Andrew Day

Making films my own way… with LOTS of help.

What was the path that led me to start Yaysayer?

I’ve always been a scriptwriter and always will be. As a youngster I lived to act, direct, and write. As an adult, I taught myself to write by watching old films and listening to my housemate, a Film Studies lecturer.

Working closely with a long-standing friend, Chris Baker, I wrote spec scripts (scripts you write by yourself and then send off in the hope that someone will want to make it… or will like it enough to ask you to write something else).

Time went by. We wrote more scripts. We wondered when it would happen.

Then out of the blue a young producer who had once read those spec scripts called us up. That was Matt Vaughn. He’d just produced Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels with Guy Richie and now he was in a position to give us work. Suddenly we were off.

We got credits on a couple of films, Mean Machine and Long Time Dead, a Working Title horror film. We were asked to write an episode of the Lock, Stock… TV series for Channel 4, then ended up doing five.

We did countless things in development. (If you’re not familiar with that term, ‘development’ is when work is done on the script in the hope that it will get made. Sometimes cast and crew are provisionally attached.)

In those days, enormous amounts of material were developed but eventually abandoned when, for good reasons or bad, they never got greenlit.

But it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I liked the validation of being given work and credits after years of struggle. I loved the money. I mean, I really loved the money. But none of our own ideas were getting traction. The work we were offered was the kind of thing in high demand. Advertisers wanted more of it. But the things we were asked to do were often things I wouldn’t particularly want to watch myself. My heart wasn’t in it and people could tell. I drifted.

I thought I’d focus on the theatre. It’s important to tell the truth here. My logic was this: usually a writer gets a play on, gets an agent, gets into TV, and never looks back at theatre again. I figured that if I was travelling in the other direction, theatre people would be in awe of where I’d been and what I’d done. Like a Premiership footballer dropping down a league.

So wrong. I was back to square one in a new medium. None of my credits counted in my favour.

Eventually I got a new break, working with Maggie Norris at The Big House – a company she founded to work with adults who had come through the care system. I wrote six productions there between 2013 and 2019. The reviews were great. Numerous celebrities showed up and showered praise and encouragement. The lead in our first play, Jasmine Jobson, went on to win a BAFTA for Top Boy. The credit for her success is all hers but it gives you an idea of the quality of some of the work we were doing. Take a look here, here and here. 

There were other things going on. I published a book of philosophical poems for kids, with Peter Worley: Thoughtings, then Numberverse, a fun book for anyone who wanted to introduce children to the world of mathematics.

All this time, I’d also wanted to do radio drama. I had a good contact to help me pitch ideas to BBC Radio 4 but nothing was getting commissioned. Then Simon Scardifield, another friend, (hmm, is there a pattern here?) invited me to pitch with him for an adaptation Also Sprach Zarathustra by Nietzsche, who happened be one of my heroes. Luckily, we ended up working with Emma Harding, one of the best Radio producers in the business. Simon and I have gone on to write thrillers Galapagos and The Concierge for BBC Radio. We’re bidding for more.

This led to some uncredited screenwriting work, developing and drafting scripts for more established writers, at speed. It’s great work and it gives me the confidence that I can operate at the highest level.

Some of the concepts I’d developed for theatre were easily adaptable to the screen. But I didn’t really feel that working my way back into the system was the right path. I’d already been there and wanted something different. To create my own projects for the screen, I’d have to be radical and uncompromising.

The first foray was to record a couple of scenes from one of my plays. At that stage I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue the story as a play or pivot to a film. Making the 4-minute film Until She Leaves, was decisive. Not only did I love doing the script, I also enjoyed finding the cast and location. Funding it myself was expensive, but it gave me ultimate control. Not that I needed to exercise it much. The director, Paul Brooking, did a great job shooting and editing everything himself.

The next film was going to have to be very cheap, though. I set out to write something that could be shot in one room, in one day, with three actors. I was inspired by this comedy micro-short, after seeing its creator talk at the London Screenwriters Festival.

I wrote, produced, directed, and edited Your Actual Relationship. I was incredibly lucky to score the services of a bona fide Director Or Photography, Josh White. Josh knew how to make my living room look a film set and how to bridge the gaps left by obvious inexperience as a Director.

Now there is no turning back. The next projects are lined up. Sourcing funds to make them, and finding ways to sell them, are mammoth tasks. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. But what gives me heart is that every time I come across an obstacle I can rewrite, rethink, reevaluate and find a way to make the obstacle into a spur to creativity. That’s what I mean by VOONing.