What were the challenges and rewards of working with child actors?
We found two really great actors in Katie Boyle and Oisin O’Connell after spending a long time trying to find them. Katie was 13 at the time and she was very focused and professional. Oisin was only seven, so I spent most of the time concentrating on him. We had his mum on the set, which helped — we actually got her to play the mother in the film. The main thing I did was to make sure that we had time to shoot close-ups of the kids in almost every scene. This meant that if a few lines weren’t great in the master, we could always pick them up in a close-up. How do you feel about the success The Morse Collectors has had on the festival circuit? I’m delighted. We’ve won several prizes, including an Academy Award qualifying prize. This means that we now enter the film for consideration for the 2010 Oscars. It’s nice to know that we’ve made a good quality film and, hopefully, it will provide a solid launching pad for my career. How did Aspen compare to other film festivals? Aspen has a real
