The Shant Club
Our most ambitious film to date, The Shant Club wrestles with chronic alcoholism in a funny and honest way. Jimmy, our hero, feels his life is effectively over when the doctor orders him to stop drinking, but then, he starts to question the "geezer" culture that he so readily became part of.
Don't think the film is anti-drinking. Believe us, we're the last people on this planet to advise anyone how to live their lives. We just want to tell stories.
The final scene on Hersham station is pure PRAGMA. We tried to go through the proper channels and get permission, but let's face it we were never going to get it. So we just turned up one Sunday morning and started shooting, smiling back benignly at the quizzical stares from the train drivers. The solemn atmosphere of the scene belies the anarchy on the set.
"Shant", incidentally is a slang word around Hersham way for drinking. So when you hear Phil say to Jimmy, "I bet you're clucking for a shant?", this can be translated as "I strongly suspect you could do with a drink right now". Oh Hersham, so much to answer for!
The music by Josh Rouse and Willard Grant Conspiracy gives an extra wide west dimension to the film. The rooftops of Hersham never looked so good.
The Forecourt Pimpernel
Our most antiestablishment inspired film to date. The Forecourt Pimpernel tackles the issue of crippling petrol prices head on and in true PRAGMA style stretches the boundaries of the beg, borrow, steal philosophy of filmmaking.
The film was shot at locations which included Kings Cross station (no permission needed), Woking Police station and Sky News Studios (shot during the early hours of the morning between bulletins) on a shoestring budget of less than £1200. We pre-empted the August 2000 petrol crisis by a full 3 months and in our own way did our bit to bring the issue into Tony Blair's living room.
The film follows the exploits of a petrol pump bandit that the press have dubbed "The Forecourt Pimpernel" and a jobsworth Police Inspector who makes it his mission to stop this most unusual of criminal crusaders. Music comes from Oasis & George Gershwin.
Rockin Chair
Some say that Britain's proudest tradition is our Royal family, but as anyone with a modicum of suss will tell you - that's bollox!
More people around the world respect Britain for it's contribution to music and fashion and this is what this film is about, but with a difference. Rockin' Chair takes a look at just one of the thousands upon thousands of no hope bands that never even step onto the first rung of success.
Here we look at a bunch of guys who are in a band just to postpone adulthood a little longer. Set in the cold bleakness of a suburban English pub, we dressed the band up in cool pastel colours to clash with the surroundings. Of course later in the film they really do take on the pub.
This film has played and won awards all over the globe - New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Manchester, Krakow and everyone has praised the acting. They're right - a wonderful ensemble cast that would be familiar to British TV viewers, with the pedigree of having appeared in such shows as The Bill and Grange Hill.
By the way "Rockin' Chair" is a song by Oasis, which the writer felt especially fitted one of the characters - "Buster's" state of mind. However you won't hear the song on the soundtrack, we wrote to them for permission and they ignored us.
Bradbury Bear Fire Ranger
This is where it all started, a computer store in Hammersmith, a cast of three and a small compact crew wielding an arri camera. The spirit of PRAGMA was truly born in the making of this picture, here's an example. One of our main cast gets arrested the day before shooting, no-one knows where he is. What did we do? Did we panic? Did we cancel the shoot? No way! We start rehearsing a member of the crew.
Two faced sales people are an important theme in this film, smiles and smarm to your face and v-signs behind your back. Terry the sales assistant is fawning over adult customers all day, so when he sees the nervous kid he thinks he can let off steam by being rude and unpleasant. He has no f**kin' respect, that's when Bradbury steps in...
The script got it's inspiration from the Droopy The Dog cartoon character, all passive at the start of the cartoon, as the baddie continuously torments him - until he reaches a point where he stares at the camera and says, "that makes me mad".
Being our first film, Bradbury Bear Fire Ranger is far from perfect, but what makes the film supremely watchable is the awesome performance of David Doyle - what a star!
