Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Where did the idea come from?

The idea came in a moment of desperation when I needed a film to make for my University graduation. I was flicking the TV channels late one night and happened across a programme on the BBC's Learning Zone. It featured a very sincere (but very bored sounding) psychiatrist in a session with a patient. It crossed my mind that he looked like all he wanted to do was tell the person to sod off. That's when I realised what a good premise for a short film that was.

I had also been interested in the subject of self-help books for some time. In my first year at University I had been taught by a woman named Elaine Brown who did her PhD on the subject. I remember thinking at the time that there could be a good film about the subject. I still think it's one that's not been properly explored.

Layton Bridges line, "first we have to learn to take a swim in Lake You..." was really said to Peter Seller's daughter when she was referred to a Beverley Hills analyst. She stopped going shortly afterwards.

The toffee fetish thing originally stared as a joke that I'd put into the original proposal that I submitted to the head of department. Everyone who read it thought that it a really funny idea and I decided that I had to include it.

Q. When you wrote the script did you place any restrictions on yourself?


Not really no. I had always wanted to make something that made people laugh. I had seen a lot of student films up until that point and most of them were completely po-faced. You'd watch two or three and have to stop before you topped yourself. I also have this real hatred for people my age trying to make big statements about the world when most of them haven't got the emotional maturity to do it. I thought that there had to be a middle ground, a short film that made you think but would make you laugh at the same time. I also wanted the humour to be quite sophisticated. When you look at it closely 'Alternative Therapy' is actually chock full of innuendo but I tried to disguise it by making the script witty rather then just crude and dirty. Bill Steel phoned me up when he first read the script and said how much he liked it. He told me that it was refreshing because any monkey with a typewriter can get a laugh out of an endless parade of people saying "bollocks" or "fuck".

Ironically I saw a student film just recently which did exactly that. There were some quite clever ideas in it but they were swamped by an endless stream of swear words. I haven't got a problem with people swearing on screen but in a short film every word counts and stuffing the script with f-words just makes you look like you've got a low IQ or a lack of imagination.

I was also conscious that I wanted my character to be older then I was. I was just sick of seeing student films about twentysomethings bombed off their faces on drugs. Quite frankly who gives a toss except other twentysomethings who like to get bombed off their faces on drugs? I knew that by using older actor I could increase the target audience of the film dramatically. Also it had the added benefit of improving the performances because the actors were so much more experienced.

Q. Where was it filmed?


It was filmed in Newcastle Upon Tyne in the old headquarters of Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. The building is now owned by Newcastle University. We used it because I really wanted Dr Arbuthnott's office to be like the sort of thing you would find in Harley Street - really plush with wooden panels on the wall. The sound recordist nearly had a fit when he first saw the place because there was a main road right outside and the traffic was very noisy. Also the acoustics of the room were quite poor - very 'live' and echoey. He did an amazing job because you can hardly notice anything on the final soundtrack. He did get his revenge though, I did the sound recording for his film and he made me record dialogue next to a busy dual carriageway. It served me right really.

Q. Why Black and White?


Well firstly it's cheap. Secondly the DOP was experienced in using black and white 16mm film. She knew just how far you could push it to get good results.

But more then that, I just love the way black and white looks. It reduces everything to tone and shade. It also improved the location because although some of the tiles on the wall were a wonderful deep green some of them were rather dirty which would have ruined the effect I was going for. Also I wanted the whole shooting style to be very simple. I'd seen a lot of student films and most of them make the classic mistake of trying to incorporate as many cool shots as they possibly could. Now tricksy camerawork has got it's place but in most cases the one aspect of the film that got forgotten about was the script and the characters. I was trained as a writer and so the script being good and sharp was very important to me.

So apart from the tracking shot at the start the camera never moves. This combined with a lot of close ups focuses the audiences attention on the dialogue. Which after all is where most of the humour comes from.

Q. What about the scene in the park? That uses some tricky editing.


Yes it does. I did that because it collapses the time scale of the scene. We don't know how long he has been sitting there. To be honest I also did it as a tribute to one of my favourite films because Spielberg does the same thing in Jaws. At least I resisted the temptation to use a dolly- zoom - my least favourite camera trick. You see it used all the time yet mostly looks bad. Only rarely do you see it used well. It's like directors think that it makes them look like rock-hard bastards if they use one or something.

Q. Any major crisis happen on set?


The biggest problem was finding somebody to play the lead. Originally we had this guy called Andy Banks. He was a student at the University and mentioned to someone I know that he did some acting as well. We asked him to audition which he duly did. To be honest he wasn't that great but he was the best that we could find. Anyway he said that he did have lot of coursework on but the he could give us one week apart from the Wednesday. We started that Friday. He came in late and started being a complete pain in the bum. He insisted that his character needed glasses and nothing would persuade him otherwise. I did feel rather like asking him who was paying for this thing, him or me? However I resisted the temptation. We ended up borrowing a pair of glasses from one of the crew.

Somehow we struggled through the day. His performance was pretty poor to be truthful. I had never directed before and so was just trying to find my feet. It was a nightmare really. Anyway once we wrapped he said he needed to talk about the schedule and promptly told us he needed most of the week off. I nearly walked out of the room at that point so that I didn't say anything I would regret. We somehow worked out a new schedule with him that met all of his demands. In retrospect it was potty, he couldn't come in on any of the days we had Sue playing Janice. We would have had to film them on different days. That meant we couldn't combine the in a two shot. It was crazy but at the time we had no choice. To try and make up for the shortfall in the schedule we asked Andy Banks id he could do the park stuff at the weekend. He asked if he could bring his son, we said that was fine and he agreed to film that Sunday.

That Saturday night I got a phone call from the producer. He had just tried to call Andy Banks. His wife had answered and said he was in Whitby looking after his mother. He wouldn't be back until mid-week. We decided that he had to go. Luckily Bill Steel had been in touch meantime and asked if we needed anybody. I had pegged him in to play Bernard but now rang him to ask if he would play the lead. He was out that night so I had to ring him on the Sunday morning. I was extremely nervous about asking him at such short notice. I needn't have worried. Bill is a bloody nice guy and came around that morning to pick up a copy of the script. He rang me later that day while he was in the middle of his radio programme to say how much he liked the script and that he was looking forward to working with me.

That Monday was such a relief. He came in and was really nice, totally professional and down to earth. His performance was great too, really understated and subtle. The success of the film owes a lot to him.

Q. What kind of psychiatrist holds his sessions from behind a desk?


I've been asked this a couple of times. Basically if you watch it again you'll see that he only sits behind his desk until the moment he tells Jeremy to bugger off. That's because he doesn't care about his patients any more and so the desk acts as a barrier between him and them.

Once he's started telling people the truth though he comes out from behind that barrier because he doesn't need it any more. He's actively enjoying himself for the first time in years. It's only as things begin to go wrong that he feels the need to cut himself off again. So once again he retreats back behind the desk which is where he finds the self-help video.

Q. Does Janice fancy Dr Arbuthnott*

*As asked by the writer's brother(!)

Don't they teach you anything at Cumbria College of Art and Design?!

Q. Any in-jokes viewers can watch out for?


There's a fully comprehensive list of all in-jokes and trivia associated with Alternative Therapy. In it you can learn never-before revealed information including the now classic question, "Where does Dr Arbuthnott get his name from?"

The list can be found here