Never Touch the Ground

 Frank Mary Films | Still from Never Touch the Ground | 2026 

Two women, one cake and an epic cross-country challenge. 

I spent this weekend working with Frankie Williams and Tim King as part of Exeter Phoenix's 48-Hour Film Challenge. The aim is to make a three-minute film from script to final edit in just 48 hours.  You can recruit cast and crew, recce locations and gather kit in advance ... but the actual brief arrives at 6pm on Friday and the completed film must be uploaded at 6pm on Sunday.

We were assigned Documentary/Mockumentary as a genre, along with the same compulsory prop and line of text that all 2026 competitors have to include in their films. 

Things didn't go exactly as planned: life has a habit of throwing up the unexpected. But we got there and had lots of fun along the way, especially during filming. However, doing a speedy edit and post-production on the Sunday when already tired was quite a slog. 

"Film-making is a muscle," said Ben Wheatley at a Q&A the other week after a screening of his new film BULK. That is to say, you only get better by keeping on making them. I agree. Every time I've brought one to completion I've learnt a bit more about how to structure a project, how to think about narrative (or anti-narrative), how to shoot, how to edit, how to deal with sound.

Never Touch the Ground is very rough and pretty silly and I am sure it's not the best film any of us will ever make, but it was an intense learning experience. We hope it will be part of the screening at Two Short Nights on Friday 6th March.