Directing: Robert Glassford & Timo Langer

Words: Chris Baraniuk
Photography: Ben Collins

Delusions of immortality, a shoestring budget and a lonely robot helped nab the Directing Award for this duo, aged 29 and 30.

“Humanity’s delusions of immortality and a robot’s loneliness,” is how Timo and Robert sum up their retro black-and-white sci-fi feature, The Big Forever. The narrative follows our lonesome bot as he visits a vast library of human memories following the race’s extinction. The robot is there in order to hear what their last messages to the universe were, and the effect the experience has on him, and the audience, is profound.

After The Big Forever was nominated for a Scottish Bafta, the duo got in touch with composer Clint Mansell [Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, Pi] and asked him to have a look at their film. “He liked it so much,” they report, “that he wrote and scored an entire new soundtrack for the film. That was a very exciting moment for us.”

The visuals in the piece are a combination of live-action recording, Photoshop compositing and sprinkles of CGI, and the pair managed to put the whole lot together for an impressive £200 while finishing their degrees. In order to pull off such feats they’ve developed a strong work ethic, and when asked if working together so closely can ever become a problem, Timo insists their system is foolproof.

“For us, it’s a very good way to work. Any problems that could arise in production with two directors can easily be managed in pre-production, and so long as both of us know the answers to the questions, then everything runs smoothly. Directing can be a lonely place, so it’s nice to have company. It’s very easy for us to tune into what the other person is thinking, and a huge part of the enjoyment for us comes from finding that common ground.”

And there’s no sign of the partnership coming to an end anytime soon, as Timo and Robert already have plenty of other projects on the assembly line, including music videos, animations and another short film that looks set to continue their fascination with the dilemmas of human behaviour.

“It’s an homage to the sci-fi films of the ‘50s and ‘60s,” they explain, “but set around a bullied 11-year-old on a contemporary working-class estate. It’s like This Is England meets The Day Of The Triffids.”

Working closely together with creative zeal, they seem determined to express their natural enthusiasm for telling stories. “For me,” reflects Timo, “telling stories is about wanting to communicate something, which is inherent in all of us. I decided that film was my medium, and I wanted to tell stories from behind the lens.”

“My Dad always thought I would become a storyteller – or a political spin-doctor,” smiles Robert. “When I was younger I was always getting myself into trouble, so I would have to tell stories to get out of it. I got pretty good at it.”