Producer Katie Holly talks about producing One Hundred Mornings

On the Catalyst Scheme –
The Catalyst Scheme is a terrific initiative. Not only for the experience of making One Hundred Mornings, but also in getting such a huge number of filmmakers together for a series of workshops – our second feature SENSATION came out of those gatherings, as did a number of other projects and relationships I’ve heard about since.
The provision for mentorship as part of the scheme, through Screen Training Ireland, was a really crucial part of our strategy for being able to properly equip and support crew who were, in most instances, working as a Head of Department for the first time. It meant we had an editor of the calibre of Tony Lawson mentoring our editor throughout or the DOP James Mather on call to advise and assist Suzie Lavelle during prep.

On One Hundred Mornings –
I was delighted to be asked to take on the task of producing One Hundred Mornings and it was a steep learning curve. As a producer, particularly on a low budget film, there are so many tasks that fall to you and trying to balance those aspects with the desire to keep involved on a creative level is a difficult, but very rewarding balancing act. It was always an ambition with One Hundred Mornings to keep the production values really high, despite the budget constraints and I’m delighted with how the film turned out. To me, on reading the script, the subject matter felt so prescient, I felt it could really strike a chord – it certainly made me question how well (or rather ill-) equipped I might be to survive such a disaster. The fact that underlying this was a story about two people who manage to rediscover their love for each other was really appealing to me.

On Producing a Low-Budget Feature -
‘‘This is my first feature and when I read the script initially I thought it’s just one location, four characters, it’s quite contained, we’ll be fine! But then when you get to start breaking the script down we’ve got a lot of scenes happening at night, we’ve got animals, we’ve got fireworks, stunts, we have a bonfire, the list goes on! So it really is quite demanding when set against the resources we have available to us but thankfully the team that we have have been able to pull out all the stops to get everything that we need and we’re still on budget.‘’

Filming -
‘‘There is an awful lot of good will with a scheme like this and because a lot of people on the crew are upgrading, (ie this is the first time they are working in their particular department as a H.O.D.) or beneath them people are stepping up, then it just means that people are just so willing to give their time. Having that energy with the crew is the thing that gets you through the fact that you have very little resources and the schedule is really tight and everything is frantic. Our last day was one of the most memorable I’ve ever had filming, it was a terrific atmosphere, and, despite how exhausted everyone was I think we got through more scenes that day than any other!

On Casting –
We were extremely fortunate with the cast we managed to assemble for the film. It’s a real ensemble piece and I feel that in the four leads: Ciaran McMenamin, Alex Reid, Rory Keenan and Kelly Campbell we have a terrifically strong group of young actors who bring more to the piece than one could ever initally envisage. It was so exciting watching them develop their characters through rehearsals and their input and performances have profoundly strengthened the film.