Hot Wee Wee Directing Duo on Pursuing Dark Humour in Iceland

Following success at festivals with their short Urinal Cakes, the cheekily-named duo went on to make another dark comedy thriller that won a Rising Star award at the Edinburgh Short Film Festival last year.

How long have you been a directing duo and when did each of you decide to be directors?

Joe: We’ve been directing together since we were about 15. Before that I’d been writing stories – mainly dragon-based fantasies.

Charlie: As teenagers we started getting into classics by Scorsese and Tarantino. Those films are so accessible that we thought, let’s give it a go, and we started making camcorder films.

What is it about directing that you enjoy?

Charlie: Getting a huge team of people on board with something derived completely from your imagination is so exciting.

Joe: Working with actors and crew; discovering new things about the story and characters.

How did the name Hot Wee Wee come about?

Charlie: It’s the name of the production company we made when we were kids. Our YouTube channel was called Hotwee-weepicturesUK, like there was a US branch!

Joe: It’s named after a character in [noughties UK TV series] The Mighty Boosh – Hot Wee-Wee Jefferson. We really like it; not many other people do.

How did this short come about?

Joe: We felt ready to attempt stuff we’d always wanted to before – get a gun in there, maybe a horse. Duke’s Pursuit was the result of trying to attempt genre cinema in short form.

What inspires you both?

Charlie: Each other. We’ve been mates since we were five and can chat about ideas for hours.

Why did you shoot in Iceland and how was it filming there?

Joe: Our Icelandic co-producer and production designer, Bóas Arnarson, convinced us – quite easily – that the Icelandic landscape would be the perfect backdrop for a modern(ish) Western.

Charlie: It was awesome! We were so lucky that Bóas made filming in Iceland a reality.

What were the biggest challenges in bringing this film to life?

Joe: Scheduling so that we could get everyone we wanted in another country at the same time.

Charlie: The weather! It was freezing and very windy. I thought that keeping people motivated in those conditions would be tricky, but the whole cast and crew were amazing.

What lessons did you learn while filming?

Joe: I learnt to respect timekeeping and that keeping people well-fed and warm and happy is one of the most important things on set.

What qualities were you looking for in your protagonist?

Charlie: We wanted to create a character who is a force of nature, who has almost cartoon character-like abilities, who’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. We were inspired by Robert De Niro in Cape Fear and Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast – both are just so catatonically angry, which makes such watchable cinema.

What is it about the dark comedy/thriller genre that appeals to you?

Joe: Snappy dialogue and stylised violence.

“We took huge inspiration from the Robert De Niro character in Cape Fear and Ben Kingsley’s character in Sexy Beast, both of them are just so catatonically angry… ”

What was it like to win the Edinburgh short film festival 2016 Rising Star award?

Charlie: It was fantastic. The short films played were brilliantly curated by the team there.

What are you working on at the moment?

Joe: Our next project is a 70s-set horror short called Original Villain. It’s about two priests who are summoned to a country house to perform an exorcism. It’s gonna be really atmospheric and very, very scary. We’ve actually just made the shortlist for The Pitch – a film grant run by Pinewood studios.