'Tracks' Director’s Statement by Martin Smith.

The idea for the film came from many places, but principally from a couple of situations I witnessed as a kid. The first hearing about a boy killing a cat in the fields near our houses, and secondly some of my mates blowing up a dead cat on a railway line. The gaps in between were put together by stories from kids I have worked with and through the development process. I’m aware of how emotive a subject the mistreatment of animals is and I’m also aware of the kind of psychological effect this can have on someone and the potential this has to lead to future violence, so overall it wasn’t a project I took on lightly. It was a subject that had struck in my mind since I was young and obviously resonated. I was always interested in the dynamics of a group of kids; the way that can encourage a collective badness. Some of that innocent immorality is played with here. I find it interesting that you form a sense of morality as you go through life, and stuff that you considered fun when you were 12 or 14 would be considered malicious or evil as an adult.

One of my main objectives when developing and casting the project was to improvise around the scenario to develop the dialogue and construct a screenplay that is naturalistic and reflective of the situation. It is of vital importance that the script wasn’t too dialogue heavy, and had a significant attention to the detail of the kid’s physicality and the way that is imposed to command power and influence. As a counterpoint to this the project had to skip with a natural humour.

I worked for the second time with the casting director Kahleen Crawford to find non-actor kids for the roles of the children. I now consider Kahleen to be a key player in my future film productions, I’m a huge fan and love working with her. She has an instinctive vision about who can play a certain way, is amazingly resourceful and also knows exactly what I am looking for. We cast around schools, the street, many different places to find the right kids who had the correct look, energy and attitude to carry off the parts. I worked with Ryan Wallace, who we found for the ‘Accidents’ short once again, and the performance from David MacNeil in particular is one that will stay with me for a long time. I’m hoping to work with a number of the kids again.

Photographically the project was naturalistic, using a combination of hand held and tripod work, much in keeping with my body of work to date, and it was crucial that I got Tom Townend to shoot the project. We have been friends for a number of years and Tom was able to help me create the circumstances where improvisation was possible. The project wasn’t about using big film conventions, we didn’t call ‘action’ or ‘cut’, and we tried, as much as possible to allow events to unfold as they would in real life, and if action took place that wasn’t in the script, but told the story well, then it would be kept.

The producer Karen Smyth (One Life Stand) created the opportunity for us to improvise and run with scenes that would have not been possible otherwise. There were scenes that ran over time, but were so crucial to the plot, and were developing in a very organic way, that wouldn't have been allowed the space if it wasn't for her. Another producer would have maybe hurried things along and they would have been lost, Karen pushed for these things and realised the importance they would have to the final film. Everyone from the production company La Belle Allee was on board and it felt like a huge team effort that wouldn't have happened without the commissioning of the idea (from a few sentences) by Paul Welsh (the Executive Producer for DigiCult) and the development process that followed. Paul coaxed out all the hardest elements of the script looking for the truth that was at the heart of the story. I'm pretty sure the film would not have been commissioned by any another scheme.

I edited the project myself on a Final Cut Pro system. This allowed me to cut in my home, work many late nights, and try out ideas before I went to sleep, or often waking in the night to return to the cut.

Overall I’m really happy with the project. I’m incredibly proud of the kids and their performances and the tone and effect of the film are what I was looking for. I consider it my best work to date, I certainly feel it’s the most emotive, and, as a film maker looking to learn from each project as I go on, I feel I have a lot of material and lessons to take onto my next projects. As a counterpoint to the much lighter ‘Accidents’ I feel it shows my range as a director. I also look forward to developing some of the themes and stories from this short into a feature project at some stage.