Film / News
Local filmmaker celebrates the video rental store
Remember the 1980s and 1990s? Remember the video rental store? Then Bristol-based writer/director Kyran Davies’s new short film The Video Shop should strike a chord. He’s releasing the film online to mark the fifth anniversary of The Dish Network’s announcement of the closure of its remaining Blockbuster stores on November 6, 2013.
“I wanted The Video Shop to fill the audience with a strong sense of nostalgia for their own local video shop of the 90s, but I couldn’t create a film that focused entirely on throwbacks,” Kyran tells us. “The story centres on Rex, who is unhappy in his customer service job at VideoWorld. I wanted a character that the majority of people that have worked in retail or customer service can relate to. Then around that character I had to create a situation that is relatable to almost everyone: having a bad day at work.”
Behind the scenes on The Video Shop, with writer/director Kyran Davies (check shirt) and producer Jacob Rigby (baseball cap)
Set in the 1990s, The Video Shop was filmed in South Wales, but makes use of plenty of Bristol talent. Kyran and producer Jacob Rigby both live in the city, as does lead actor Robin Willingham.
Of course, regular readers of B24/7 will not need reminding that the city has one remaining plucky independent video store: Twentieth Century Flicks, which now also boasts two screening rooms.
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