Cast

Derek Jacobi (playing Victor Kenyon)
Respected British actor from 'I, Claudius' (1977) and 'Cadfael' (1995-99), recently played the valet in 'Gosford Park' (2001) and the rebellious senator in 'Gladiator' (2000).

Kriss Dosanjh (playing Vijay)
Well known for his role as Poppa Khalid in the hit film 'East is East' (1999) and 'Felicia's Journey' (1999). Formerly in tv soaps Emmerdale and EastEnders, he is currently in the new BBC series River City (2002).

Billy Fane (playing Trevor)
North East actor who rose to prominence in 'Billy Elliot' (2000) playing Mr Braithwaite the piano player, also in 'Purely Belter' (1999).

Jane Wall (playing Jasmine)
Starred for three years as PC Di Worrell in the TV series 'The Bill'. Also appeared in 'A Touch of Frost' and 'All Quiet on the Preston Front'.

Steve Varden (playing Sandy Kenyon)
First starring role. Disabled actor with cerebral palsy, studied at the Coventry School of Performing Arts and has appeared in street theatre and motivational workshops. Flies his own stunts in the film.

Boo Pearce (playing Lucy)
A young actress from the National Youth Theatre, who has also appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe. She toured extensively with the British Touring Shakespeare Company in 'As You Like It' and 'Twelfth Night'.

Fuman Dar (playing the Surgeon)
Recently seen as A'Ma in the film 'Bad Company' (2002) opposite Anthony Hopkins and played Rez in the film 'Asylum' (2001). Famous as Hi Ho from LWT's 'London's Burning', also appeared in Holby City.

Sarah Beauvoisin (playing Trevor's daughter Irene)
An actress with impaired hearing, who has appeared in several tv productions including Channel 4's 'The Vibe' and BBC2's 'Boom Boom Clap'.

Graham Cowley (playing Cameron)
Took the role of Cameron after stumbling across the film crew in the Lake District. The bad guy in several movies in his new base of San Francisco.

Rosalind Blessed (playing Linda)
Lead role, stage version of 'Letters Home - A life of Sylvia Plath' and Polly in 'Unsex Me Here'. Appeared in tv's 'Shim Sham' and 'The Fat Project'.

Cast and crew alike run for their lives as the hailstorm unleashes its fury on top of the windswept peak, seeking safety in the 4x4 vehicles. In the tradition of Don Quixote, I continue filming for the behind-the-scenes documentary, which might be the only footage we actually get up here. Rosalind Blessed (Brian's daughter) must leave NOW to get back to London, even though we still don't have the shot, and the half dozen disabled actors are looking terrified. I was beginning to realise why there were not many examples of features being shot in England's spectacular Lake District - it's very wet; it takes hours to get anywhere; and it closes at 8pm. Having said that, when we needed good weather for the flying sequences, we got them, despite it being one of the wettest Junes on record.

Dropping off the first set of rushes at the lab around 1am, the despatch guy eyed me suspiciously. "Are you from Cloud Cuckoo Land?" he asked.
Right, on so many levels.

Coming from an adventure tv background, Matt Dickinson and I wanted to bring some of this action into features. But for our first film, everything seemed so daunting in order to make it different. Cessna aircraft, Royal Navy helicopters, micro-lights, hang gliders, jeeps, peat bogs, scrap yards, caravan sites, airport runways, disabled cast - all to be covered by bulky 35mm anamorphic equipment! And the opening sequence was to be a mid-air crash in the 1970's. Surely it was make believe.
The original screenplay for 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' had been co-written by Matt (also a best-selling novelist) and cerebral palsy sufferer Steve Varden. But for such an unusual drama, featuring Steve himself in the main role, we needed people to take risks and support us. Now was the time to go beyond 'My Left Foot' and 'The Theory of Flight' and NOT cast an able-bodied actor to play a character with a disability. Encouraged by the positive reaction to the script, we formed a PLC and set our fundraising period to start on September 13th. Perfect! Two days after September 11th we were asking people to invest in a feature film which was mainly concerned with flying!

Our main problem seemed to be convincing people that Steve could act, so we gathered together a willing crew over a February weekend and shot some test scenes. The resulting 6 minutes of cut material were phenomenal. We attracted 31 brave investors, along with support from Joe Dunton, Arri Lighting, Goldhawk Media and Random Post.

But the real breakthrough was getting a big name. Having read the script and viewed the test scenes, Derek Jacobi responded within 48 hours saying that he would give us two weeks of his time in the summer. Other roles were quickly filled but the strangest piece to fall in place was during filming in the Lakes when one of the crew recognised a face from American 'B' movies, halfway up a mountainside. At the last minute, British actor Graham Cowley visiting his Cumbrian family from his San Francisco base, was persuaded to play the baddie, Victor's boss Cameron.

With the tag line 'The higher your dreams.... the further you fall', the story is about aircraft enthusiast Sandy Kenyon (played by Steve Varden) who dreams that one day he will be able to fly. But he has one problem. Following his mother's dramatic death in a flying accident, he suffers from cerebral palsy, leaving him with serious mobility problems. Most people whom Sandy meets find it hard to believe he will ever achieve his dream. But he's a determined character...

Ultimately, we achieved our dreams to make a 35mm feature film that is significantly different, though not in the way we had planned! 34 locations in 34 shooting days calls for a highly dedicated, flexible team of cast and crew which creates achievable action in a believable story. Even when Steve crashed on what was supposed to be his beautiful climactic flight, we were flexible enough to write that crash scene into the script, adding substance to the struggle with his disability. "Are you from Cloud Cuckoo Land?" Most definitely.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a film with an original 'voice'- and that voice belongs to Sandy, our central, disabled, character. My hope throughout the writing process- and my hope now we are about to go into production- is to produce a strong narrative film, a film which gives Steve Varden (co-writer of the screenplay and our leading actor) every chance to let his own experiences of disability- both good and bad- dictate the drama on the screen. This partly autobiographical element to the film will, I believe, give it great emotional strength and credibility but without ramming it down the viewers throat. Steve Varden has punched through more pain barriers than most able bodied people can imagine; as Director I want him to have the best possible opportunity to let his own perspective come through in the character of Sandy. He will do that with great style and humour.

Visually the film falls into two distinct parts; Sandy's mundane and sometimes frustrating existence in a care home in the south of England- and the more scenic and inspiring backdrop of the Lake District where Sandy´s quest for independence really takes off. (literally). As Director my vision is of a gritty visual treatment of the story when we are in Sandy's institutional world- and then to open the imagery- and the visuals- right out as he finds a new home (and new people) in the Lakes. The dream/fantasy sequences are equally important and for these I envisage a strongly stylistic treatment- shot in black and white or with a deep blue cast.

I want the film to have a strong sense of community- the sense that Sandy has a real impact on the lives of those people he meets. It is also important to bring to the film a sense of discovery- the revelation of Sandy's true powers, layer by layer, as the film continues. Sandy's dream is to fly. He believes that he will never be truly happy until he achieves that dream and I want the flying scenes to be visually compelling. The overall impact will be of a quirky and very different film- a film which tackles issues, but in an entertaining and surprising way- a film which will be challenging and inspiring in equal measure.

Q: DURING FUND RAISING,THE PRODUCERS WERE OFTEN ASKED TO CAST AN ABLE BODIED ACTOR. DOES THAT SURPRISE YOU?

Steve Writes:'I suppose that film acting is not the most obvious vocation for someone with my particular disability. I myself accept that my cerebral palsy is moderately severe and that my speech is sometimes difficult to understand. Indeed, I have always found my speech to be the most limiting aspect of my 'disability package'. I use a wheelchair for general mobility and all four of my limbs can be difficult to control. In the real world I rely on Personal Assistants (and indeed family and friends) in order to support and enable me to do the things that I cannot readily or efficiently do for myself. I think that there was considerable apprehension from various camps, including my own, as to whether someone with my level of disability and complex needs would be able to survive the rigours of a feature film shoot; let alone act!'

'Once we were on location I was astonished at the level of support and enablement that was available to me from a team of people. The crew, various assistants and runners all made my life much easier on set or location. I understand that this level and quality of support is quite usual on a film shoot. However, I am still bemused and ironically satisfied that what I had foreseen to be quite a hostile and forsaken place for me turned out to be one of the most supportive and liberating environments that I have ever been in.'

Q: WAS THE CHALLENGE OF MAKING THE FILM MADE ANY MORE DIFFICULT BY THE NATURE OF YOUR DISABILITY?

Steve writes: 'A film actor soon learns the importance of hitting one's marks; indeed on many levels this could make or break a production. During the shooting of a close-up scene, the placement and movement of an actor is critical and at times the critical area of lens focus can be less than an inch. My disability of cerebral palsy inherently makes precise movement and control of my body difficult and unpredictable at the best of times so to achieve such precise and consistent performances on cue over and over again was a real challenge and achievement for me. Because of the intense and deliberate focusing of the camera lens, film acting, for me, is one of the ultimate manifestations of creative expression, passion, self control and perhaps more so, 'public self control'.'

Q: DURING THE WRITING OF THE SCRIPT HOW DID YOU TACKLE THE ISSUE OF MAKING IT POSSIBLE FOR THE AUDIENCE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT SANDY IS SAYING?

Steve Writes: 'One of the big advantages of being a co-writer of the script was that I was able to write dialogue for Sandy that was suited to my way of speaking and that I had a good chance of being able to perform on cue. In my everyday 'real life' I have good and bad speech days and my chosen spoken vocabulary is often limited to those words and phrases that I know that I can speak reasonably well. If people do not understand me straight away in conversation I often have up to three attempts to get my message across before the listener can become embarrassed and or frustrated. At this point they often choose to hear what they think I am saying rather than listening to what I am actually trying to say.'

Q: WHEN IT CAME TO THE REHEARSALS AND THE SHOOT, HOW MUCH WORK DID YOU PUT INTO GETTING THE DIALOGUE RIGHT?

Steve writes: 'Taking into account, off-set rehearsals, on set walk-throughs, camera and lighting run-throughs and on-set rehearsals, I would often have ten to fifteen opportunities to practice my dialogue and fine tune the language and delivery. So by the time we came to shoot, there was a good fighting chance that somewhere on the celluloid there was going to be a good action take with clear accompanying dialogue on the DAT. At no time in the real world do I get to say something twenty times over and magically the listener immediately hears the best example of those twenty takes. Aside from film acting, what other job is there where you have such ample opportunity to get things wrong before getting it right?'

Q: HOW DISABLED IS SANDY? DID YOU SET OUT TO PORTRAY HIM HAVING A DIFFERENT LEVEL OF DISABILITY TO YOURSELF?

Steve Writes: 'It may come as some surprise to people to know that Sandy Kenyon is somewhat less disabled than Steve Varden. Sandy appears to walk and talk far better than I do on a regular basis and his noticeable severity of cerebral palsy is slightly less than that of my own. In real life I can occasionally mask and subdue the effects and visual impact of my disabilities but not for long. Because movies are shot in takes of very short scenes it was possible for me in the role of Sandy to sustain a level of ability that I could probably not sustain in real life.

Q: YOU HAD NEVER ACTED IN FRONT OF CAMERA BEFORE. WHAT WERE THE TECHNIQUES YOU LEARNED ALONG THE WAY?

Steve Writes: 'As a film actor, part of my job is to know exactly where the cameras and lights are and to very quickly pick up any camera movements, lighting transitions and choreography that is involved in any particular scene. Planning my performance accordingly it is then my job to get into my character, forget all of the above and to act out that scene as if I were that character living life for the first time without a camera, lighting rig or piece of gaffer tape in sight.

A good actor always learns his or her lines backwards and can recite them on cue from any given point in the script or scene. In my opinion an even better actor learns the lines and is able to recite them but he/she must also learn to think and speak as if he/she were that character. I had a duty to my fellow actors and the story to accurately learn my lines and cues. But once the cameras were rolling I also felt an intense responsibility to forget all my lines and to listen to, rather than predict, the other characters' lines. I would then do my best to respond in the way that I thought my character might and to speak as if the words were being spoken for the first time ever. Thus Sandy's dialogue was rarely the same in two takes which must have been an editing challenge. One technique that I used in order to gain such precise control over my performance was to visualise my character from the camera lens's and indeed the eventual audience's point of view. Depending on which size lens was being used at any one time I would channel and focus all my acting energy to the area of my body that the camera lens was seeing. Similar to techniques used in martial arts and self pain control, this approach ensures that acting energy is directed to the areas of the body that are going to be recorded onto film and avoids unnecessary wastage off camera. As Sandy appears in the vast majority of the scenes, in a movie with such a punishing shooting schedule, it was vital that I should preserve and focus my acting energy for when and where it was needed.'