Behind Ireland’s Culture, Music and Beating Heart
When Merman’s Jim O’Hanlon came on board as director of the new Tourism Ireland campaign, he knew exactly what he was signing up for. As an Irish director, with a similar sensibility as Merman’s Sharon Horgan (Irish actress, writer and director, who was the creative consultant for the campaign), he immediately connected with the ‘What Fills My Heart?’ concept that showed viewers the diversity, beauty and warmth they can find in Ireland.
In collaboration with Publicis•Poke, the campaign utilised an all-Irish crew and centred its two films around a ‘Day in the life’ approach in Ireland with three incredible guides - Sharon Horgan on the first day, and Saoirse-Monica Jackson and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell (Irish actresses known for their roles in Derry Girls) on the second, taking viewers through the most magical spots of the emerald isle.
For both Jim and Sharon, the two key ingredients in the films were warmth and humour, tied together by beautiful scenery, and extraordinary people, culture and music - all things Ireland. “We wanted to make a film which puts the people at the front and centre against the backdrop of as many beautiful Irish landscapes and recognisably Irish architecture as we could fit into our two-minute run times,” says Jim. Combining his masterful eye for detail (from the magical locations he had chosen to the pop of colour in Sharon’s sweater) with his ‘funny but real’ approach to humour and script, Jim allowed viewers to embark on this unforgettable journey with three perfect guides.
LBB’s Zoe Antonov spoke to Jim about scouting his favourite spots in Ireland, the challenges brought on by bad weather as well as the stroke of luck that mended them, and Irish humour.
LBB> How did you work with Sharon to bring the creative to life and how involved was Tourism Ireland in the process?
Jim> I’d worked with Sharon before when I directed the final series of ‘Catastrophe’, so I was thrilled when Merman approached me to direct a series of films on a subject very close to my own heart (Ireland!). I knew we could create something special together. We were very lucky in the first instance to have the brilliant Paul Howard (of Ross O’Carroll Kelly and ‘Bad Sisters’ fame) to write such an excellent script alongside Steve Paskin at Publicis. The four of us – Steve, Paul, Sharon and myself – went back and forth on the best way to tell the story of the people of Ireland, as well as the warmth and humour which characterises them.
With each draft and iteration of the script, we worked really hard to keep it all about the people. This collaboration really carried on through the entire process. Sharon being on set also allowed us to keep talking about the best way to tell our story, to try alternative lines and jokes, to get our guest actors to improvise and so on and so forth. It was a joy from start to finish, and great to work with Sharon again – that’s always fun!
LBB> How did you do you scout and choose your locations?
Jim> I’m from Dublin, so in truth, I knew almost all of the locations we shot in for Sharon’s film, from the famous Forty Foot Bathing pool to The Queen’s pub in Dalmey to the magnificent Kilruddery House and Gardens in Wicklow. This made scouting locations a relatively straightforward task as I was able to liaise with Mike (Donnelly) and Emma (O’Beirne) and the brilliant guys at Sweet Media in Dublin to talk about possible options for the various locations we needed, and to come up with a shortlist of possibilities - many of which I knew like the back of my hand quite quickly. The one location I didn’t know was the cottage we use at the end of the film and we recce’ed quite a few possible cottages in Wicklow where we were shooting (including my sister’s cottage in Bahana) - before settling on the one we used, which is on the Luggala Estate just below Lough Tay.
The Northern Irish locations, by contrast, were a completely different kettle of fish, because I didn’t know that part of the country at all. But we had a terrific team up in Derry who came up with some absolutely fantastic locations for us to choose from, and that was one of the great joys of the whole campaign for me – driving around Northern Ireland discovering new and stunning parts of the country I hadn’t come across before, and then getting to shoot with Saoirse and Jamie Lee. It’s an amazing part of Ireland, so it was a real honour to be able to be part of a campaign which shows it off to audiences around the world.
LBB> What about the rest of the characters - how did you make sure that they are a true reflection of the population?
Jim> A film which puts the people of Ireland front-and-centre lives and dies by the people in it, and I was very keen to cast as many real characters as we could to make the whole thing feel as authentic as possible. ‘Funny but real’ is my mantra in everything I direct, in whatever form. I wanted the Tourism Ireland campaign to be the same. Ultimately, we ended up going with a mixture of street cast characters and actors. Our casting director (Emily Tilellis) did a fantastic job of pulling together a mix of real, funny, authentic and natural non-actors, alongside a couple of actors who had the (surprisingly rare!) ability to come across like a ‘real person’ rather than an actor delivering lines. It’s no easy feat to walk onto a film set with Sharon Horgan and be funny and warm, but our cast delivered more than I could ever have hoped for, and for me, they’re the real stars of the campaign. Which of course is as it should be…
I was also keen to cast as diversely as possible to reflect the new reality of Irish life. Ireland is genuinely a multicultural country now, and it was important to me to reflect that reality by casting across genders, ages and ethnicities, Southern and Northern Irish. Again, I’m really pleased with how that turned out.
LBB> How did you develop the concept for the campaign and especially the 'What Fills my Heart' idea? How does it underpin the entire campaign?
Jim> I suppose it’s my background in TV drama and narrative features but I was keen for each of our films in the campaign to have a sense of a journey, and to have a story – with a beginning, middle and end. The narrative arc we worked towards was to create an authentic sense of ‘A Day In the Life’ of Sharon and Saoirse and Jamie Lee, as if they’ve come home for the weekend, taking in the kinds of things they like to do and the places they like to visit when they’re home. We worked hard to start at the beginning of their day out, moving through lunchtime and into the early afternoon, finishing both stories in the early evening, when there’s still a bit of light in the sky, but the evening is drawing in with all the promise of music, craic and laughter. I think it really works - both Sharon’s film and Saoirse and Jamie Lee’s have a lovely, if loose, narrative shape, like we’re spending a day with these wonderfully warm, charismatic guides and accompanying them on a trip through their favourite Irish locations.
LBB> Why were Saoirse-Monica Jackson and Jamie-Lee O'Donnell such great choices for the guides of the film?
Jim> We were looking for warm, funny guides for the Northern Irish portion of the campaign. We really wanted to imbue that section of the films with a modern, youthful and vivacious energy and confidence reflected of Northern Irish society over the past three decades since the signing of the Good Friday agreement. Saoirse-Monica and Jamie Lee were really the obvious choices. They’re both wonderfully warm, open, engaging women with a fantastic sense of humour, and although they’re nothing like their characters in the brilliant ‘Derry Girls’ (ok, not ‘nothing like’...), they have a similar wit and energy and zest for life as their characters in the show. I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that they LOVE Northern Ireland and are inordinately proud of it. It was really no stretch at all for them to take us on a tour of the places they like to visit when they’re home and for their enthusiasm to shine through.
Both Saoirse Monica and Jamie Lee are terrific improvisers too, so many of the things they say in the film were improvised on the day, which was really exciting and I think gives the film a really nice, natural feel. I couldn’t imagine anyone better to pull off the warmth and humour we needed for the Northern Irish section of the campaign and I was thrilled when they agreed to take part. Plus, they sent a wonderful video message to my 16-year-old daughter which really cheered her up after a particularly difficult day at school. They’re the best!
LBB> What was the artistic direction - colour, overall vibe of the film?
Jim> For me, the vibe of the campaign was always about being warm and funny, and at the same time real, natural and, importantly, contemporary. But also, as it’s Ireland, gorgeous to look at. For me that’s what Ireland is – it’s real, natural, beautiful with a brimful of good-humoured people that are the stuff of legend (come on, I’m Irish - I’m allowed to say this!).
I worked really hard with my wonderful designer Kem White and DP Luke Jacobs to make sure both films felt as modern and contemporary – but still identifiably Irish – as possible. I wanted the colour palette to have a controlled but natural feel which would act as the authentic – and naturally beautiful – backdrop to the lives of the people we meet over the course of the film(s).
The canvas of the film is the beautiful Irish landscape and scenery, so you’re obviously starting with a lovely natural green and tawny brown palette. I wanted to make the actors’ costumes as complementary to that landscape as possible so the whole film looked reflective of a contemporary modern Ireland, rather than an idealised, imaginary ‘olde worlde’ Ireland. I wanted it to do that without feeling in any way designed or artificial. Sharon’s green/brown coat, for example, slotted beautifully into our colour palette, and the shocking pink jumper she wore underneath just popped her out against the landscape and drew our eye in a really nice, subtle way. I’m delighted with the end result, though I say so myself! Of course, like anywhere else, Ireland is especially beautiful when the sun shines, and we were very lucky that it did just that for us!
LBB> Tell me about the importance of music in the two films!
Jim> As a musician myself with a huge love of Irish music – my ‘Dirty Old Town’ on the guitar is the stuff of legends - I wanted music to feature heavily but in a subtle, organic way. We were able to have some fun with that too, as we did in the lovely scene where Saoirse and Jamie Lee are analysing the Derry Girls mural as if they’re talking about a painting by Jack B. Yeats or William Osborne! It really makes me laugh.
LBB> How did you get to grips with documenting Irish humour in the wholesome way that you did and why do you think it proved so successful?
Jim> As with any kind of storytelling – and particularly comedy – it all starts with the script. I was tremendously lucky to have scripts by Paul (Howard) and Steve Paskin on the Sharon film and on the ‘Derry Girls’ film, our creatives at Publicis Poke Henry Finnegan and James White, which were at once funny and warm, but also felt very grounded and real. One thing we all agreed on was not to ‘try-hard’. We wanted the whole campaign to be effortlessly fun and funny, and not in any way contrived. That was a great start, and we worked hard on both scripts across our prep time to hone and shape them so that they felt as real as they possibly could.
We ended up with a really lovely mix of real people and actors skilled in improvisation who could embody that sense of humour of the Irish without having to strain too hard or force anything performance-wise. I wanted people who felt natural and organic, people who didn’t feel like they were acting or trying to be funny. We could have devoted a whole spot to the improvisations of our two female wild swimmers, Bernie and Siobhan. It was really about making sure that all the performances were both funny and real, and I guess my background in directing grounded comedies like Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ or my Apple TV series ‘Trying’ – and of course ‘Catastrophe’ - helped in the realisation of that ‘funny but real’ tone as well.
LBB> How did you make sure you balanced so masterfully authenticity and tradition, without going into stereotyping? Was that a difficult process and did having an all-Irish cast and crew help?
Jim> Having an all-Irish crew definitely helped in keeping things authentic, and not resorting to stereotypes. As an Irish director, I’d be very conscious of the difference between a real, genuine Irish character and a crude stereotype. The rest of the crew would have been the same. In truth, being Irish and having an all-Irish crew meant this was never really an issue for us, but we definitely still had lots of conversations about wanting to embrace the gorgeous landscapes traditionally associated with holidaying in Ireland, but also to populate the film with a more contemporary cast of characters and people than might have been the case in the past.
Ireland is a modern, diverse, vibrant, cosmopolitan country now – I had the best Thai food I’ve ever had in a restaurant in Derry while we were shooting! We were really keen for that modern, cosmopolitan vibe to permeate the film, whilst also celebrating the more traditional Irish qualities of the music, landscape and architecture, which are obviously a huge attraction to holidaymakers as well.
LBB> What was the most fun part of shooting the film? And how long did it take to shoot all of it?
Jim> We had a total of four days to shoot the two 120’ films in the campaign – two days with Sharon in Dublin and Wicklow, and two with Saoirse and Jamie Lee shooting in Northern Ireland. I loved the whole experience! And getting paid for it all – what’s not to love?
But if I had to choose one thing, I’d say it was shooting in Derry and along the Antrim Coast for the Saoirse and Jamie Lee film, just because I didn’t know that part of the country at all, so I was discovering it for the first time. It’s absolutely stunning - some of the beaches along that section of coast are among the most beautiful I’ve ever come across, with great expansive strands of fine white sand and magnificent dunes. I was like a kid discovering a magical land I’d never been to before (though I definitely intend to go back on a holiday of my own). Hopefully some of my enthusiasm for that part of the country came through alongside Saoirse and Jamie-Lee’s in the finished film.
LBB> Were there any unexpected challenges in the process?
Jim> As with any shoot, we had our share of unexpected challenges. The biggest was weather – which I suppose shouldn’t have been entirely unexpected given we were shooting in Ireland in October with Sharon and in the middle of December with Saoirse and Jamie Lee!
In fairness, we did have a whole shadow plan B schedule for a more indoorsy version of both films, which we really didn’t want to have to shoot, but had to have just in case the weather didn’t play ball. As it turned out, we got the most beautiful, sunny weather throughout the whole of the December shoot with Jamie Lee and Saoirse, and on day one of the September shoot, and we were all delighted with ourselves. On day two of Sharon’s shoot, the mist came in and we arrived at the beautiful Luggala Estate in Wicklow to shoot the opening scene of the film against the backdrop of the stunning Lough Tay, only to find that the entire valley was completely shrouded in mist and the Lake itself entirely invisible!
We waited it out as long as we could – which wasn’t very long since we were shooting on a very tight two day schedule, with a lot to get through and a lot of different locations - then got what we could in the occasional breaks in the cloud when the sun managed to poke through. What we got was by no means terrible – it had a strangely ethereal, misty ‘Lord of the Rings’ quality - but the mist lifted a little over lunch and the sun started to poke through, so we made the decision to go back up to the Lough again for another bite of the cherry and we got some pretty magical stuff. So that was a real stroke of luck which more than made up for the morning’s inclement weather.
LBB> What has the audience's reaction been so far?
Jim> The audience reaction so far has been phenomenal. People seem to be really responding to the combination of our charming, funny, ridiculously talented hosts, the wonderful characters they meet along the way, and the beautiful Irish landscapes and music, which of course was always the intention. I’m thrilled as a proud Irishman to have contributed in some small way to the ‘Fill Your Heart’ campaign, and very much looking forward to shooting many more instalments over the coming years. Though ideally filming in the summer next time rather than in mid-December!
