PRODUCTION NOTES 
Simon Lubert was a struggling screenwriter, who'd lived in the US for five years, until he posted a treatment for SILENT CRY on a new screenplay website:
'I started the script about three years ago' explains Lubert, 'for six months I was sending it out to people both in the UK and US. Two years into it, I met Julian, our director and we started working together and gearing it more towards him. Julian Richards' US agent had put him in touch with Lubert, initially about another script, but after their meeting, Richards was particularly attracted to SILENT CRY because he has an affinity with the thriller genre.
Richards and Lubert took the project to Cannes 2000 and showed it around to the usual suspects. As Richards puts it, 'everyone commented on how well it was written, but for various reasons no-one was ready to pursue it'.
'We were getting the normal rejection letters, until a friend of mine started a new website called scriptshop.co.uk' explains Lubert, 'it's aimed at producers, and screenwriters can basically put a 50 word synopsis of their script on the site and producers can access it at no charge and if they like it, they can get in touch with the writer'.
At the end of September 2000, the treatment for SILENT CRY went up on the website, 'Within a week, I had four companies call me asking to see the full script' says Lubert. 'Little Wing were one of the companies who responded and about a month later they called me in. Everything just kicked off from there'.
Director Julian Richards, was stunned when he got the call from Lubert to say that the financing was available and they had to start shooting in five weeks, 'I said that's not possible! That doesn't happen'. But it was and it did and cameras rolled on 8th January 2001.
'The speed at which it happened was frightening' says Richards, 'but there'd been quite a gap since my last film, so I was very eager to jump on the opportunity and if it meant doing twenty hours a day, seven days a week for twelve weeks, then so be it. In the end, the production was a very well-oiled machine'.
The oiling of that machine is very much down to respected producer Peter La Terriere, who was in the process of collaborating with Little Wing on one of his own productions. La Terriere was asked to board SILENT CRY to pull together the cast and crew, structure and schedule it, 'They needed someone experienced in organising the production side of things and someone who they could trust to get the film ready in time for all their deadlines and delivery schedules. I've made about three films recently on the same budget (around the £3million mark), so budgeting was my forte, in terms of knowing exactly what we needed and how we should do it' he explains.
'We only had fours weeks of pre-production to cast and crew it just before Christmas 2000, and a week of rehearsals after the New Year, then we were straight into production. It was extremely intense pressure, but we had a script, thanks to Simon, that was a fantastically strong idea'.
With limited time and a twenty five page 'to do' list, La Terriere brought old friend and colleague Tim Dennison on board to share the load. 'This freed me up to concentrate on the casting and finalising the script, while Tim could nail down the design side of things and the camera department. At the same time, we could both steer Julian through and give him the freedom to visualise the ninety pages of script. It was a great working relationship very focused and we were extremely impressed by Julian's concentration and clarity of thinking when it came to decision-making'.
The Casting Process
'We were very lucky with the casting' says director Julian Richards, 'during that first week of January, when we started shooting, usually everyone's coming back from Christmas holidays and thinking about diets rather than where the next job's coming from! It worked out well in the end. I'm very pleased with our cast'.
'I get very nervous if I feel that someone is cast completely against the grain, particularly if you have a small time frame for prepping. I like to cast actors who are close to the part and can relate to the character' explains Richards. 'Working with people like Steve Sweeney, in this kind of story, is a dream. When you cast someone like him it's like having the real thing'.
The speed at which they needed to cast the film worked in the production's favour in many ways explains Peter La Terriere, 'When you've got the money and only four weeks to cast it, the responses do come in from the agents much faster'.
'Emily Woof was always our first choice and looking at her performance, I can't imagine any other British actress who has that strength of character to pull off this role. You really believe her performance and see she's a woman on a mission. She's excellent says La Terriere. 'Dougie Henshall was always on our hit list, but he was just coming off another film, so we weren't sure of his availability but as it happened, it all worked out perfectly'.
Having worked with Kevin Whately previously, La Terriere called up his agent and once he'd read the script, he accepted immediately. Julian Richards had a very clear idea about the role of the family doctor and felt that veteran actor Frank Finlay fitted the bill. The baddie character Betts was perhaps the hardest one to cast, but after one meeting with Clive Russell it was clear that his 'towering presence' as La Terriere describes it, would be perfect for the menacing corrupt police officer.
The Look and Feel of the Film
Screenwriter Simon Lubert was keen to give SILENT CRY an American feel, as well as introducing a central female character, who would compete happily in a predominantly male world 'without having to take up a gun to do it'. 'Rachel is independent and feisty, but she doesn't realise quite how strong she is until she's faced with the huge dilemma of trying to get her baby back'.
The inspiration for the storyline came to Lubert after visiting a hospital maternity unit some years ago, 'It occurred to me how easy it is to switch babies around or take them, they were all about 24 hours old and there was no security. Then about three years ago, the whole surrogacy issue was in the news. Coincidentally, the internet baby scandal broke just before we started shooting, and the baby organ donor scandal up in Liverpool, so there was this general distrust of the health service, which tied in with what we're doing here.
Director Julian Richards describes SILENT CRY as an urban noir thriller and sees a number of key elements within the story, 'It's a fish-out-of-water film if you like, about two characters from different sides of the track, whose worlds collide and they come together to find the missing baby. It's about a mother from a comfortable middle class background, having to immerse herself in a world of misfits and outcasts in order to find her child' says Richards. 'It has some interesting social and moral issues at heart. It's not just an action-driven genre film, it's an intelligent film that raises lots of questions relevant to the stories we hear about the NHS. It's very timely'.
For Richards, the characters are particularly interesting as they go against type, "All the good characters are far from model citizens. Rachel is a single mother, albeit from a comfortable background. Daniel's an ex-con and former down-and-out and Jimmy and Pat are tramps. The establishment characters - the doctors and the cops are the bad guys. In a way, it's a reaction against zero tolerance or the idealistic picture of life created by some politicians and the way they try and suggest that people should fit in and if they don't, they should be penalised in some way.
Lubert elaborates on the creation of the oddball characters and the fish-out-of-water element to the story, 'The homeless play a big role, Daniel has been in prison and has been homeless, he's had an unfortunate upbringing, but he's trying to pull himself out of it. I was trying to get across the idea of him being a product of his upbringing (a prostitute having a baby) and what can happen if a baby is brought up in a certain environment'.
When Richards first boarded the film, he wanted to push the thriller genre one step further and to put some flesh on the bad guys, 'Betts was one of the main characters Simon and I worked on. We didn't just want him to be the cowboy of the piece, we wanted him to be a human being. He has these things to protect and has emotions, so the agenda was to make things far more complex and more interesting'.
'I originally wanted to create Betts as an evil character, but as we developed his role, we decided to create someone who would do anything to protect something very valuable to him' explains Lubert. 'In this case it was a baby, which seemed to me to be the ultimate sacrifice. Just as Rachel is prepared to do anything to get her baby back, he seems to be the nemesis. He is evil, but at the same time, everything he's done is for his wife and he goes out of control trying to protect her'.
As a director, Richards is a great believer in artist collaboration and a naturalistic approach, 'When you're blocking a scene, if you tell everyone where they've got to stand and how they've got to say their lines, it's artificial; you'll end up with twelve cardboard cut-outs of yourself. However, if the actors feel unrestrained, it makes for a more naturalistic performance. We have an eclectic range of actors, and the variety in their styles will reflect the variety of human bahaviour in real life.'
Some might think actor Steve Sweeney took his desire to be as realistic as possible a little too far. Julian Richards elaborates, 'The stunt guy turned up for the scene where Steve was going to be stabbed with the screwdriver and explained to him that he'd put these pads on for protection, but Steve wasn't having any of it, he didn't want to wear the pads! We were using this retractable screwdriver, but when we came to do the shot, it didn't retract, so Steve ended up getting stabbed for real. He showed me the wound in his back - I couldn't believe it'.
In the first instance, Richards sees SILENT CRY as a thriller that will appeal to girls because they'll emotionally relate to the female protagonist, 'It's Rachel's story. Her character is representative of what a millennium woman is, we've been through the Sigourney Weavers and Linda Hamiltons, where they're trying to be exactly the same as the men with guns, but this is different. Rachel is a single mother, she's got her own business, she's doing very well for herself but life is difficult. The genre works because it's a metaphor for the obstacles and complexities in life that people come across'.
In the second instance SILENT CRY will also appeal to a male audience concludes Richards 'there's a hard edged, high octane feel to the film and the shoot out between Jimmy, Betts and Mosley is unbelievably shocking'.
As the female lead, actress Emily Woof echoes these sentiments, 'I think it should appeal to everyone. It's a very good story - a real page-turner and I think the suspense is going to be the appeal. It's the story of a girl who's got it all, but is thrown into a world of prostitutes and down-and-outs, a world she would never otherwise have known'.
'There's blood and guts in there as well' says Woof, 'I think it's going to be quite scary. 'One of my favourite moments is between me and Betts (Clive Russell). He's stalking me down this deserted hospital corridor and I'm desperately calling for the lift, as he's getting closer and closer the lift comes and I get in, as his hand comes between the doors just before they close. I never thought I'd be doing suspense stuff like this but it's fantastic.
The thriller genre is Julian's forte, so it was interesting for Emily Woof to observe him at work, 'I was aware that he was constructing a scene in order to create suspense in the edit. That was quite demanding technically, as I had to do the same moment a lot of times from different angles, with lots of slow creeping camera movements to create that tension. It was quite exacting to get the same emotions so many times for a scene'.
'I've nothing against romantic comedies or gangster films as long as they're good, but it's nice to see something more akin to The Sixth Sense being made' says Douglas Henshall. 'It's great that someone's had the imagination to go with this idea. I think we should be a bit more ambitious in the way we make films here'.
Julian Richard's obvious talent for the thriller genre is clearly illustrated in his stylish approach, notes producer Peter La Terriere, 'Julian wanted to make these seedy areas of London look beautifully dirty and almost elegant in their unpleasantness. He wanted to give Vagabond City, the homeless centre and the red light district a sort of American thriller gloss. This is a conventional, mainstream thriller and it's on the run, so there's lots of steadicam and lots of movement. We haven't cut corners and although we're on a limited budget, it looks very good'.
Composer David Hughes, who collaborated with Richards on his last feature, Darklands and was part of the team who created the soundtrack for Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, combined influences from 70's American conspiracy thrillers with contemporary urban drum & bass and dub music. ' Julian gave me a list of films to watch including The Parallax View and Marathon Man' explains Hughes. 'We wanted to avoid all things melodramatic and find an unsettling tone that reflected the uncertain, paranoid state of Rachel's mind; was her baby stolen, or did it really die. Is she being followed or is this paranoia a post natal product of her grief'.
In addition to Hughes score, Richards chose a selection of chart tracks to reflect the films story and characters. ' With the feisty, independent image of the film's female lead , we decided to focus on groups led by female vocalists' explains Richards. 'new artists like Dido felt too young for our characters, so I dug into my CD collection and came up with two tracks from Morcheeba - Let Me see and Shoulder Holster and one track from The Cranberries - Icicle Melts which fits so well it feels like it was written for the film. Other tracks that were chosen to reflect the red light district include, Chemical Beats by The Chemical Brothers and Aftermath by Tricky.
During the editing, the team behind Silent Cry came to realise that many of the rules of the genre, set in stone by Alfred Hitchcock no longer apply. 'Todays audience are so much more aware of the manipulative powers of cinema that old tricks of the trade, like showing the bomb under the table before it explodes, just appeared melodramatic' states Richards 'We had to ignore the script and completely re-edit the film, playing the Point Of View 100% through the eyes of our protagonist. The effect became much more psychological, putting our audience subjectively in the head of Rachel Stewart, living her fear, paranoia and uncertainty to the max'.
'This wasn't an easy decision' adds La Terriere. ' We'd built a prostetic dead baby costing £6,000, only to cut all of its scenes. We also had to hire two additional editors to get a more objective take on the material'.
The final icing on the cake for SILENT CRY was the decision to process the film using a bleach bypass. 'This washes out the colours and concentrates the blacks, giving the film an almost sepia feel' explains Richards. 'The problem with most British films is that they look too ordinary, too real, like TV. There's too much information in the image which in a genre film conspires to undermine authenticity. Combining bleach bypass with Tony Imi's moody photography we were able to fill the frame with shadow and atmosphere, forcing our audience to imagine what they can't see.
General Production Information
Six weeks of principal photography took cast and crew all over London, from Bermondsey and Bromley-by-Bow in the East to north west London, Notting Hill, Vauxhall and the hub of London's nightlife - Soho.
Shooting in central London is always a test for film crews, particularly when you gain the unwanted attention of a rather inebriated tramp in West London's Vagabond City, director Julian Richards takes up the story, 'We were shooting underneath the Westway in Vagabond City and we'd booked twelve extras to play a group of down-and-outs. We were all rather puzzled to find thirteen! This real tramp decided to join the troupe and spent the entire night being the court jester. He really wanted to be in the film, but he was so strange, he would have been a liability if we'd put him in front of the camera. Some of the crew were cracking jokes about him being hired as the tramp wrangler'.
'You often encounter some real nutters when you're filming outside' says actress Emily Woof, she and Douglas Henshall recall a scene in the Notting Hill area of London, 'it was the scene where Rachel's in her boutique getting dressed up to go undercover as a hooker, we were just about to turn over when this guy walked up to the window, pulled his jeans and shorts down and just stood there with his bollocks hanging for the whole crew to see'. 'This guy thought he was so hilarious, he came back and did it about five times like a little kid' adds Woof.
'There is something exciting about filming in town' says Woof, 'the night shoot we did in Hanway Street just off Oxford Street was fantastic. The art department had made it look like the red light district. It looked pretty convincing. It was also good in respect that we didn't have to retreat back to our trailers during breaks, we could have a cocktail in a bar instead. That was good fun - like a day out'.
The first week of shooting was spent in St Andrew's Hospital in East London and Richards recalls the nightmare of shooting in the hospital nursery at 3.00 a.m. 'We brought thirteen babies down for the scene, so if one started to cry we could use one of the others. The old saying about never work with children or animals is so spot on! It's guaranteed that the babies would sleep during a rehearsal but as soon as the clapperboard went, they'd start howling! We ended up waiting hours with all these mothers rocking their babies back and forth. It was a long night'.
Cast and crew all agreed that the atmosphere and general feeling on set was very laid back despite a tight schedule and quick turnaround, 'Julian was very calm on set, in the face of incredible pressures and the usual problems you get on a shoot' says Emily Woof, 'I really enjoyed working with him and the whole shoot had a nice atmosphere, everyone got on really well and Julian kept a very good ambience'.
As for working with Douglas Henshall? 'I love working with Dougie' says Woof, 'he's such good fun, a real giggle, but intense at the right moments. We're always quite sparky with each other and that really keeps you going - taking the piss out of each other endlessly to get through those long shooting days. Woof is equally complimentary about fellow actors Clive Russell and Frank Finlay, 'Cliveís a lovely actor - I think he's fantastic. And Frank Finlay - what a track record, he's the main man'.
Henshall had just finished shooting The Lawless Heart on the Isle of Man and was planning to go off to Cuba for a month when his agent called to say there was a script and an offer available on SILENT CRY. 'When the script arrived I read it in one go and thought it was a great story. I heard Emily Woof was attached, I'd worked with her on a couple of things and thought it would be fun to work with her again'.
Having his own production company, Henshall is particularly aware of the difficulty getting a film off the ground and was also sympathetic to the director's cause, 'I've got a friend who has just directed his first feature and there's a look in their eyes! The director has a thousand questions every single day and the whole crew is relying on them. I think Julian's great, he's done incredibly well and I'm sure it will be a good film. I've just bought the rights to a book and am in the process of trying to raise the finance and I went to Cannes last year for the first time as a producer rather than an actor. I know as an actor, you go to Cannes, get picked up at the airport, stuck in a nice hotel, get your per diems, dressed up in a nice suit, walk up the red carpet and get your photo taken and told how wonderful you are. When you're a producer you pay for it, for the flight and getting there and everything. When I was there, the mobile phone I had didn't work in France and there was nobody at the address where I was staying so I couldn't get in touch with them. I ended up lugging my bags down the Croisette and sharing a room with two other people and sleeping on a camp bed'.
For screenwriter Simon Lubert, SILENT CRY marked his first foray onto the set of a feature film, 'I was walking up the street carrying four milk bottles while one of the scenes was being shot and I remember thinking how glamorous it all was! At that moment I realised where I came in the pecking order! I've cleaned away plates, collected the milk and done other menial tasks, but it's sort of grounded me. Aside from the fact that it can be quite frustrating when you see your stuff changed or embellished, I've loved every minute of it, but next time round I'll spend a lot less time on the set'.
Emily Woof on Rachel Stewart
'Rachel's a well-adjusted, middle class girl who is pretty sussed. She's just opened a boutique in a trendy part of London and is in control of her life. Then she has her baby and that night, she's told the baby has died. From this point on, her whole life is thrown into maelstrom. She's certain the baby hasn't died and that something strange has happened, so she spends the rest of the film trying to get the baby back'.
'I'm quite good at dividing my personal life from my acting, but having a baby recently, it was difficult not to imagine what it would feel like if my own baby, Samuel, died. I did draw upon that. It was also quite useful having had the baby because I had to do the birth scene, so I knew how much pain it entails! Saying that, I did enjoy doing the birth scene, I had caesarian when Samuel was born, so it was good pretending to do it myself on the first day of filming'!
Douglas Henshall on Daniel Stone
'Daniel's a hospital porter who has spent the past eight years in prison, on probation or homeless on the streets. He's kind of got himself back together again and is studying to be a doctor. He's really the samaritan of the piece and behaves in a way we'd all hope we'd behave if we found someone in desperate trouble'.
Clive Russell on Detective Dennis Betts
'Betts is a man driven to extreme behaviour because his wife desperately wants a child but can't have one. He is part of a baby stealing scam, but unfortunately, he picks the wrong baby. I was attracted to the quality of the writing, it was unusual, not just the baby stealing idea, but both the girl and my character have very good reasons for what they do for the baby. There's one little scene where you see Betts with his wife and the baby and you see how delighted she is and how gentle he is with her. It's a complete contrast, because he's relentlessly brutal throughout the rest of the story'.
Kevin Whately on Dr Richard Herd
'He's basically a good character who found himself in a situation that's got out of control. I think he tried to do some sincere social engineering for the good, but the situation has spiralled out of control, particularly when Betts gets involved and his world collapses. He's definitely not an evil character. He only switches the babies when one of them dies and I think he regrets that, but it's too late and everything comes crashing down. With films and one-off projects, I like playing the baddie. I spend a lot of time on TV playing the nice guy, so it's good to do something different'.
Craig Kelly on Detective Robert Mosley
'He's a very different character for me to play. He's a young Detective Constable, very professional but completely innocent. He wants to do the right thing and that's his focus throughout the story. But unfortunately it's also his downfall. Most of my scenes were with Clive Russell (Betts). We're not supposed to get on, but we had a great laugh and we're a good double act!'
