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The making of I Hate Bananas

We are so lucky to have discovered the magic of movie-making
Meet ... Emily and Jasmin Andrews
their film
I Hate Bananas won Best Junior Entry at BIAFF 2007

I Hate Bananas is a short, quirky tale.

We were aware of the approaching deadline for the competition, and decided to dedicate a weekend to getting the film shot and edited, which we thankfully did! Being sisters, who have worked together on previous films we have made, we are on the same wavelength in a directorial sense.

The idea for the film came rather spontaneously after Jasmine came home from school one day with a bruised banana left in her lunch box! We felt sorry for this battered banana and wondered if we could make an audience feel sympathy for something as insignificant as a piece of fruit!

A rejected banana seemed like a novel idea, which didn't require any expensive props or extensive preparation. We decided to go for impact by minimising the dialogue as much as possible, until we whittled it down to one phrase "I Hate Bananas", which then became the film's title.

Jasmine and Emily Andrews with their award letter.
Photo of the Andrews sisters and friend on location. We have learned that a short film with an original idea can leave just as great an impression on an audience as a long feature with many actors and lots of dialogue. And it's just as well really considering there were only two of us involved in this film!

Deciding on who would act and who would film was a mutual decision: both of us are happy making the creative decisions and operating the camera, as well as throwing ourselves into acting. Editing a film is always a very satisfying experience for us, although time consuming!

We feel that music is one of the most important parts of a film. In previous films, made for our personal enjoyment, we have been able to use whatever music we like. However in competitions, copyright becomes a concern and as we have never received any funding from anybody, we did not really have the option of clearing the copyright on a desired piece of music. Fortunately, we are lucky to have talented parents. Mum learned the skills of editing and edited our first film efforts and then passed this knowledge onto us. Dad composes music, which we have full access to! Our computer also has a composing programme called Garageband, [it is part of the iLife suite of programs for Apple Macs - ed.] which we have taught ourselves to use in order to create our own music for our films. We realise how lucky we are in this sense, as we always have a back-up plan!

The team on location again. We have been making films for 4 years and we have loved every minute of it. We are eternally grateful to our grandparents, who kindly allowed us to borrow their camera for all our antics up until this christmas when they kindly bought me (Emily) my very own camcorder for Christmas!

We have shared our experience with many friends, especially our much loved family friends Tom and Richard Henderson. Classics with them have included, our own versions of Harry Potter, Matilda, Mrs Doubtfire, James Bond and Fawlty Towers. Filming with them becomes a weekend event as they live in Gloucester, making shot re-takes difficult, so we have to be very organised with lots of prior planning over the phone and ensure we get all the footage we need 'in the can' before Sunday tea time!! All our parents have agreed to be occasional extras, have been on hand to transform the dining room, for example, into a restaurant, conjour up key wardrobe outfits and ferry us about to various locations! We love watching the unedited footage all gathered round the television and howl with laughter at the amusing out-takes!

Emily and ? Mrs. Andrews prepare for a scene.
The team doing their version of 'Fawlty Towers'. It was with our other close friends, Hannah and Natalie Markall that we made The Vampire Garlic Thrower. We entered this into our first competition, The Co-operative Young Film-Makers festival 2006, held in Bradford at the National Museum of Film and Photography. Unfortunately I (Emily) couldn't go as I was in Germany on a school exchange, but attended and were awarded a certificate and the screening of our film to an audience. I was so sorry to have missed this incredible experience but we are now very fortunate to have been given another chance to be rewarded for our efforts in film-making. We heard about the IAC competition in Bradford, and thought we'd definitely give it a go!

We are so lucky to have discovered the magic of movie-making, and it has been a major part of our childhood. The priceless moments we have shared with our friends over the last few years when making films ranging from Bin Raider to The Killer Gorilla will stay with us forever, and we have learned so much along the way. We are now both hoping to pursue a career in film and are constantly reading film-related books. With hard work and perseverance, and thanks to our wonderful friends who have given their time to appear in our films, we really hope that you will hear our names alongside those celebrated in cinema in the future.

Jasmine, Hannah and Natalie receive the Coop Award.
Portrait of Emily Andrews. Thanks for reading our story!

Emily and Jasmine Andrews

Portrait of Jasmine Andrews.


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Page updated on 09 October 2011
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