Project Detail

Hard Shoulder

OSF2012

Synopsis

Carl Foster, a work obsessed man, reluctantly agrees to a weekend away with his disgruntled wife and disruptive children - it’s as much as he can do to muster any kind of enthusiasm for the few days he must endure in their company. Their constant bickering finally takes its toll on Carl when they are passed, on a deserted country road, by a convoy of ‘carnival types’, who, by mischief or accident, cause Carl to swerve off the road. With rage descending Carl gets into heated exchange with the travellers. Taking an enforced stop hours later, in a small layby, the family are again affronted as their stationary vehicle is rammed by an unseen assailant in a large truck. Dazed by the impact they wake, bound and gagged, within the dreary confines of an abandoned roadside diner, with, seemingly, the same carnival types now their abductors and antagonists. As the gang demeans, insults, and tortures each of their captives in turn, it falls to Carl to free his family from their predicament. But not everything is as it seems, their environment not as tortuous as they imagined, and Carl not all that he would have us believe.

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Details

Year: 2012
Type of project: Features
Running time: 85 mins
Format: 35mm
Director: Nicholas David Lean 1st Feature
Producer: Nicholas David Lean, Gabrielle Whyte-Hart, Mark Booth
Executive Producer: Mark Booth, Alan Booth, Caroline Whyte- Buchler
Editor: Derek Burgess
Screenwriter: Nicholas David Lean
Director of Photography: Steven Priovolos
Production Designer: Claudia Brewster
Sound: John Quinn
Composer: Patrick Savage, Holeg Spies
Principal cast: Wil Johnson, Jamie Foreman, Jon Campling
Associate Producer: Steven Simmons
SFX & MU Supervisor: Mike Peel

Genre

Action

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Oceanstorm Films

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www.oceanstormfilms.com

WhyteBooth Pictures

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www.whytebooth.com

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When a work-obsessed man reluctantly agrees to a weekend away with his disgruntled wife and disruptive children, a leisurely trip to the country becomes a fight for survival as a convoy of old-world carnival-type travellers force the family off the road, and then seem to engage them in a series of terrifying mind games in an abandoned roadside diner.

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