’s already feeling as a result of the robber’s impending visit.

Later that night, the doorbell rings, waking Damian. A queue of people, all drawn by tales of Damian’s generosity, has formed, and a line of beggars and charity workers snakes from their doorstep right down to the end of the street, all asking for money. While Dad tries to deal with them, Damian creeps away, taking the remaining money down to the railway where he intends to burns it. Unaware that Damian has gone, the burglar creeps into the spare room where he encounters a surprised policeman, who promptly arrests him.

At the railway line, as Damian watches the notes burn, he is visited by his mother. Damian is despondent but she reassures him and gives him some advice for the future. She reveals that she is now a saint, and that Damian was her miracle. As she kisses him goodbye, Damian turns to see that Anthony has been watching. It wasn’t just a vision; Anthony saw her too.

The next day, the family mull over the events of the night before. It turns out that Dorothy, Dad and Anthony have each pocketed a wedge of the new money for themselves. Shamed by Damian’s reproving looks, they pool their resources and discover that they still have quite a bit left. With the money, they invest in charities around the globe - buying a big magical ending for the film.

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mir·a·cle  (m r -k l) n. 1. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is

held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: “Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves” (Katherine Anne Porter).

2. One that excites admiring awe.

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.”Albert Einstein

A USER’S GUIDE TO SAINTS. #1: NICHOLAS OF MYRA (UNKNOWN TO C 246 AD)

The Bishop Of Myra, which is now modern Turkey, Nicholas was a very kind and generous man, most famous for the way in which he helped the needy. This aid could take the form of money, as it when he anonymously gave three bags of gold to a father who was so poor he was about to sell his daughters into prostitution. Perhaps Nicholas’ best-known miracle was the resurrection of three young boys who were murdered, chopped up and pickled in a vat of brine. This led not only to the creation of the Santa Claus legend, but also to his becoming, amongst other things, the patron saint of children, coopers, grooms, mariners, pawnbrokers, poor people, shoe shiners, spinsters and students.

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PART ONE: DIVINE INSPIRATION

As all filmmakers know, there is no such thing as a patron saint of filmmaking – and if there were, their effigies would loom high over every film set across the globe. Indeed, when writer Frank Cottrell Boyce first conceived the idea that would become Millions, he had no idea it would even become a movie at all, much less that it would be the experience of a lifetime.

It grew out of a conversation Cottrell-Boyce had with producer, Graham Broadbent, shortly after the two had collaborated on Michael Winterbottom’s eastern-European conflict drama Welcome to Sarajevo. But although the writer is a father of seven, it was actually Broadbent who suggested that this should be a film about children. “Seeing Frank at home with his own family made me realise how fantastic he was with kids,” says Broadbent. “He encourages their most imaginative view of the world and I sensed this would make for a unique viewpoint. I knew he’d make these characters extraordinary, individual and wonderful, and we finally hit upon the idea of having two children who come across a million pounds from a robbery.”

Cottrell-Boyce, perhaps most famous for his script for Michael Winterbottom’s Manchester music scene comedy 24 Hour Party People, says that Broadbent’s suggestion struck a chord. “I’d always liked the idea of writing a film that my children could enjoy,” he explains.

“As a man with many children, I spend most of my time in the company of people who think they are pirates, or saints, or are suffering some kind of colourful delusion, rather than mixing with filmmakers, so it was quite easy for me to tap into that energy. The characters in Millions are actually quite sane compared to some of my own children! A couple of mine are yet to discover that the Middle Ages is over, so I do spend quite a chunk of my day with people waving cutlasses and wearing helmets”.

The team worked on the script on and off for quite some time, seeing it through various different drafts. “It’s actually impossible to describe how much fun I had writing this script,” says Cottrell Boyce. “It was like coming home. I loved writing about children, I loved the fact that it was set near where I live and I loved the fact that we could create a story about how magical and complicated people really are.”

“We always knew we had a good idea and some wonderful writing,” says Broadbent, “but we probably only had about half of a really good script. About two years ago I had a general meeting with director Danny Boyle. I remember saying to him, that if he was a brave man, he should take a look at it, even though it was by no means ready. He did and he called me within a couple of days and said he really liked it and wanted to talk further.”

Having established himself with edgy, adult movies such as Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and The Beach, Boyle knew this project would be a departure and possibly a risk. But as fate would have it, Boyle was in the precise mood for that challenge. “I’d just made a couple of small films for

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TV in my home town Manchester,” the director explains, “and I wanted to work there again. Graham sent me the script and I thought the idea was absolutely captivating. I was also very keen to work with Frank, who comes from a long line of amazing writers from the North West. He was someone I’d always admired; there’s a combination of warmth and originality in his writing that’s a bit special.”

There was also a more personal reason for Boyle’s interest. “Like Frank, I’ve got kids as well,” he says, “and that was a very big factor. When you have kids you want to do something for them, or event based on them. And my kids are getting quite old, so I thought I’d better get on and make something they could legally watch!”

Even so, he insists that Millions is not quite the departure that some might think. Although the film centres on a robbery, the drama here lies in how the boys react to the money: what they will do with it and whether it truly can ever bring happiness. It was the latter that captured his imagination.

“Some people wouldn’t think so,” he says, “but I do think all of my films are life-affirming in some way. There’s an energy about them, and I am very optimistic like that. The idea that you can have faith in people – and they will then keep faith in someone else – is all you can do, really. And I believe that. But it’s hard to express that without sounding like a total fucking prat! But it’s true. I do believe it and I wanted to make a film about that. Frank and I never talked about it in a specific way, but it was always there in our two personalities.”

The script still needed work – indeed, at that time, it was a period piece set in the 60s - but Boyle kept pushing it forwards and brought out the real essence of the story. “We worked on it relentlessly,” he says, “until the only scene that remains from the original is the central robbery sequence.”

The heist also allowed for more tension in the script, since one of the robbers, a shady Bill Sykes figure known only in the script as ‘Kangol’ (now in the credits as ‘The Poor Man’), is hard on the trail of the missing money. “The minute you see the money arrive, you know that someone’s going to be after it, because that’s the language of cinema,” says Cottrell Boyce. “I wanted the person after it to appear like your worst paranoid nightmare or a little boy’s bogey man – like in Raising Arizona, where the character is after him and you never really know whether he’s dreaming it, because it cuts from dream to reality. I wanted that intense fear that you only experience as a child.”

Although the writing process took around five years from original conception, it was not beset by the usual production difficulties and, unusually for a British movie, had little problem finding funding. “It was quite simple, really,” says producer Andrew Hauptman. “We knew we had a really good script and a world-class director that everyone wanted to work with. A lot of people were waiting for the script to be ready, but we already had a relationship with Pathe, and Francois Ivernel from Pathe was extremely aggressive in his pursuit of the project. He’s a huge fan of Danny. He basically said he’d commit to green-lighting it and true to his word, we sent him the finished script, he read it overnight and the next

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day there was an offer on the table. We’d met with other financiers in between, but really felt Pathe were first pas the post and full of enthusiasm.”

Looking back over the five years, Broadbent is now surprised to see how quickly the project evolved, as if helped along by unseen forces. “Frank and I had worked on many drafts over a three-year period. Frank just kept on writing it and we kept meeting up every few months. Frank even said to a colleague, just after we’d got Danny Boyle interested, ‘Oh this is just our lunch club, we’re never going to make it.’ As we completed the last shot of the film, I went up to Frank and reminded him that it had been quite a lunch club. He burst into tears.”

A USER’S GUIDE TO SAINTS. #2: FRANCIS OF ASSISSI (1181-1226)

A reformed character, Francis Bernardone was a former streetfighter and soldier who converted to Christianity after receiving a message from Christ while serving a prison sentence in Perugia. Francis devoted his life to helping the sick and working with animals, and two years before his death, while meditating in the Apennine Mountains, he developed the signs of the stigmata. The patron saint of families, he also benefits animal welfare societies, ecologists, environmentalists, lace-makers, needle-workers and zoos.

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PART TWO: THE FANTASY THAT BECAME A REALITY

Although it takes place in a very recognisable, not-so-far-away Britain, Frank Cottrell Boyce’s script was unusual in many ways. On the surface, its two lead characters, Damian and Anthony Cunningham (Alex Etel and Lewis McGibbon) are two suburban northern brothers, whose mother has died in tragic circumstances, although we never learn how. Anthony is a regular lad of his age, into Playstation, bikes, Nikes and football game Subbuteo, but Damian is a quieter, more thoughtful boy, visited by visions of saints who help him deal with the problems caused by the stolen money. Clearly, this mystical element needed careful nurturing, and one of Danny Boyle’s earliest comments after reading the script was the need for truly extraordinary children in the lead roles. If the project was going to work, Boyle needed unknowns with movie star quality and charisma.

Casting commenced in September 2002 and the process was extensive. It was always intended that the film would be set in Liverpool and the North West of England, so the search covered children’s agents and children’s drama groups across the whole region as well as schools and open auditions. “We went into a process of what casting directors call ‘kissing frogs’,” says Boyle, “where you have to see thousands of kids before somebody emerges who you hope will be your prince. You can’t go ahead until you’ve got the right kid. Normally you get the greenlight and start the casting, but with a film like this you can’t start until you’ve got the kids. I should add, in this day and age, that I never kissed any of the children.”

The casting team finally came across young actor Lewis McGibbon to play the older boy, Anthony, who has firm ideas about the value of money and how it should be spent. “Lewis’ audition was very strong,” says producer Graham Broadbent, “and you could see he really knew where he was in the role.” Adds Boyle, “He’s a fantastic actor for such a young guy. He had timing, knew what acting was and had crossed the barrier from total innocence to knowing what it was about. I thought that was a great attribute for that particular character because Anthony is someone who has one foot in childhood and the other foot in the modern world.”

Indeed, McGibbon certainly had a handle on Anthony. “The money changes him,” he says. “He’s just a boy, but when his brother finds all the money, Anthony literally takes it over and in the end it takes over the house, really. He recognises how the money changes him and it takes him over. Basically I think he’s quite greedy – he just wants all the money. If I had the money, I’d buy my Mum a villa in Portugal, I’d buy my Dad a really big Jeep, I’d buy my sister whatever she wants and I’d buy myself a big house with a massive widescreen TV and a Playstation and all the Playstation games in the world.”

Damian, however, proved much harder to find, simply because the character is so young. “None of the boys we saw of that age are truly actors yet,” says Boyle, who needed someone who could capture Damian’s innocence, naivety and beatitude. In keeping with the nature of this project, Alex Etel came out of nowhere, a complete novice who was discovered amongst the weekly audition tapes that would arrive in the production office. Boyle instantly loved his look. “I remember when he

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walked into the room, even before he opened his mouth. I had to stop myself from thinking, ‘That’s him.’ But he was the one I wanted from the beginning and I stuck with that.”

Lewis and Alex went through around five auditions before they were finally selected very close to the start of principal photography. “Danny’s instincts paid off” says Broadbent “Alex has the face of an angel and he’s every bit the movie star too.”

Etel himself is not quite the cherub he appears to be on screen. “I think Damian’s a bit of a weirdo,” he says. “He sees saints and things that other people don’t see and spends a lot of time reading and talking about the saints, which I think is very strange.” However, Etel certainly seems to share Damian’s propensity for day-dreaming. “If I had that much money,” he says, “I’d buy a big car and a big house with a swimming pool, which I’d fill with strawberry jelly and a big house boat.”

It says something about the film’s casting that the two boys hit it off instantly and a strong bond has since developed between them, both as actors and otherwise. “Lewis has become like a big brother to me,” says Alex. “We’ve not really had any bad times,” confirms Lewis. “He comes round to mine and we play on the Playstation together and I try to help him out a bit as acting is new to him – he was just picked out of school, so I’ve explained things about filming when he didn’t understand.”

The core cast was rounded out by Jimmy Nesbitt, who plays the boys’ father, Ronnie. “Jimmy is such a communicator,” says Boyle. “I think that goes straight to the audience and he has an immediacy that you believe him and you just want him to talk to you about anything. That seemed perfect for this part.”

When Boyle sent him the script, Nesbitt was rather surprised by its tone. “When I first read it, I was surprised to find it was written by Frank, as I think it’s true to say that some of his previous work has been quite dark. Knowing it came from the minds of Frank and Danny could have led one to believe that this one would be dark too. Instead what they’ve created is magical. Frank has a lot of children, so he’s well placed to write for children and he does it in a magnificently fresh and totally real way. The film is very warm, deeply emotional but isn’t overly sentimental.”

Indeed, it’s a testament to Frank Cottrell Boyce’s screenplay that Ronnie’s character, though poignant, never overshadows the two boys’ story. “Ronnie is dealing with the death of his wife, adapting to being a single Dad and moving on to a new life,” says Nesbitt. “But although Frank doesn’t ignore the tragedy in their situation, he doesn’t tug at your heartstrings or overly play it up. Ronnie has to get on with life and he can’t really stop to think about it too much as he’s too busy getting the boys up and off to school in the morning and being both their mum and their dad. The way he deals with it is often funny and very touching.”

The final piece of this family jigsaw was actress Daisy Donovan, who plays Dorothy, the charity worker who stumbles into their life by accident and somehow never leaves. Again, Boyle decided to follow his instincts. “As

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soon as we started writing her role, Daisy just popped into my head,” he says, “just as Jimmy Nesbitt popped into my head for the part of Ronnie. You should always try and follow those instincts up. For Dorothy, I wanted someone left field who just bounces in with this enormous energy to her, very refreshing and slightly barmy. And of course, Daisy is also a fantastic actress.”

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Cottrell Boyce, was particularly pleased with the casting of Nesbitt and Donovan as the grown-ups of the piece, “I envisaged me as the father character,” he says, “being exasperated, preoccupied and kind of swamped by other people’s fantasies, and I think Jimmy was perfect casting because he can carry it so well with such charm. Daisy was perfect too, because we needed a character who could keep you guessing, so that you don’t know whether she’s good or bad or whether she has her own agenda. As an actress, Daisy’s very mercurial when you watch her in her TV programme, and when we were creating the character of Dorothy we always said she was a kind of Daisy Donovan character, so it was fantastic when we actually got her, because we were using her as the template.”

Donovan was quick to intuit that her character is as much defined by Ronnie and his boys as anything else. “Dorothy’s basically quite lonely,” she says. “She kind of lives the life of a travelling sales woman, except it’s for charity, and when she meets Ronnie she sees a twinkle in his eye and sees the prospect of this little ready-made family of three men – two little ones and a grown up one. Ronnie kind of charms her and she hitches a lift into their life.”

A USER’S GUIDE TO SAINTS. #3: CLARE OF ASSISSI (1194-1253)

After hearing Francis Of Assisi praying in the streets, Clare turned her back on her wealthy upbringing and joined a convent, where she founded The Order Of The Poor Ladies and ran it for 40 years. Clare was selfless in her friendships and would tend to everyone’s needs, no matter how small. Later in life, she would become too weak to attend masses; instead, an image of service would miraculously appear on the wall of her room. As a result, she is considered the patron saint of television, as well as goldsmiths, laundry workers and telephones.

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PART THREE: DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY

The revelation that the money is stolen comes as a bombshell to the impressionable Damian. “I thought it was a miracle,” he laments, “but it was just robbed.” Nevertheless, as well as providing the impetus for the story, the stolen money gave the filmmakers licence to explore the idea of money: what it is, what it represents and what it can really buy.

During pre-production, Broadbent was intrigued by the way children would deal with these questions. “When we were doing the auditions, the casting director asked quite a lot of the kids what they’d do if they had a million pounds,” he recalls. “The responses were amazing. Some had no concept of that amount of money, some said they’d buy ten CDs and others said they’d buy a car, or an island, but very few had any real sense of what that sort of money means.”

Through the two boys, Boyle’s film plays out society’s push-and-pull attitude towards money, to great comic effect. “Damian simply wants to give it away to good causes, charities and poor people,” says Hauptman, “and so he spends his time stuffing huge amounts of money in poor people’s letterboxes or charity boxes. Anthony, being that bit older, is more aware of avarice and greed and what money can really buy.” Neither, however, gets their way. Notes Boyle, “The film shows how difficult it is for both of the boys to achieve their wishes, either to spend it quickly on consumer luxuries or desirables or on the other hand to redistribute it.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, during the pitching stage, Cottrell Boyce found it harder to explain Damian’s attitude to the money than his older brother’s. “To me,” he says, “Damian seems like a perfectly normal child. But I’d have to sit in these script meetings with film executives who wanted me to explain why he was as he was. Loads of kids are like him, they talk to themselves all the time, they’re not quite living in the same world as us and often think they’re a knight, a footballer or a pilot. In this case, Damian just happens to think he’s a saint.”

In creating Anthony, Cottrell Boyce presents an equally motivated child, albeit one from a completely different sphere. But although they seem to be extreme, they are inextricably bound by the loss of their mother and together present an almost complete, tough-to-break unit. “They’ve both got that fantastic thing you have when you’re about eight or ten years of age,” he says, “when you’re at the top end of your school, before you go to big school and you’ve got that feeling of being able to do absolutely anything. Anthony is kind of greedy and wicked, but there’s something very attractive and endearing about his swagger. Damian’s got a similar swagger, but it’s because he thinks he’s the equal of Saint Clare or Saint Nicholas!”

It is this richness of personality that gives Millions its depth. “When you originally describe the script, it could easily sound like some fluffy little British movie that will tug at your heartstrings and then make you giggle,” says Cottrell Boyce. “But Danny has made it so much bigger. He was involved enough to take on all its themes, like the saints, heaven and

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money. The film looks at what money can actually do. The two boys really come to understand what a vast and complicated thing money is and how it completely takes them over and kind of swamps them. What the boys are really wishing for is something that can’t be bought. It’s interesting to have a story that allows you to harness all the excitement of money and all the danger it brings.”

Boyle agrees that this is very much the heart of the film. “I think the spirit of the film is about trying to see if goodness is possible in, not so much a cynical world, but one in which people are very self-protecting,” he says. “Like Britain especially. It was to try and see if it’s possible to make a film about an act of generosity.”

A USER’S GUIDE TO SAINTS. #4: ST ROCH (1295-1327)

Roch was a 14th Century French nobleman who adopted the causes of the poor at al young age and contracted the plague during a pilgramage. Despite effecting several miraculous cures, Roch contracted the disease himself and was nursed back to life by a dog that fed him food stolen from its master’s table. On his return home, he was arrested on espionage charges and, after being tended to by an angel for five years, died in jail. He is, rather surprisingly, the patron saint of dogs, but if you’re a bachelor, diseased cattle, an invalid, a plague sufferer, a surgeon or a tile-maker, he’s definitely worth a prayer or two.

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PART FOUR: THE NORTH – A BRIGHT AND SHINING STAR…

With the breakout success of his directorial debut Shallow Grave and its follow-up, Trainspotting, Danny Boyle proved that British film talent was not simply to be found in a square mile of London’s Soho district. In fact, he identified a thirst for such stories around the UK. “If you look at the films that work with the public here,” he says, “with the exception of Guy Ritchie’s and Richard Curtis’ films they’re usually from outside London. And they’re usually from strong industrial areas. We tend not to watch country films, we tend to watch city films, and I think that’s where the stories are and where the drama is. There’s something much more defined about it. London’s like a snowball, picking up people as it rolls on, and it’s quite difficult to stop it and define something. But I think you can do it in places like Liverpool and Manchester. Just think of Sheffield and The Full Monty.”

And with Millions, he was keen yet again to explore an area of Britain known and inhabited by many yet rarely seen on the screen. Since Cottrell Boyce is from Liverpool and Boyle is from Manchester, they decided to settle on a place in between. “Normally in Britain, we either make films about the upper classes, in period dramas, or we make them about the working classes,” explains Boyle. “But actually the vast majority of people live in places like the one we tried to make this film about, on a new estate. That’s where a lot of people live and I thought that was where the movie should be honed. I didn’t want to set it in Manchester or Liverpool, I wanted it to feel like one of those satellite areas that so many, many, many people live in and are yet ignored. Films usually aren’t made about them. So we went from town to town between Liverpool and Manchester, and finally we found the perfect estate in Widnes.

Now, in British cinema history, the north of England has traditionally been relegated to the status of supporting character in a string of dour, kitchen-sink dramas of the 60s, shot in mournful backed white. But in Millions it comes into its own as a bright, vibrant place, where natural beauty contrasts with sophistication and modernity.

“The challenge was to make the film look full of colour and light,” says Boyle. “It’s easy to slip into a different kind of realism of the north because I think the colour and life are to do with the spirit of the people, because the humour of the people of the north is really special.” Adds Broadbent, “Danny worked very hard in terms of formulating how the film would look. He wanted it to be bright, optimistic and new, portraying an image of Britain going forward.”

To transform the images in his head into moving pictures, Boyle turned to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, with whom he collaborated on the visually groundbreaking 28 Days Later, which was shot on high-definition video. Boyle and Dod Mantle took a similar approach to Millions and constantly convened to discuss fresh ways to photograph the film at every stage.

The fact that the events of Boyle’s film occur in the run-up to Christmas posed something of a problem for Dod Mantle. “It’s kind of schizophrenic

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because it’s a winter film, but we’ve shot in summer doing sixty per cent of the film in exterior day sunshine. We also shot a small percentage of the film in the studio.” Despite frequent light changes on its Liverpool and Manchester locations, Dod Mantle worked hard to create a strategic colour palette for the film, which would enable him to make last-minute tweaks and enhancements in post-production.

But although Boyle and co were keen to give the North its dues, the characters themselves were an integral part of the colour scheme. “We did a lot of tests to choose the colour of the kids’ tops and we visited a lot of schools near where we were filming,” says Boyle. “We went to this one school and I saw this mixture of yellow and blue and I thought that’s just perfect for the film. I knew that Anthony would make it burst into life and it was a great key that our production designer, Mark Tildesley, could use to bounce off.”

But despite this apparent spontaneity, Boyle and Dod Mantle and Boyle had very specific ideas for the characters themselves and the particular worlds in which they live. “For instance,” says Dod Mantle, “Danny and I had aspirations about visual horizons for the father Ronnie as he tries to create a new role and a new life for the boys. Damian’s a more spiritual character and as he encounters the saints I wanted his colours to be more muted and gentle. Anthony is a potential materialist, so I’ve tried to frame him and colour him in a certain way because I feel he’s attracted by bright, violent colours. His eye-line and expression are much more brutal too as he looks towards camera – he looks hard and has his own passport for survival – while Damian is far more gentle and serene as he looks up to the camera. This is a boy who’s searching for something.”

The result is a vibrant, lustrous and even magical film (in the purest sense of the word), quite unlike anything attempted in the north ever before. “The film was not going to be pallid or muted at all,” says Hauptman. “It was going to take risks.”

A USER’S GUIDE TO SAINTS. #5: JOSEPH (1st Century BC – 1st Century AD)

Little is actually known about Jesus Christ’s adoptive father except that he was a carpenter of humble stock. Some reports claim that he was in his eighties when he became betrothed to Mary, although it seems more likely that he was in his early twenties. Nevertheless, Joseph was wise for his years and was respectful of his wife-to-be, even before he knew the child she was bearing, that was not his, was actually the son of God. Joseph is a mysterious character in the Bible, and no words are directly attributed to him. However, he remains a character endowed with great faith because of his willingness to listen to the words of God. And to this end, he extends his patronage to cabinet-makers, confectioners, expectant mothers, house-hunters, married people and unborn children.

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PART FIVE: A WORLD OF WONDER

There’s an old showbusiness tenet that recommends you should never work with children or animals, but then again, that saying basically favours the business rather than the show. Danny Boyle, on the other hand, enjoyed the experience immensely and has nothing but praise for his young stars. “The thing about working with kids is that you learn so much,” he says. “I’ve learnt more as a director working on this film than on anything else. You learn about acting, about presenting stories and you can see those kids grow as they take in information. They’re so hungry for knowledge, even if it sometimes appears they’re bored and want to get back to their Playstations. By the end of the shoot I could see a huge difference in them. We got to a stage where they didn’t need any telling.”

Meanwhile, for cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, the chance to step into a child’s mind offered more of an excuse to rip up the rulebook and experiment. “It’s an excuse to play,” he corrects, “and if you have a director who wants to play too, like Danny, that can be amazing.” Boyle affirms that this was his intention: to make the experience as rich as he could for everyone, and not just the viewer. It’s an old adage that says a happy set makes for a terrible film, but Millions is an exception to that rule. “I wanted it to be an emotional experience,” says Boyle. “I really felt that very, very strongly from early on. I wanted it to be a generous film, in the way that it was made and also in the way that its spirit conveyed itself. A spirit of generosity, which isn’t very fashionable.”

“Danny’s fantastic in two ways,” says producer Graham Broadbent, “he communicates his passion to the crew, meaning that the crew will go way beyond what they’d normally do on a film. But he also puts a huge amount into achieving what he wants, and he was truly amazing to watch with the children. He really knew how to get on their level and to inspire them. He worked really hard to build a relationship with them and he loved them and they loved him.

According to Frank Cottrell Boyce, Boyle came into his own during the scene in which Damian takes part in his school’s nativity play, “Danny sang the Christmas carol Little Donkey to the young extras to get them in the mood,” he says. “He sang it totally off-key, and I hope that wonderful moment will be on the DVD extras, because it’s just extraordinary how off-key he could be and still be breathing! He wasn’t just a bad singer, it was like he was doing the mating call of some other-worldly being!”

Boyle was very much aware of this scenario, and he embraced it. “As a director, sometimes you try and be as big a kid as possible,” he says. “I loved making this film because this time there was a reasonable excuse. Nobody was looking at me thinking, ‘Uh-oh, he’s completely lost it now.’ They thought I just was trying to make the kids feel at home...”

But despite this apparent clowning and not-so-serious behaviour, the film told its makers plenty about the lives and minds of children today – even Dod Mantle, who has a young son of his own. “Look at Alex,” he says. “Here’s a young boy who has obeyed no conventional acting rules,” he explains. “He’s eight years old and a bit of a wild card, so he just stands

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there in front of you and does what he does – which for me is wonderful. I’ve done a lot of documentaries where you’re forced to be spontaneous and in this case, Danny as a director and I as a cinematographer, both wanted to be spontaneous and try to find both a vibrancy and an insight into that irrational world in his little head.”

This was part of Boyle’s plan from the outset. To ensure that the film was an organic experience he invited Cottrell Boyce on set for the whole shoot and encouraged his input. He even cast him as the teacher who organises the school nativity play and tries, with little joy, to direct Damian as St Joseph. “That’s a little scene from Hollywood,” grins Boyle, “struggling with star actors. They say it should be done one way, you think it should be done another, and you have to compromise. “

Cottrell Boyce’s presence created an interesting dynamic. Although he and Boyle have very different views on spiritual matters, they both shared a common objective. Explains Boyle, “It’s a film about faith, but not in a strictly religious sense. Frank remains a practising Catholic, and I’m not, and I think that’s why it has religious overtones but it isn’t actually about religion. Frank didn’t want it to be about religion either because he doesn’t proselytise for it or anything like that, it’s a personal thing. It’s about having faith in people really, rather than ideology or totems.”

Which brings us back to the beginning. Though the film deals with saints, marvels and even miracles, its message says more about the inquisitive and thoughtful minds of our young than the scriptures. “The film was made by a believer and an atheist, and yet the idea of faith is really strong. It’s not necessarily religious,” he says, “it’s just saying if you believe in your dreams they will work for you in the end. And sometimes they really do come through.” Which, fittingly, may just be the story behind this extraordinary production too.

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About The CastJames NesbittRonnie

Nesbitt recently received huge acclaim for his role as civil rights activist Ivan Cooper in Paul Greengrass’ ‘Bloody Sunday’ and won Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards and the Stockholm Film Festival. Other recent film credits include Peter Cattaneo’s ‘Lucky Break’, Dudi Appleton’s ‘The Most Fertile Man in Ireland’, Declan Lowney’s ‘Wild About Harry’, Coky Giedroyc’s ‘Women Talking Dirty’ and Kirk Jones’ ‘Waking Ned’. His other numerous films include Konrad Kay’s ‘Jumpers’, Mike Barker’s ‘The James Gang’, Michael Winterbottom’s ‘Welcome to Sarajevo’, ‘Jude’ and ‘Love Lies Bleeding’, Mary McGuckian’s ‘This is the Sea’, Peter Chelsom’s ‘Hear My Song’ and Marc Evans’ ‘Resurrection Man’.

His theatre credits include ‘Paddywack’ at the Longwharf in the United States, ‘Darwin’s Flood’ at the Bush Theatre in London, ‘Translations’ at the Birmingham Rep, ‘Up on the Roof’ at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, ‘Hamlet’ at the Leicester Haymarket and ‘Una Pooka’ at the Tricycle.

Nesbitt has starred in a number of long-running television series including four series of ‘Cold Feet’ for which he has won Best Comedy TV Actor at the British Comedy Awards, two series of ‘Playing the Field’ and two series of ‘Ballykissangel’. Other television credits include BBC productions of ‘Miller’s Tale’ and ‘Passerby’, ‘Wall of Silence’, ‘Murphy’s Law’, ‘Touching Evil’, ‘Soldier Soldier’, ‘Go Now’ and ‘The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles’.

Daisy DonovanDorothy Trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Donovan is best known in the UK for her Channel 4 television shows 'Daisy Daisy', 'Does Doug Know' and 'The 11 O'Clock Show' in addition to the BBC 1 series 'My Family'.

Her theatre credits include 'The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband' opposite Alison Steadman at the New Ambassador's Theatre in London's West End and 'On The Razzle' at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

A second series of Donovan's 'Daisy Daisy' was recently aired on Channel 4 to fantastic reviews.

Lewis McGibbonAnthony

In the summer of 2000, after attending a number of EuroKids Drama Workshops in Cheshire in the north-west of England, Lewis McGibbon’s talent for improvisation and drama shone through. In September 2000 he appeared as a background artist in ‘Coronation Street’, ‘Merseybeat’.

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In December 2000 Lewis was selected for a lead role in ‘Merseybeat’ as well as modelling for catalogues and appearing as a background artist in ‘Cold Feet’ and ‘Stan the Man’, taking a featured role in ‘Nice Guy Eddie’ as well as appearing in a TV commercial for the ‘Shreddies’ breakfast cereal.

Alex EtelDamian

MILLIONS marks nine-year old Alex Etel’s acting debut.

The extensive search for Damian took director Danny Boyle and his casting team across the NW of England. Following one of many open casting calls Alex Etel was discovered during a casting call for junior boys at his school in Gatley, Cheshire in the north-west of England.

Christopher FulfordThe Poor Man

An accomplished film, TV and theatre actor, Christopher Fulford first collaborated with director Danny Boyle on theatre productions of 'Salonika' (Royal Court Theatre) and 'Two Planks and a Passion' (Greenwich Theatre).

Fulford's extensive TV credits include a number of acclaimed dramas including Alan Clarke's 'Made in Britain', 'Cracker', 'Inspector Morse', 'Scarlet and Black, 'Prime Suspect 6', 'The Sculptress', 'Moll Flanders', 'The Fix', 'Tom Jones', 'Hornblower', 'Spooks', ‘Servants’, ‘Goodbye Mr Chips’ and ‘The Brief’.

Feature film credits include Richard Eyre's 'The Ploughman's Lunch', David Hare's 'Wetherby', Mike Hodges' 'A Prayer for the Dying', Paul Greengrass' 'Resurrected', Bernard Rose’s Immortal Beloved, Bedrooms and Hallways, Jill Gillespie’s ‘De-tox’ and Mike Figgis' 'Hotel'.

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About The FilmmakersDanny Boyle Director

Boyle’s most recent project, the critically acclaimed horror film ’28 Days Later’ has been a huge box office hit both in Europe and the United States. His first feature was ‘Shallow Grave’ for which Boyle won Best Director at the San Sebastian and Dinard Film Festivals. The film also won Best Film at Dinard and the BAFTA Alexander Korda Award for Outstanding British Film. His second feature ‘Trainspotting’ is considered by many to be a milestone in recent British cinema and has become one of the highest grossing British films of all time. Boyle’s other feature films are ‘The Beach’ starring Leonardo di Caprio and ‘A Life Less Ordinary’ starring Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz.

Boyle’s work in television includes as Alan Clark’s controversial ‘Elephant,’ (as Producer), ‘Strumpet’, ‘Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise’ and the series ‘Mr Wroe’s Virgins’ for which he was BAFTA nominated.

Boyle’s career started in the theatre with productions such Howard Barker’s ‘Victory’, Howard Brenton’s ‘The Genius’ and Edward Bond’s ‘Saved’ which won the Time Out Award. Boyle has also directed five productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Feature Filmography – Director

Millions (2004)28 Days Later (2002)Strumpet (TV, 2001)Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise (TV, 2001)The Beach (2000)Alien Love Triangle (short feature, 1998)A Life Less Ordinary (1997)Trainspotting (1996)Shallow Grave (1994)

Frank Cottrell BoyceScreenwriter

Cottrell Boyce’s previous writing credits are ‘Code 46’ starring Tim Robbins, ’24 Hour Party People’, ‘The Claim’ for which he was nominated for a British Independent Film Award, ‘Welcome to Sarajevo’ and ‘Butterfly Kiss’ all directed by his long time collaborator Michael Winterbottom.

Other writing credits include Anand Tucker’s Oscar® nominated ‘Hilary and Jackie’ for which he was BAFTA and Golden Satellite nominated as well as Tucker’s ‘St Ex’, Alex Cox’s ‘The Revengers Tragedy’ and Julien Temple’s ‘Pandaemonium’.

He also devised and wrote the popular children’s comedy cartoon series ‘Captain Star’.

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Andrew HauptmanProducer

Andrew Hauptman is the Chairman and President of Mission Pictures. He has deep experience in all aspects of the entertainment industry: as producer, as executive, and as director of many companies covering the production, distribution and exhibition businesses. His producing credits include ‘Safe Men’ written and directed by John Hamburg, ‘Millions’ directed by Danny Boyle, and John McKay’s ‘Piccadilly Jim’. He has also served as executive producer on a number of other films.

Hauptman previously worked with Universal Studios in London and played a key role in the oversight of its international operations, focusing primarily on the music and filmed entertainment groups. During this period, he worked to oversee the international operations of Universal Music Group, United International Pictures, CIC Home Video, United Cinemas International and Universal Pictures.

Hauptman also serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Andell Holdings, a private investment organization with worldwide interests in numerous sectors. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Dick Clark Productions Inc., Koor Industries Ltd., Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salons and numerous philanthropic organizations. He previously served on the Board of Loews Cineplex Entertainment.

Graham Broadbent Producer

Graham Broadbent was co-founder of Mission pictures with Andrew Hauptman andDamian Jones. Highlights of films Broadbent produced whilst at Missioninclude Danny Boyle's Millions, Peter Hewitt's Thunderpants, and PiccadillyJim, scripted by Julian Fellowes and starring Sam Rockwell, currently inpost-production.

Prior to Mission Broadbent ran Dragon Pictures a production company heestablished with Damian Jones in 1995 in London and Los Angeles. HereBroadbent produced Michael Winterbottom's acclaimed Balkan war drama WelcomeTo Sarajevo, selected for competition at Cannes 1997 and voted in Timemagazine's Top Ten Films of 1997 and by the American National Board ofReview as an 'Outstanding Film of 1997'.

During a prolific five years at Dragon he also produced Michael Radford'sDancing At The Blue Iguana, World Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival,Some Voices, nominated for a BAFTA award for director Simon Cellan Jones.Sara Sugarman's Very Annie Mary, winner of the Sundance 1998 Film MakersAward for Best Script. Gregg Araki's Splendor, World Premiere at SundanceFilm Festival 1999. A Texas Funeral, Premiered at the Venice Film Festival1999 and The Debt Collector.

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Damian Jones Producer

Damian Jones was a co-founder of Dragon and Mission Pictures. He has produced over a dozen films that include ‘Gridlock’d’, ‘Welcome to Sarajevo’, ‘Some Voices’, ‘Splendor’, ‘Dancing at the Blue Iguana’, ‘A Texas Funeral’, ‘Very Annie Mary’, and ‘Thunderpants’. He also executive produced ‘Piccadilly Jim’ for Mission Pictures and is currently producing ‘Alphamale’ with Trudie Styler under his new banner DJ FILMS.

Tracey SeawardCo-producer

After starting her career as a theatrical agent, Tracey Seaward went on to research and production manage a number of documentaries.

Seaward went on to associate produce ‘Separation’ with Rosanna Arquette and David Suchet and to co-produce ‘Widow’s Peak’ starring Mia Farrow, Joan Plowright and Natasha Richardson, Thaddeus O’ Sullivan’s ‘Nothing Personal’ and ‘Serpent’s Kiss’.

Seaward produced ‘Nora’ starring Ewan McGregor and went on to co-produce ‘The Good Thief’ starring Nick Nolte, directed by Neil Jordan.

In 2001 she produced Stephen Frears’ multi award winning ‘Dirty Pretty Things’ for BBC/Celador and Miramax. Seaward’s next project is ‘The Constant Gardener’ for ‘City of God’ director Fernando Mierelles.

Anthony Dod Mantle DFFDirector of Photography

Dod Mantle has collaborated with director Danny Boyle on his previous projects Vacuuming/Strumpet for the BBC and the hugely successful film ’28 Days Later’ for which he won the European Academy Award for Cinematographer of the Year 2003.

He is best known for his contribution to the Dogme filmmakers collective and has worked as cinematographer on three on the most influential films that the movement has produced: Thomas Vinterberg’s ‘Festen’ which won Dod Mantle a Danish Film Academy Award (a ‘Robert’) for best cinematography, ‘Mifune’ which was won the Silver Bear in Berlin and Harmonie Korines ‘Julian Donkey Boy’ for which Dod Mantle was nominated at the Independent Spirit awards.

His latest collaboration with Von Trier is a trilogy beginning with the ground breaking ‘Dogville’, and followed by ‘Manderlay’. Dod Mantle also worked with Vinterberg on his most recent feature ‘It’s all About Love’ for which he won another ‘Robert’.

Other credits include ‘De Største Helte/The Greatest Heroes’ for which Dod Mantle received a Danish Academy Award nomination for Best

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Cinematography and won a Special Prize for Cinematography in Madrid, Lotte Svendson’s ‘Bornholms Stemme/Gone With the Fish’, Caecclia’s Trier’s ‘Nønnerborn/Agnus Dei’ for which he received an Danish Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography,

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Birger Larsen’s ‘Sweethearts’ (Oscar® nominated for Best Foreign short), Niels Gråbols’ ‘Det Store Flip/Wild Flowers’, Lasse Spang Olsen’s ‘Operation Cobra’, Carsten Rudolph’s ‘Menneskedyret/The Beast Within’ which won the Danish Film Academy Award for Best Cinematography and Philip Gröning’s ‘Die Terroristen/The Terrorists’.

Mark TildesleyDesigner

MILLIONS is designer Mark Tildesley’s second collaboration with director Danny Boyle for whom he had previously created the post apocalyptic world of ’28 Days Later’. Tildesley has amongst his other feature credits Roger Michell’s BAFTA nominated production ‘The Mother’, alongside a variety of Michael Winterbottom’s productions including ‘Wonderland’, ‘24hr Party People’, ‘The Claim’ and ‘I Want You’. Tildesley’s other credits include ‘Old New Borrowed Blue’ and Marc Evans’ ‘House of America’ earned him the Welsh BAFTA for Best Design.

He is presently working on ‘City of God’ director Fernando Meirelles’ ‘The Constant Gardener.’

Chris Gill Editor

Gill previously collaborated with Danny Boyle on the feature film ’28 Days Later’ and the television dramas ‘Strumpet’ and ‘Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise’.

Gill has worked extensively in television, his most recent credits including BBC productions of ‘Canterbury Tales’, ‘Cambridge Spies’, ‘Crime and Punishment’ for which he won the RTS Award for Editing. His numerous other credits include BBC productions of ‘All the King’s Men’ and ‘Great Expectations’ for which he was EMMY and RTS Awards nominated, ‘Never Never’ for which he was RTS Award nominated, ‘Touching Evil’ which brought him an RTS Award for Best Editing and ‘Touching Evil II’ for which he was RTS Award nominated and the acclaimed series ‘Cracker’, for which he was RTS Award nominated.

John MurphyComposer

As well as collaborating with Director Danny Boyle on ‘28 Days Later’, ‘Vacuuming Nude in Paradise’ and ‘Strumpet’ composer John Murphy has a wealth of experience composing for films as varied as: John Crowley’s ‘Intermission’, Michael Caton-Jones’ ‘City by the Sea’, Guy Ritchie’s ‘Snatch’ and ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smokin’ Barrels’, Stephen Frears’ ‘Liam’ and Gary Sinyor’s ‘Friday after Next.’

John Murphy became a session musician at age 15 and made his film debut with ‘Leon the Pig Farmer’ at age 23 since when he has become one of Britain’s most prominent film composers.

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Susannah BuxtonCostume Designer

Buxton previously collaborated with Danny Boyle on ‘Alien Love Triangle’, ‘Vacuuming Strumpet’ and ‘Mr. Wroe’s Virgins’ for which she won a BAFTA. Her numerous other film credits include Metin Huseyin’s ‘Anita and Me’ and ‘It Was an Accident’, Patrick Harkins’ 'The Final Curtain’, Harry Hook’s ‘All For Love’, Phil Agland’s ‘The Woodlanders’, Brian Trenchard Smith’s ‘Britannic’, Imogen Kimmel’s ‘Secret Society’, Richard Spence’s ‘Different for Girls’, Suri Krishnamma’s ‘O Mary this London’, Caroline Roboh’s ‘Gare au Male’, Don Boyd’s ‘Twenty-One’, Mai Zetterling’s ‘Scrubbers’, Chris Petit’s ‘Radio On’ and Franco Rosso’s ‘Nature of the Beast’.

For television, Buxton has worked on BBC productions of ‘Tipping the Velvet’, ‘Shooting the Past’ for which she won the 1999 RTS Award for Best Costume Design, ‘Nature Boy’, ‘Murder in Mind’ and ‘A Tour of the Western Isles’. Other television credits include Channel 4’s ‘Second Generation’ and ‘The Investigator’, LWT productions of ‘Blonde Bombshell’, ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Jane Eyre’ as well as productions of ‘The Turnaround’, ‘Adrian Noble’s Shakespeare Workshop’ and ‘Common as Muck’.

RoseAnn SamuelMake-Up/Hair Designer

Samuel's numerous feature film credits include Julian Fellowes ‘A WayThrough The Woods’, Paul Morrison's 'Wondrous Oblivion', John McKay's 'Crush' and 'Metroland', Marleen Gorris' 'The Luzhin Defense', Nigel Cole's 'Saving Grace', Ben Hopkins' 'Simon Magus', Chris Menges' 'The Lost Son',Willard Carroll's 'Tom's Midnight Garden', Jeremy Thomas' 'All the Little Animals' and David Blair’s 'Tabloid'

Her television credits include Nick Renton’s ‘Uncle Adolf’, Ben Ross' 'RKO 281' for which she was nominated for an Emmy for Best Hair Design, Patrick Lau's 'The Fragile Heart,' 'Danielle Cable', 'The Project', 'Swiss Family Robinson', 'The Turn of the Screw', 'Agatha Christie's 'Poirot'-1930s' for which Samuel won the BAFTA Award for Best Make-Up and Hair Design, and 'A Village Affair’.

Mission Pictures Production Company

Mission Pictures is the film production company created by Andrew Hauptman in 2001. The company has a presence both in Los Angeles and London with the goal of producing high-quality features for a worldwide audience. It moved its headquarters to Los Angeles in a restructuring last year and has since become one of the more active independents in the marketplace.

Mission’s productions to date include Peter Hewitt’s THUNDERPANTS for Pathe,

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Danny Boyle’s MILLIONS, to be released this fall by Fox Searchlight, and John McKay’s PICCADILLY JIM (starring Sam Rockwell and written by Julian Fellowes), which is currently in post-production. The company has a significant slate that is being developed.

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Mission Pictures is managed by Andrew Hauptman and his senior executive team led by Tracy Falco and Bret Magpiong.

Tracy Falco, Senior Vice President of Development and Production, is involved, alongside Hauptman, in the oversight, development and production of all of Mission’s projects. Falco joined Mission following six years with Ted Demme’s Spanky Pictures where she worked on a slate of films that included BLOW, A LESSON BEFORE DYING and ROUNDERS. Prior to that she worked with Richard Lovett at CAA. She has also been a contributing editor to JANE magazine since 1997.

Bret Magpiong currently serves as Senior Vice President and Head of Business. Bret previously worked for Haim Saban’s Saban Capital Group, Sid Sheinberg’s The Bubble Factory, and the Entertainment Group at Price Waterhouse Coopers.

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SHORT CREDITS

Director: Danny Boyle

Producers: Andrew Hauptman Graham BroadbentDamian Jones

Writer: Frank Cottrell Boyce

Co-Producer: Tracey Seaward

Executive Producers: Francois IvernelCameron McCrackenDuncan ReidDavid M. Thompson

Director of Photography: Anthony Dod Mantle

Production Designer: Mark Tildesley

Editor: Chris Gill

Music By: John Murphy

Costume Designer: Susannah Buxton

Make-Up/Hair Designer: Roseann Samuel

Casting Directors: Gail Stevens CGDBeverley Keogh

For: Annie Teresa MeheranAnd Patrick Francis Boyle

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END ROLLER

Damian Alex EtelAnthony Lewis McGibbonRonnie James NesbittDorothy Daisy DonovanThe Poor Man Christopher FulfordCommunity Policeman Pearce QuigleyMum Jane HogarthSt Peter Alun ArmstrongSt Francis Enzo CilentiSt Joseph Nasser MemarziaSt Clare Kathryn PogsonSt Nicholas Harry KirkhamGonzaga Cornelius MacarthyAmbrosio Kolade AgbokeLeslie Phillips Leslie PhillipsEstate Agent James QuinnHeadteacher Mark ChattertonDamian's Teacher Toby WaltonNativity Teacher Frank Cottrell BoyceSurveyor Christy CullenEli Gunnar WinberghJerome Christian PedersenAll Saint 3 Guy FlanaganTricia Philippa HowarthKeegan Billy HylandGraham John NugentTerry Steve GartiMaria Alice GriceFairclough Dale StringerSweet Shop Owner Warren DonnellyBig Issue Seller 1 Emily AstonBig Issue Seller 2 Denny James SmithScruffy Young Man Nicky EvansCashier 1 Bina PatelCashier 2 Lisa MillettPizza Hut Waiter Neville SkellyBright Eyed Young Man Daniel WeymanApplicant 2 Tara MoranYoung Santa Woman Jo Hicks

1st Assistant Director Richard Styles2nd Assistant Director Carlos FidelProduction Manager Lisa ParkerProduction Co-Ordinator Kate PenlingtonAssistant Production Jaynie MillerCo-OrdinatorProducer's Assistant Asha RadwanProduction Assistants Nina Boardman

Gail Burland

Production Accountant Louise O'Malley

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Assistant Accountant Kerry SmithAccounts Trainees Lisa Symonds

Joanne Bendon

Focus Puller Simon TindallClapper Loader Chris ConnattyCamera Trainee/ Matilda Smith2nd Unit Loader Grip John Rundle2nd Grip Mark JonesCCTV Operator Alan GrantCamera Car Driver Haggis Bryson

Script Supervisor Zoe Morgan

Standby Rigger Lee HowarthStandby Carpenter Peter Johnson

Sound Mixer Dennis CartwrightBoom Operator Chris Cartwright

Supervising Art Director Mark DigbySet Decorator Michelle DayArt Director Denis SchneggAssistant Art Director Charlie CobbStandby Art Director Chris Lightburn-JonesStandby Props Arwell EvansAssistant Prop Buyer Kate ThomasDraughtsman Rod GorwoodArt Department Assist Kathryn PyleScenic Artists Whetton & GroschModel Makers Angela Day

Sharon Kaye

Assistant Costume Designer Caroline McCallStandby Costume Vikki IllingCostume Maker Maggie ScobbieAssistant Costume Maker Sharon Waldron

Make-Up Assistant Kerry ScourfieldMake-Up Hair Trainee Lisa Parkinson

Children's Drama Coach David Johnson

3rd Assistant Director Caroline ChapmanFloor Runner Helen ListerAd/Drivers Scott Davenport

Paul SmithCrowd Assistant Directors Shanna Baynard

Tom Gabutt

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Location Manager Beverley LambUnit Managers Michael Harm

Kevin JacksonLocation Assistants Anna Lee

James Heyworth-ReesLocation Scout David Myatt

Gaffer Thomas NeiveltBest Boy Andy ColeGenny Operator Wayne MansellElectricians John Welsh

Alan GloverSteve GartsideTerry MooreRobert McGregorMike GibsonDarren FoleyCharles SmithPaul DevlinIan RiceGary Donoghue

Prop Master Nick ThomasStoreman Charlie MalikProps 'Runaround' Butch ScottDressing Props Adrian Platt

Tony AsijeKevin DeeBrian HenryIan CantwellRod WhitingSam PietersDave TimmonsDave BryanDuane Marshall

Construction Manager Steve BranchCarpenters Anthony O'Hara

Anthony BradyCyril JacksonGareth JenkinsPaul YarwoodRalph Dronsfield

Painters John ElsworthPhil Henshaw

1st Assistant Editor Mark Eckersley2nd Assistant Editor Ali Awad

Post Production Supervisor Alistair HopkinsPost Production Accountant Tarn HarperPost Production Assistant Seb LodenSupervising Sound Editor Glenn Freemantle

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Sound Effects Editor Tom SayersDialogue Editor Gillian DoddersADR Mixer Paul Carr

Robert FarrAdditional ADR Mixer Mike StewartFoley Editor Philip BothamleyFoley Artist Jason Swanscott

Paula BoramFoley Recording Mixer Kevin TaylerMusic Editor Hugo AdamsADR Crowd Recording Mixer Sandy BuchananAssistant Sound Editor Susan FrenchRe-recording Mixers Graham Daniel

Adam Daniel

Visual Effects Supervisor Peter Bach

Special Effects Richard Conway SFX :Richard Conway and Nigel WilliamsonMark White

Emergency House :Evan Green-HughesSteve BreheneyMick JacksonDave ChadwickSteve Kane

Stunt Coordinator Julian SpencerStunts Andy Smart

Maurice LeeDerek LeaRay NicholasGuy ListLyndon Stuart HellewellPaul Lowe

Casting Associate Maureen Duff CGDCasting Assistant Claire Saunders

Publicity DDA Public Relations LtdUnit Publicist Julia FinnStills Photographer Giles KeyteEPK Feasible Films

Unit Nurse Paul KennyConstruction Nurse Peter Kemp

Transport Coordinator Keith WignallUnit Drivers Robert Dutton

Mike RenshawMinibus Drivers Arthur Kearley

Paul Fox

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Catering Little Red Courgette:Debbie NightingaleGrace LoweIan ColganDanny HussainMark Attwood

Facilities BTFSFacilities Transport Captain Martin LucasGenny Driver Stan SmithProduction Office Driver Jack EvansCostume Truck Driver Mark OxleySet Tutor Karen CarrChaperones Nikki Etel

Clare McGibbonBob EtelPaul RickettsLynn ShackladySusan DaviesWendy WalkerTrevor Barker

MODEL & ANIMATION UNIT

Model Unit DOP Marcus RobinsonCamera Assistant Beth MacDonaldAnimatronics and AnimationModels by Neal Scanlan StudiosCreative Supervisor Neal ScanlanModel Unit Assistant Pete WoodheadAssistant Director Ellena HarrisModel Maker Assistants Vincent Abbott

Terry JonesDaniel BurnettRobin EllisSam NicholsonMark GodderidgeRobert SkidmoreIvan ManzellaDavid DarbyReza Karim

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY

2nd Unit Director Mark Tildesley2nd Unit Director of Photography Daf Hobson BSCAdditional Director of Photography Brian Tufano BSC

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1st Assistant Directors Martin O'MalleyAlex StreeterLuke JohnstonMike Elliot

2nd Assistant Director Anthony Wilcox3rd Assistant Directors Steve Murphy

Nathan JukesChris Stoaling

Floor Runner Eran Creevy

Location Manager - Newcastle Neal Hirst

Camera Operators Nigel Walters BSCJeremy GeeTom Townend

Focus Pullers Richard BevanJason Olive

Dave HedgesSteve LawsCraig Feather

Clapper Loaders Ben AppletonStuart ChapmanMark DempseyFrancoise Higson

Steadicam Paul EdwardsDave CareyJohn Hembrough

Camera Trainees James KendallHannah Whiteoak

Assistant Grip Marcus MoodyDan Gadd

Gaffer Chris DowlingSoundMixer Stuart WilsonBoom Operators Tristan Anika

Jonathan SealeElectricians John Atwood

Mark ThomasGary HedgesDanny Espey

Script Supervisor Polly Hope

FOR PATHE PICTURES

Head of Physical Production Susanna WyattLegal and Business Affairs Pierre du PlessisFinancial Director Simon FawcettHead of International Sales Alison Thompson

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FOR INGENIOUS FILMS

Physical Production Paula JalfonAccounting John JaggonLegal Alison Brister

Sale and Leaseback Financing for Ingenious Films: Peter Touche Lesley Wise

FOR BBC FILMS

Production Executive Michael WoodBusiness Affairs Isabel BeggHead of Rights & Commercial Affairs Jane Wright

FOR MISSION PICTURES

Head of Business Keren MisgavUK Head of Development Sophie MeyerDevelopment Executive Ed RubinAssociate Producer Katie Goodson

Special Visual Effects and Animation CLEARVisual Effects Exec Producer Greg CaplanVisual Effects Co-Ordinator Moriah SparksVisual Effects Producer Steve Garrad2D Lead Operator Adam Gascoyne2D Operators Melissa Butler-Adams

Simon HughesGrant McKeanJim Parsons

Flame Operator Simon HuhtalaSmoke Operator Aleks Ugarow3D Lead Animator Ollie Nash3D Operators Josh George

Adrian RussellEngineer Chris EbornTitle Design Jonathan HicksDigital Film Mastering by The Moving Picture CompanyHead of Production Michael ElsonProducers Matthew Bristowe

Begoña LopezColourist Jean-Clement SoretOnline Film Editors Dickie Etchells

Tommy UrbyeFilm Scanning Kennedy Dawson

John CoulterMelissa Agate

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Film Recording Paul StockerRicky GausisLester ParkerJosh SutcliffeLeila SmithRohan ClaassanPhilippa Leathers

Cutting Rooms De Lane LeaR-recorded at Shepperton Studios

Deluxe Laboratory contact Clive NoakesStills Processing BlowupSound Editing ReelsoundNeg Cutters Cutting EdgeRushes Syncing Sprockets and BytesEditing Equipment London Editing Machines LtdTelecine Arion Communications LtdSound Transfer Syncspeed Post ProductionPost Production Script FattsInsurance Provided by Aon / Albert G.Ruben

Kevin O'SheaCompletion Bond Film Finances Inc.Legal services provided by Olswang:

Mark DevereuxCharles MooreCharlotte Price

Clearances & Product Placement Bellwood Media Ltd.Health & Safety Production Safety Services Ltd –

Clem LeneghanSecurity Step-Up Security Services

K&T SecurityPayroll Axium Ltd

Music Supervisor Karen ElliotMusic mixed at Chaos Studios and Scream StudiosScore Mixed and Produced by Doug TrantowScore Orchestrated by Steve BernsteinScore Conducted by Adam SternScore Contractor Simon JamesScore Performed by The Seattle Symphony OrchestraOrchestral Score Recorded by Reed RuddyVocals by Northwest BoychoirChoir Conductor Joseph CrnkoRussian Choir Murfski, Trantovski and DamionScore Recorded at Studio X, Seattle

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“Hitsville UK”Written by Joe Strummer & Mick JonesPerformed by The ClashCourtesy of Sony Music Entertainment (UK) LtdPublished by Nineden Ltd administered by Universal Music Publishing Ltd

“Hysteria”Music by Matthew Bellamy, Dominic Howard andChris Wolstenholme. Lyrics by Matthew BellamyPerformed by MuseProduced by Rich Costey and MuseEngineered by Rich Costey and Walley GagelCourtesy of Warner Strategic Marketing UK(P) & (C ) Taste Media Ltd 2003Published by Taste Music Ltd

La Petite Fille de la Mer”Written by VangelisPerformed by VangelisCourtesy of Polydor LtdLicensed by kind permission from The Universal Film & TVLicensing DivisionPublished by EMI Music Publishing Ltd

“Brazil”Written by Aro BarrosaPeformed by S-ExpressLicensed courtesy of BMG UK & Ireland Ltd© 1939 by Irmaos Vitale, Brazil© 1939 by Southern Music Publishing Co. Inc. NY© assigned 1942 to Peer International Corporation, NY

“Deck the Halls”Performed by The Northwest ChoirArranged by Joseph Crnko

“Nirvana”Written by Rojotua and LoxatusPerformed by El BoscoLicensed courtesy of EMI Records LtdPublished by EMI Music Publishing Ltd

“Blackout”Music by Matthew Bellamy, Dominic Howard andChris Wolstenholme. Lyrics by Matthew BellamyPerformed by MuseProduced by Paul Reeve, John Cornfield and MuseEngineered by John CornfieldCourtesy of Warner Strategic Marketing UK(P) & (C ) Taste Media Ltd 2003Published by Taste Music Ltd

“Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”

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Written by Keith Strachan and Matthew StrachanCourtesy of Lusam Music LtdPublished by Lusam Music LtdClips courtesy of Celador Productions

“Happy Birthday”Written by Patty and Mildred HillPublished by EMI Music Publishing Ltd

“Carol of the Bellls”Performed by The Northwest ChoirArranged by Joseph Crnko

“Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”Clips courtesy of Celador Productions Ltd

THANKS TO

Liverpool City Council; Liverpool Film Office, Widnes East Lancashire Railway; English Welsh & Scottish Railway; Network Rail; North West Vision Manchester Film Office; Halton Borough Council; Sefton Leisure Services, Coast & Countryside; The Residents of Liverpool & Widnes; Jack Spriggs; David Henshawe; Colin McKeown; Sheila Brown; Russell Allen; Philip Cooper, Sinead Moran, Three Mills Studio, Selfridges, Lasenza.com; Iwantoneofthose.com, and Tommy Mcran.

SPECIAL THANKS TOGraham Easton, Sue Greenleaves, Eric Seaward, Simon Dicketts, Ditton Primary School, Charlotte Cottrell MA Water Aid, Friberg Fine Art, Inc. and Arnold FribergJennifer Gill and Amy GillJohn Tempero

With love and thanks Steve BranchMay 1957 to December 2003

Filmed on Location in Liverpool, Manchester & Widnes

Camera, Grip & Lighting Equipment Supplied byARRI MEDIA

ARRI LIGHTNINGFUJIKODAKCOLOR BY DELUXEDOLBY DIGITAL

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The characters and incidents portrayed and the names herein are fictitious and any similarity to the name, character or history of any actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

World revenues collected and distributed by Freeway CAM B.V.

Pathé International – International Sales Agent

Developed with the assistance of the National Lottery through the UK Film Council Development Fund and with the support of the MEDIA Programme of the European Community

supported by the National Lottery through the UK Film CouncilPathé Logo, BBC Logo,UK Film Council Logo, Inside Track LogoMission Pictures Logo, MEDIA logo

Produced by Inside Track 1 LLP on behalf of PathéA Mission Pictures ProductionFor Pathé Pictures and Inside Track© Mission Pictures Limited 2004

Distributed by Pathé

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