David Tennant’s Obscure Short Films: "Nine 1/2 Minutes" (2002)
...or is it 'Nine And A Half Minutes'...or maybe it's '9 1/2 Minutes'?
For David Tennant, 2002 had been a very busy year indeed. He began the year in a starring role in a BBC pilot called Only Human, stepped onstage as Robert in Push Up at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre Upstairs and as Jeff in the critically-acclaimed Lobby Hero at the Donmar Warehouse (which transferred to the New Ambassadors), did a few staged readings for the Globe’s Read Not Dead initiative (What You Will and The Insatiate Countess), and filmed an episode of Foyle’s War.
Amongst all of this, he somehow fit in the starring role of Charlie in a short film called Nine 1/2 Minutes!
Like Sweetnightgoodheart before it (which also has fun flip-flopping titles), Nine 1/2 Minutes has seen its share of differences around the ways its title has been written…well…everywhere? It’s variously been called Nine And A Half Minutes or 9 1/2 Minutes in newspapers, magazines, blogs, fan-generated filmographies - you name it, it’s been done. As for me? I’m a fan of going to the source. I’m all in on the nomenclature which flashes across the screen when the film opens:
Nine 1/2 Minutes was written and directed by Josh Appignanesi and Misha Manson-Smith. Appignanesi and Manson-Smith were long-term friends who had met around 1994 when Appignanesi, a Cambridge University graduate in Anthropology, was cutting a documentary film about Bedouins in Jordan and contemplating a switch to making fiction. The two young men formed Mercenary Films and wrote Nine 1/2 Minutes as a rom-com of sorts, but one stood on its head: they envisioned a scenario where a couple would live out all the stages of a relationship in their heads instead of in real life.
Appignanesi and Manson-Smith submitted their script to a number of schemes for funding, including the London Film and Video Development Agency and the UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund/Filmfour Lab (and its scheme, PULSE, for short films shot or created on any digital format with running times of between one and twelve minutes). Its innovative script eventually won the pair a funding grant of £9000 for the shoot.
The British Council Film’s entry for Nine 1/2 Minutes describes it like so:
A romantic comedy about two Londoners who meet on a blind date. Too busy to bother getting to know each other, they fantasize a whole relationship - meeting, sex, the split - in only 9 ½ minutes. A satire on modern sexual mores, that twists our expectations of the rom-com genre.
Appignanesi and Manson-Smith chose to describe it as:
A fantastical romantic comedy in which a couple meet on a blind date. Too jaded to embark upon another relationship which may well go nowhere, they decide to have an entire relationship in one night.
David played Charlie, the hapless fellow running late for his blind date with Heather (played by Zoe Telford, who would not reunite with David again on screen until 2022’s Litvinenko). The pair had agreed to meet for a date at the cinema, and things get off to a very odd start when Heather suggests they roleplay a relationship.
In a short interview with Josh Appignanesi about Nine 1/2 Minutes (which you can watch in its entirety at the bottom of the page), Appignanesi said the short was his first proper shoot as a director, as he had never attended film school. "The fact is we met a lot of people - we auditioned a lot of people - and [David] was just the best, he was the strongest for the role,” Appignanesi said. “He was very funny, he immediately got it. He was a pleasure to work with."
Confusion reigns supreme when trying to narrow down the dates for the shooting of and release of Nine 1/2 Minutes. While Appignanesi's website gives the short a copyright date of 2002 (which tracks with the film’s designation as one of the 2002 awardees of PULSE) and at least one source says it was first released on 1 December 2002, others state it didn’t premiere until it was screened at the 57th Edinburgh International Film Festival held 13-24 August 2003.
If you haven’t yet seen Nine 1/2 Minutes - or even if you have! - now’s a really good time to watch (or rewatch) it while that synopsis is fresh in your mind:
Now that you’re back - wasn’t the soundtrack extremely catchy? The music was composed by the award-winning Lotown, a music production company run by Toby Andersen. Andersen started his musical career in 1980 when he formed Funkapolitan, and later co-wrote Curiosity Killed the Cat's first #1 album. As Lotown, Andersen has composed soundtracks and scores for numerous films, television, commercials, and fashion brands.
In the interview mentioned above, Appignanesi also had this to say about David’s role in the film:
"There was one bit in particular in the film where David was allowed to just improvise. There were some lines given, but he just kept going and kept doing his own versions, very physical comedy and just let rip, he was quite controlled up to that point. He just had us all in hysterics, which was a problem, so he had to do that a few times. He was a lot of fun to work with."
Hmm…now we’ve seen the short, what part of Nine 1/2 Minutes do you think David improvised? I think it was when he was telling Heather what he did for a living…but I’m curious about whether you agree!
In June 2003, Nine 1/2 Minutes was entered in the BBC Talent New Film Maker Awards competition. Judges announced their shortlisted ten films at the end of September 2003, and winners were announced the following month at the Brief Encounters Film Festival in Bristol. Nine 1/2 Minutes was one of five runners-up and received a £1000 prize (the other finalists were: Unbearable, Just A Little Bit Of Love - A Tribute to Des Smyth, What About the Bodies, and A Stoner's Guide to Making Egg Fried Rice. Matthew Thompson's Gone won the £5000 prize.) All of the films - including Nine 1/2 Minutes - were screened at the festival.
After this, the short was chosen to support the theatrical release of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason in November 2004. A year later, it was chosen for inclusion on Small Wonders - Volume One, A Showcase of The Best British Short Films, a DVD compilation by Real Time Short Films released in 2006.
Back in the early 2000s, the Guardian established a monthly Cyber cinema feature highlighting the new genre of webfilm, a “broad and varied swathe of moving-image entertainment which is viewable on the internet either via streamed video or downloadable files.” Freelance journalist Kate Stables wrote the column for the publication’s Unlimited Film section. In her 31 January 2007 article for “Webby Valentine’s Day”, she chose to feature Nine 1/2 Minutes:
After this, the short languished for some time before becoming a screening selection at the Regiofun International Film Festival in Katowice, Poland, held from 22-27 October 2013. Regiofun, hosted by the Silesia Film Institute and “dedicated to films created with the support from Regional Film Funds or other forms of financial support from various regional public resources,” chose to highlight twenty-three shorts financed by the PULSE scheme. Nine 1/2 Minutes was one of those screened.
And that’s about it for Nine 1/2 Minutes. Oh…one last thing - I’ve reached out to Josh Appignanesi and asked if he could clarify for me when it was first released. If I hear anything, I’ll be sure to send out a Note and update.
Don’t forget to watch the interview with Josh Appignanesi below!
—
NINE 1/2 MINUTES
A Mercenary Films Production, written and directed by JOSH APPIGNANESI and MISHA MANSON-SMITH
CAST
Heather - ZOE TELFORD
Charlie - DAVID TENNANT
Barman - MARCUS MARKOU
Saskia - FELICITAE DE JEU
CREW
Producer - OLLIE MADDEN
Co-Producer - DEMELZA JONES
1st AD - GARETH UNWIN
Camera - BAZ IRVINE
Casting - LUCY BEVAN
Production Designer - ERIK REHL
Costume Designer - JO WORSLEY
Original Score - LOTOWN
Yep, the physical improv scene was very funny - certainly a taste of where he was headed with his Doctor ‘always on the run’ Who. Thank you for posting. Always a delight.
I completely agree with you about the part where David was allowed to improvised.