Digital Cinema Media (DCM) hosted a panel session on ‘The Future of Cinema’ today as part of its annual ‘Introduction to Cinema’ media training event at BAFTA.

The diverse panel, hosted by DCM’s Film Specialist, Tom Linay, included: Danny Barnes, Head of Investment at PHD, Michael Kalli, Head of Corporate Sales & Advertising at VUE Entertainment, Mike Bennett, CEO/Creative Director/Founder, Oil Studios and Joe Evea, Commercial Director at DCM.

Themes covered by the panel included the ongoing transformation of the cinema environment, the role of film as the ultimate storytelling vehicle and the consumer demand for consuming quality content on multiple platforms.

Vue’s Michael Kalli explained how cinema chains have made the foyer and pre-film experience a priority: “Every pound has to work a little bit harder. Whether it’s a consumer’s or an advertiser’s hard earned cash. We’ve all stepped up to the challenge to make sure that when someone comes into our foyers they are enchanted by the world of film from the moment they come in.”

DCM’s Joe Evea added: “I think this evolution is really interesting – particularly as we represent different exhibitors. If you look at the Picturehouse model, it’s about the experience itself – if you go to the cinema you can have a meal, you can have a drink and you feel relaxed. I think that is future-proofing their business and it’s a trend that will continue.”

Danny Barnes agreed that the high-end environment is important to the media buying process, explaining how people look forward to the cinema experience and this enjoyment makes the advertising experience more fun. Mike Bennett added: “You can watch a film anywhere – on a mobile phone, on a seat-back on a train or at home. So cinema had to evolve and offer more.”

Following continuous advances in digital cinema technology, the conversation turned to the subject of 3D and Dolby Atmos. Kalli explained how Vue’s customers come to watch film in the best possible environment with cutting-edge technology such as Dolby Atmos surround sound and 4K image projection that you cannot get at home. It is this technology, in his opinion, that keeps cinema ahead.

Besides technology, Bennett feels that going to the cinema is somewhere we go to escape in our lives: “Going to the cinema is part of the bigger cultural mix. You go to the cinema because it’s a much better experience. I want to escape from what I do, shut off the computer for three hours and go to experience that stuff.”

“Cinema is the best place to go and see a great piece of storytelling. And if cinema can then glue you into that with the pre- and post- film experience it connects the whole story. Then, from a media and brand advertising perspective, you can connect your audience all the way through it without interrupting.”

Danny Barnes elaborated on the power of cinematic storytelling: “Cinema’s USP has always been its storytelling power. It’s the ultimate platform as far as I’m concerned. It’s the lead platform for creativity, for content and for escapism. You have got people in the perfect environment to tell a story, whether from a film or advertising perspective.”

Danny also drew on the effectiveness of that cinema can deliver, in addition to its immersive nature: “We all know that cinema adds incremental cover to a TV campaign. We also know it adds ROI. We’ve done the work. Every other medium has strengths but for escapism and involvement in what you’re watching cinema is by far best.”

The Introduction to Cinema also included presentations on dynamic new cinema advertising possibilities to reach audiences in a multi-platform world before, during and beyond the movie, as well as a guide to planning and buying routes and a look-ahead at the upcoming film-slate. For news and information on more DCM presentations and events, find out more from your DCM sales representative.

The presentation from the event can be viewed here

Smart brands will find plenty of big films in the coming months to associate themselves with, Tom Linay writes.

Highlights included UK premières for Sundance’s 2013 US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary winner, Blood Brother, and Lake Bell’s directorial debut and the winner of a screen-writing award, In A World. There were also music performances, workshops and Q&As providing a Millennium Dome-shaped Mecca for film lovers.

The world’s premier film festival kicks off in just under a fortnight, when much of Soho decamps to the South of France for two weeks to watch, sell or buy films and pay E16 for a pint of beer. With Steven Spielberg leading the starriest jury for years and new films from the Coen brothers, Alexander Payne and Nicolas Winding Refn, the 66th Cannes Film Festival looks to be a cracker.

For those not attending festivals, May and June see the blockbuster season commence, with Star Trek Into Darkness promising to deliver serious thrills for Trekkies and everyone else alike. The money is on Into Darkness being the biggest live-action film of the summer, with technology and upmarket car brands vying for association.

Just a day after opening Cannes, Baz Luhrmann’s lavish adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (pictured) releases in the UK. It is also, perhaps surprisingly, being released in 3D. At CinemaCon in Las Vegas last month, Luhrmann told more than 5,000 film industry attendees that “F Scott Fitzgerald was a great fan of new technology”, so no doubt he would have been down the front with his 3D glasses on. If the trailers for Gatsby are anything to go by, the many fans of Luhrmann’s “everything but the kitchen sink” style won’t be disappointed.

There are new titles in a couple of popular franchises too. 17 May is a big day for fans of The Rock and insane vehicular stunts as Fast & Furious 6 opens. With much of the action taking place in London, you can expect the sixth in the series to set a new benchmark. A week later, the wolfpack are back in The Hangover Part III. There is hope that the mismatched trio can recapture the magic in the final instalment.

Not to be outdone, June is set to go stratospheric with the return of Superman in Man Of Steel. Christopher Nolan is on story and producing duties and is aiming to do for Superman what he did so spectacularly for Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy.

That is just May and June. So with July and August bringing Monsters University, Pacific Rim, The World’s End, The Lone Ranger and the Venice Film Festival, we can look forward to a memorable summer.

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk

Last Friday morning, DCM’s resident film specialist, Tom Linay, took a trip to Havas Media UK to participate in Ideas Week, with Ed Edwards, Creative Director, Writer and Director at Havas Worldwide.

Their Q&A session covered diverse topics, including how the story-telling power of the big screen compares to other media platforms, the sanctity that cinema provides in a content saturated, multi-device age and whether the fear of failure inspires or hinders creativity.

The session began with an introduction to Ed, including his past agencies (BMP DDB, Fallon, BBH and CHI&Partners) as well as  movies and ads that have inspired him which include Withnail & I for its comedy elements, Easy Rider for its style and music and Performance for its total anarchy.

The ads that have inspired him include Kipper for Lego by TBWA, with the comedic voice over from a Tommy Cooper sound-alike , Iguana for Benson and Hedges by CDP, with its surreal overtones and origin, culminating with Drugstore for Levi’s by BBH, because of the directorial style of Michel Gondry

Ed also shared his own favourite ad that he had worked on, which is the 2006 Satellite ad for the Audi A6.

Tom and Ed then moved on to discuss Ed’s creative process when creating an advert, from receiving the brief to delivering the finished ad.  Ed revealed “the first thing I do when I receive a brief is throw it out and leave the office for a more inspiring space”. He added that the traditional office space was not geared towards creative thinking, citing that there are many alternative places to seek inspiration in close proximity to most offices, such as art galleries, museums and failing all, else, pubs.

They also talked about how cinema differs from other mediums, in its immersive and its “appointment to view” nature, which is becoming increasingly important in a “multi multi screening world” according to Ed.

One of the final topics they covered was whether deeper audience engagement is now possible through advancements in technology, such as 3D, Dolby Atmos, IMAX, mobile, to which Ed strongly agreed, stating that any technological enhancements that added to the immersive atmosphere of the cinema were to be embraced.

Congratulations to all our exhibitors for making cinema a Blockbuster year in 2012. Fuelled by titles such as The Dark Knight Rises, Marvel’s Avengers Assemble and the record breaking Skyfall. UK and Ireland Box Office ticket sales exceeded the £1 billion mark for the fourth consecutive year, which equates to admissions of over 172 million people.

In a year dominated by landmark entertainment events in the UK, such as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, this is an impressive feat. The exact total across UK & Ireland was £1,172,037,248.

Last year was the year of superhero franchises, with releases from the Batman series (The Dark Knight Rises £56.3m) and Marvel uniting the powers of Iron Man, The Hulk and Thor in Avengers Assemble (£51.9m). Other big box office performers of the year include Ted (£30.3m), from Family Guy creator, Seth McFarlane and The Hunger Games (£23.8m).

Digital Cinema Media Film Specialist, Tom Linay, attributes the success of this year to a remarkably strong line-up: “2012 was a landmark year for cinema in the UK, with big releases from each of the major studios and the conversion to digital, making the medium faster, more flexible and more effective. This is the fourth year in a row that the UK Box Office has passed the £1 billion mark. In 2013, we can expect to see a continuation of this success with releases of sequels such as Thor: The Dark World 3D, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Star Trek Into Darkness 3D and Monsters University 3D.”

Top 10 films in the UK & Ireland in 2012

1. Skyfall (Sony Pictures): £101.0m
2. The Dark Knight Rises (Warner Bros): £56.3m
3. Marvel’s Avengers Assemble (Walt Disney): £51.9m
4. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Warner Bros): £40.8m
5. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (eOne Films): £35.5m
6. Ted (Universal Pictures): £30.3m
7. Ice Age: Continental Drift (20th Century Fox): £30.1m
8. The Amazing Spider-Man (Sony Pictures): £25.9m
9. Prometheus (20th Century Fox): £24.7m
10. The Hunger Games (Lionsgate): £23.8m

The stand out performer of the year was Skyfall, the 23rd official outing of James Bond. Skyfall has now taken over £100m at the Box Office, beating the previous record, set by James Cameron’s Avatar, making it the most successful movie in UK Box Office history. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the James Bond franchise.

The top two films from last weekend held on to their places and both experienced strong holds on another impressive weekend for the box office. The snowy conditions last week obviously hampered Les Misérables as it bounced back easing a miniscule 9% to £4m and a huge cume of £24.6m. On Saturday it overtook High School Musical 3 (£22.8m) and now the only musical ahead of it on the all-time list is Mamma Mia with £68.5m. Django Unchained fell just 14% to £2.4m and now has a cume of £7.2m. Despite opening lower than Inglourious Basterds, its final total of £10.9m looks very achievable.

In third spot was another awards hopeful and the highest new entry, Lincoln, with £1.7m. That’s a very solid start and as the BAFTAs and Oscars get closer, it should continue to perform strongly. Fourth place was taken by Life of Pi 3D, which crossed the £25m mark with a further £1.1m and now stands on a spectacular £25.9m, a total that would have put it 8 on the list of 2012’s biggest films. Another new entry rounded out the top five, with Zero Dark Thirty opening with £1.1m. That’s significantly more than Kathryn Bigelow’s last film, The Hurt Locker, which opened with £309k in 2009.

A couple of other notable new entries were ensemble comedy Movie 43 in seventh spot with £788k and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comeback as The Last Stand which could only open in tenth spot with £539k (including £83k from previews).

Overall the box office was once again up on the same weekend last year, this time 32%, and that’s now 15 weekends in succession.

In the US, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters’ $19m debut is an improvement on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter‘s $16.3m opening last June with an audience 55% male and 57% were 25 years of age or older. Second place was taken by Mama, which eased a chunky 55% to $12.9m and has a healthy cume of $48.6m. Third spot was taken by Oscar hopeful, Silver Linings Playbook which experienced just a 10% drop to $10m and a cume of $69.5m. Zero Dark Thirty was in fourth spot with $9.8m and has now grossed $69.9m. The top five was rounded out by Jason Statham vehicle, Parker, which opened with an unspectacular $7m.

Source: The Guardian

Figures just released reveal that the week commencing 26 October 2012 saw the highest admissions to cinema in the UK this century, at over 7.5m. Furthermore, the month of October has seen industry admissions, which totalled 16.8m, up 24% from the same period in 2011 and the biggest October in terms of admissions for nearly a decade.

The release of the 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall, has made this October huge. Bond’s return has easily beaten the one week box office record, previously held by Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (£18.1m) with £33.1m.

Advertisers buying into the success of Skyfall include Heineken, Ikea and Toyota. Lisa Fielden, Manager, Brand and Digital Marketing at Toyota, said; “The Toyota GT86 sports car is positioned towards upmarket male consumers that can be hard to reach due to their time spent out of the home. Cinema advertising in Skyfall was a perfect opportunity to add incremental reach to this audience.”

Besides Skyfall, the month’s admissions were bolstered by Taken 2, with the latest cumulative box office standing at £23.3m, £21.4m of which was earned in October.

Tom Linay, Film Specialist at Digital Cinema Media, said; “October 2012 has been a massive month for the UK cinema sector in terms of admissions, powered by strong releases such as Skyfall, Taken 2, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted and Looper, making this October the strongest in nearly a decade and a fantastic start to a big Q4.”

“Going into 2013, January looks like it will continue the strong performance with marquee titles such as Quartet, Les Misérables and Django Unchained all in the first few weeks of the month”

It was with a sad slow-mo wave that we bid farewell to the BFI London Film Festival for another year. The festival closed in typically grand fashion with a Gala screening of Mike Newell’s Great Expectations. Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Jeremy Irvine were in attendance on the red carpet and the after party at Battersea Power Station certainly drew the festival to a dramatic and well-earned close.

The 56^th London Film Festival has hosted over 200 feature films in just under two weeks including Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone, which won the Best Film Of The Festival Award on Saturday (This is the fourth year of the standalone awards but a second win for Audiard, who won in 2009 for A Prophet) and Beasts of The Southern Wild, which scooped up the prestigious Sutherland Award for the most original and imaginative film of the festival. All award winners can be viewed here.

In a year dominated by blockbusters, the 56th BFI London Film Festival has proved there is a wealth of award winning, upmarket and affluent films to look forward to for over the next couple of months and well into 2013.

Over the course of the festival, we have been keeping you up to date via this dedicated BFI blog through reviews and video posts. We hope it has helped to educate, excite and even get some of you closer to the festival and films within it. To bring the festival to an appropriate close, watch our final video below with a tearful eye.

PREVIOUS VIDEOS

REVIEWS

Frankenweenie 3D

It’s the opening of the BFI and what better way to kick off the 56^th London Film Festival than to pick a film which was crafted at the Three Mills Studios in East London and is the latest great offering from the quirky director who brought us the classic Nightmare before Christmas and The Corpse Bride.

Read more

Amour

If you’re a fan of French cinema, Michael Haneke’s Amour is a must-see film this November. As soon as it screened at the Cannes Festival, it was clearly very special and was the obvious choice to win the Palme d’Or. But be prepared, it’s a gritty, matter of fact look at what happens in later life as the aging process takes over a couple’s world.

Read more

The Sapphires

It’s the beginning of an exciting new week at The BFI London Film Festival and the order of this evening is The Sapphires, the debut feature film from resident Aussie, Wayne Blair. Inspired by true events, it’s a gutsy, upbeat and at times satirical story of four girls with one dream.

Read more

End of Watch

On the rainiest of Wednesday nights, the DCM faithful padded over a sodden red carpet into a packed-out UK premiere of End of Watch – the new cop thriller by the writer of Training Day, David Ayer. The influences really show too – the action is stark and brutal, with sombre down moments and tension hitting fever pitch at the grand finale.

Read more

Quartet

On the rainiest of Wednesday nights, the DCM faithful padded over a sodden red carpet into a packed-out UK premiere of End of Watch – the new cop thriller by the writer of Training Day, David Ayer. The influences really show too – the action is stark and brutal, with sombre down moments and tension hitting fever pitch at the grand finale.

Read more

My Brother The Devil

The young characters of My Brother the Devil live in a world of perpetual violence, gang feuds and abuses both chemical and physical. It’s a world where a legitimate road to success is all-but invisible, and brash machismo – often backed-up by cold steel – is an ugly substitute for ambition.

Read more

The BFI Art Of Frankenweenie

You attend the opening of a showcase such as this knowing you are going to witness something special but never truly expecting what your about to see.Having seen the film at its premiere the previous week and loving every minute of it, seeing the ideas, creations and the making behind the film was even more fascinating (note to all potential attendees – see the movie first).

Read more

Great Expectations Closing Gala

Film fans and stars took to the red carpet on Sunday 21st October for the BFI’s glittering closing gala at London’s Odeon Leicester Square featuring the European Premiere of Great Expectations.

Read more

On Friday the exhibitors were imploring the populace to get their mass to ours, as the remake of Total Recall was finally on general release. The populace agreed and twenty two years after the original was released, the new Total Recall topped the UK box office with £2.8m (including £959k from previews).

In second spot and benefitting from the unusual step of opening on a Monday was all-star comedy The Watch with £2.2m (including £1.4m from previews).  Brave 3D continues to enchant adults and children alike with a further £1.6m over the weekend taking its cume to £17.9m. Ted still bears fruit, easing 42% to £989k for a  cume of £28.1m.

In fifth spot was another new entry with Exorcist-style horror, The Possession. A £979k debut (including £4k from previews) isn’t far off from the similarly themed The Last Exorcism (£1.1m) and The Haunting In Connecticut (£1.1m). The only other new entry in the top 15 was an Australian comedy with a British feel, A Few Best Men. The Hangover style romp grossed £264k. Overall the box office was up 2% from last weekend and 1% from the same weekend last year.

In the US, The Possession topped the box office with $17.7m and distributor Lionsgate said the audience was 59% female and 54% under the age of 25. Dusty prohibition thriller, Lawless opened in second place with $9.7 and a five-day total of $11.8m. The Expendables 2 fell 34% to an estimated $8.8m, bringing its total to $66.2m, which is approximately $16m away from where The Expendables was at the same point. The Bourne Legacy had a solid weekend, falling just 22% to $7.2m and the film now has a cume of $96.2m, and will pass $100m before the end of the week. ParaNorman 3D rounded out the Top Five with $6.6m and has now grossed a total of $38m.

Source: guardian.co.uk

For the second successive weekend Brave 3D hit the bullseye, falling a very light 9% to £2.4m (fall-off not including opening weekend previews). Including bank holiday Monday, Pixar’s latest smash now has a cume of £14.4m and is fast closing in on Cars 2 (£15.6m) and Cars (£16.5m). After that the next Pixar title in its sights is Toy Story with £22.3m, which is looking increasingly likely.

The remarkable performance of ribald bear Ted shows little sign of slowing down as a further £1.7m over the weekend takes its cume to £26.2m. It has now grossed more than any Austin Powers film and will probably finish around Meet The Fockers’ final total of £28.9m. It is also the fourth biggest film of the year so far, having just surpassed The Amazing Spider-Man 3D’s current cume of £25.8m.

The Bourne Legacy had another solid weekend with £1.6m and a cume of £8.4m.  This surpasses The Bourne Identity’s final total of £7.8m and Legacy will be hoping to get close The Bourne Supremacy’s £11.6m final total. In fourth place was The Dark Knight Rises with £1.4m. On Saturday TDKR officially became king of the comic book heroes overtaking Avengers Assemble 3D’s final total of £51.9m to become the biggest comic book film of all time and the biggest film of 2012 so far with £53.1m. Keith Lemon: The Film rounded out the top five with £1.2m and a four day total of £1.5m.

Finally, there was a terrific performance in the lower reaches of the top 15 with startling documentary The Imposter opening in tenth spot with £252k (including £29k from previews) and a four day total of £328k. Almost unanimous praise from the critics inspired this film to the highest screen average of the weekend (£5.1k).

In the US, The Expendables 2 fell 53% to $13.4m and the aging action star spectacular now has a 10-day total of $52.2m. In second place, The Bourne Legacy eased 45% to $9.3m and a cume of $85.5m, which is solid but unlikely to match The Bourne Identity’s final total of $121.7m.  A further $8.6m for ParaNorman 3D takes its cume to $28.3m and Coraline’s final total of $75.3m is looking insurmountable. In fourth spot The Campaign fell 43% to $7.5m for a total of $64.6 m. The Dark Knight Rises rounded out the top five with $7.2m and a cume of $422.3m, which is 11th on the all-time chart. Outside of the top five, The Odd Life of Timothy Green continued its steady performance with a further $7.1 m and after 12 days has a cume of $27.1m. Premium Rush openned with $6m. Sony Pictures reported that the audience was 55% male and 67% were 25 years of age and older.

Every so often a documentary is released that emphatically proves the age old adage that truth really is stranger than fiction. The Imposter is one such film; an extraordinary tale of intrigue, deception and the nature of memory that will leave audiences opened mouthed with its twists and turns.

In 1993, thirteen year old Nicholas Barclay went missing after playing basketball with friends in San Antonio Texas. Three and a half years later Frederic Bourdin is found by police in Madrid claiming to be Nicholas Barclay. Despite bearing little resemblance to Barclay, indeed having different colour hair and eyes, and speaking with a strong French accent, Barclay’s family welcome Bourdin into their home, convinced he is their missing son/sibling.

What follows confounds expectations and continually asks you to reassess what you had have just seen. The tale is told using haunting archive footage, atmospheric reconstructions and talking head interviews, most notable of which are with Bourdin himself, a deeply troubled but immensely charismatic individual who persuasively puts forward his side of the story. The Imposter is not just one of the best documentaries of the year, it’s one of the best films of the year.

Sitting down with British director Bart Layton and Charlie Parker the private investigator who features prominently in the film, in London’s salubrious Holland Park, I aimed to get some background on this amazing film.

It’s an incredible series of events. Did you find yourselves struggling to believe it as you were uncovering it?

Charlie: I didn’t believe it. From the get-go, I saw his ears and I knew he wasn’t who he said he was. I’d been hired by Hard Copy, a TV station in Texas, and I told them that I’d measured [Bourdin’s] ears and compared them to the real Nicholas Barclay’s and he wasn’t the guy. Hard Copy said ‘end of story’ but I couldn’t let it end though and I needed to find out who he was.

Bart: It was very different for me because I wasn’t living this whole experience in the way that Charlie was, I certainly think it’s very rare that you read about a story that if it was a work of fiction, you’d find it completely far-fetched. It sounds unbelievable, which is why it had to be a documentary rather than a fictionalisation.

When did you first hear of the story of Nicholas Barclay?

Charlie: I was employed by a news station. They had heard that a boy had come here from Spain. He’d been tortured, he’d been in a prison camp, he’d been held hostage against his will and they wanted me to check it out and their producers went and I went with the producers. The real Nicholas Barclay’s picture was sitting there right on the table and Beverly and Carey were to my left and I watched them and their reaction and I could see Bourdin on a screen. I asked the camera man to zoom in on his ears so I could measure his ears. To me that seemed very sophisticated – Scotland Yard used it. The ears age less than any other part of the body. In fact the iris ages, fingerprints age, so I knew it wasn’t Nicholas Barclay and proceeded to try and tell the right people.

Bart: Well I heard about it obviously years after this whole thing happened when I was reading a Spanish magazine and came across the story of Bourdin. It didn’t necessarily go into this episode but it talked about his background, having pretended to be a destitute child for years. I was intrigued so did some more research and found a couple of articles – one in the Guardian and one in the New Yorker Magazine that talked about this incident where he’d successfully stolen the identity of a real kid. Prior to this he’d invented identities and I think this was the first time he’d stolen an identity. I was completely floored by what kind of person would do something like that and what kind of family would be mistaken to that degree.

Did you experience any hostility from the people involved?

Bart: Not hostility, no. I think there was a certain amount of hesitancy on the family’s part as they had participated in news programmes and various pieces of print journalism that they didn’t feel had reflected well upon them and they were hesitant to do anything else. They weren’t hostile, just reluctant at first but at the same time they wanted the opportunity to tell their side of the story as well.

At what point did you decide to use reconstruction footage?

Bart: We weren’t blessed with masses of archive footage – there’s a few pieces of home video footage that was shot by the family or friends of the family which you see in the film and that’s pretty extraordinary. There’s also a bit of news archive but we’ve got a huge amount of story that spans several months. I felt like reconstructions was the right way to approach this story, although it’s not right for every story.

Documentary purists can have a real problem with drama in documentary but it’s problematic when you’re trying to tell people it’s something else, a piece of real archive and I wanted to go the opposite direction, to create a visualisation that was clearly not real. It’s very hyper-real and plays with ideas of memory and subjectivity and it’s kind of dream like in time. It’s very cinematic in a way that reality generally isn’t. It’s an extension of the storytelling, if someone like Bourdin tells you a great story then you’re going to have this movie that plays in your mind and that’s what I wanted to re-create.

Bourdin is an extraordinary individual and I found him the most persuasive person in the film. Is that a typical response?

Bart: He is a great story-teller and part of what he does is manipulate everyone he comes into contact with, probably me as a film-maker included. That felt like something to allow the audience to have some kind of direct experience of.

Charlie: Something interesting that people need to know – after this was over, I got a chance to go into the room that he stayed in and there was his pack that he carried all the time. In it was just two Michael Jackson tapes, hanging in the closet were two pairs of blue jeans, two shirts. That’s all he had to his name. He was sleeping on the floor and I thought when I looked at it ‘What has he gained from all this’? I expected to find rings that he’d stolen, other items in the pack. There was nothing there and you wonder what his mission really was.

His skill at manipulation is far beyond anything we’ve ever seen. He’s been doing that since he was a child. He’s been put in orphanages and had to deal for food and deal with adults for favours, not children, so he knows how to handle an adult and he knows how to be persuasive and I think he’s a master at that. I think what a great spy he would have made. However, I interviewed some of the teachers at the high school where he went and the students really had nothing to do with him. He somehow wasn’t able to convince the students, he was too strange but he convinced the older people to let him in the school and he was able to carry that off but the younger kids in that school wouldn’t have anything to do with him, they thought ‘boy, this is one strange person’.

There’s some interesting musical choices in the film, that relate to the themes. What inspired these choices?

Bart: A lot of it was to do with music that the family liked. Also to do with ideas about Americana and ultimately you make those decisions based on what kind of emotions they’re going to reflect. Things like David Bowie and Cat Stevens had been in the family’s music collection and they were also songs I loved and felt that they fit that mood. The Doobie Brothers felt like the right choice at that time. There’s all these peaks and troughs in terms of the emotional arc of the film and those songs seemed like they summed them up quite well and they spoke to rural America.

Have the Dollarhide / Gibson / Barclay family seen the film and do you still have contact with them?

Charlie: I talked with Carey (Nicholas’ sister) two days ago. I have to maintain a relationship with them if I’m ever going to find Beverly’s son and her brother.

Bart: I showed the family the film prior to Sundance and they were pleased they’d been part of it. They knew those allegations were going to be in it, they knew that there was an investigation into them but they felt it was true to their experience and it was an honest portrayal of what they’d been through.

What is Frederic Bourdin up to now?

Bart: The last I heard from a journalist who went and met with him is he lives a surprisingly normal family life, although he’s still full of anger and all sorts of things which he broadcasts on his internet page. He works in security and does dog training.

The Imposter is in cinemas from Friday 24 August.