Overview:
The short film Rallyé is an original short film set in the world of Rally, a motorsport that is rarely covered in Film Media compared to other motorsport disciplines like Open Wheel Racing (Formula 1, IndyCar, Formula E) and US Stock Car Racing (NASCAR). So this makes it a very unique and niche area for us to make as well as get eyes on the sport of Rally, the likes that haven’t been seen since the mid 2000’s. Our movie is about a rally driver that has won the 2nd tier of the Rally World Championship (Not the actual WRC, World Rally Championship, but the in story they will refer it to the world championship) Following the win of a lifetime, the driver is let go by their team due to1L the lack of wins they had that season. The dropping of their best driver is in reference to what actually happened to race driver Damon Hill at the end of the 1996 F1 championship when he was dropped by his championship winning team and ended up driving for a lower performing team. The movie looks to highlight the politics and backroom dealings that go on motorsports and how difficult it is to get a seat in the upper echelons of motorsport.

The film will see out lead character having to deal with the fallout of being dropped by their team, face rejection, depression, anger and frustration until a once in a moment opportunity arises and is the time to prove to themselves that they can take the next step and prove they are worth the investment and promise of winning.

I have worked behind the scenes as well as infront of the camera over the last five years and after gaining some confidence and deciding what to do next, I want to return to the directors chair. Doing this makes me feel like James Cameron or Terrence Malick, directors that took along time away from filming but came back and made excellent films, I’m hoping to do the same here with Rallyé.

About The Director:

I have been Rally Fan following the sport since the early 2000’s, my first exposure was the WRC games from Evolution Studios on PS2 and seeing (and trying to reach the pedals) of a large Sega Rally Arcade unit at Mumbles Pier in Swansea near my grandparents. It was around this time that I was a huge fan of the Citroen Sport team and their now legendary lineup of Sebastian Loeb, Carlos Sainz & Colin McRae, driving a Xsara at 120 MPH on narrow track roads. In Primary School I wrote to the Citroen team as part of writing a letter to a famous person and I wrote it to Seb. A few weeks later, I got a reply back from the team that included a letter from a PR Lady that gave me a Citroen Branded Pencil Pen, a notepad and a tube with 10 exclusive posters that I gave to friends, my headteacher and kept one for myself which I have to this day.

Reflecting back, it was around 2005 that I for some reason stopped watching and keeping up with Rally, I think 2 factors came into play.

1. The first is there wasn’t a new rally game being released for WRC as I later learned the studio making it were going to make a new game series, Motorstorm for the then new PS3 and the License for WRC on PS2 exclusive expired. There would not be another WRC game for 5 years and it was under a new studio and by that time I was into other things, like we all do when growing up.
2. The 2nd and I think it was a big reason was the tragic death of Michael “Beef” Park, co-driver of Markko Märtin, who died during a stage in Wales Rally GB and it was the first death in motorsport that I can remember and it really affected me that I never considered the thought of dying in motorsport. I was born the year of Ayrton Senna’s death but I didn’t know about Senna til years later, especially the Senna documentary that I even got the opportunity years later at a film festival to meet the director of the film Asif Kapadia. Going back to 2005, I can still remember when the rally drivers were all on the podium inside the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff there was silence, no fanfare, fireworks or spraying of champagne, it was something that stuck with me ever since. The same can also be said of Craig Breen as his death was also tragic and sudden that affected me as he was also a driver that was on the rise and would have won his first ever rally but sadly I and many others never got to see what Craig could have achieved.

If your wondering what brought me back, I started to get back into Rally around the time of the pandemic as many of us had a lot of free time during that time and I played Dirt Rally 2.0 by Codemasters and I put hundred of hours into the game trying to be faster and perfect my lines enter and exiting. Then I started watching WRC on TV again keeping up to date with the latest events and watching the best drivers do battle across the world on various stages. The best part of doing this film, is that the very week I was writing the script, it was announced that the legendary Lancia were returning to the WRC 2nd Tier and the Simulation series Assetto Corsa were releasing a dedicated Rally game so it was like the stars were aligned for me to make this film at that exact moment.

The Production:

So the plan for the film is to film it in 2 blocks.

1. Block 1 will be going into production from the 12th of January to the 14th, filming the bulk of the movie with scenes taking place outside the Rallying. These scenes will be interior scenes in spaces such as our protagonists home and the offices of a rally team.
2. Block 2 will be in March 9th to the 11th and these will be the rallying scenes, the introduction to the film. These will be taking place in a forest area to match the look and tone of an autumn rally in the U.K., very much like the Wales Rally GB.

We are hoping to have the movie look the best that it can as well as it believable. We’re hoping that we can get things like race suits, helmets and if we’re lucky, be able to rent a real rally car to use for shots at the beginning of the movie. But all of this can be made possible if you can helps us raise the budget and we give back to you the best Rally movie you’ve seen yet.

Thank you and I’ll leave you a quote by a most famous Flying Scot, When I doubt, go flat out.