The Midnight Drives follows the story of a broken family on their annual holiday to a bleak, lifeless, out-of-season Cornwall. Colin Holt (Golden Burn, The Rabbit, The Man Who Needed A Traffic Light) stars as Andy, a divorcee who has custody of his two young children over a winter half term, and chooses to travel with them to Cornwall in an attempt to recapture the magic of his own childhood holidays.
Divorce has left Andy in a lonely place, estranged from his kids, frustrated by his inability to communicate, and determined not to waste a single precious minute of his long-awaited holiday; but as the week wears on, the pressures begin to mount. Despite Andy’s best efforts, the holiday slides inexorably towards disaster, thanks to a combination of eccentric guesthouse owners, doomed day-trips, a mysteriously elusive maze and the vagaries of the Cornish weather. But while the days are dogged by disaster, at night Andy and his kids discover a new sense of connection through a series of spontaneous, dreamlike excursions they come to call The Midnight Drives…
The film was produced by Truro-based production company o-region with funds from Cornwall Film as part of the Target Talent scheme, and went into principal photography on 2nd March 2007. Featuring a talented young production team based in Cornwall, many of whom had previously been involved on Mark Jenkin’s previous low-budget features Golden Burn and The Rabbit, and assisted by the experienced British producer Pippa Cross (Shooting Dogs, The Hole) the film was one of the most ambitious feature film projects to have been produced by Cornwall’s burgeoning low-budget film industry.
The Website
Lacking the marketing resources of a much larger mainstream feature film, the Midnight Drives team decided on an innovative strategy for publicising the production. Making imaginative use of digital technologies, viral marketing strategies and the internet, the team set up this website to provide a unique insight into the production process, documenting all the highs and lows of producing a low-budget feature film.
From the early stages of pre-production right and principal photography right through to the film’s first public premiere, visitors to the Drives site have unique access to a whole host of material from the production team, including video blogs, production diaries, podcasts, photo galleries, exclusive short films, screensavers, music clips and trailers.