The Ellingon Kid, Dan Sully’s sharp short film is set in a kebab shop, and built around a neat, almost Tarantino-esque device – and its been a big hit. After premiering at the 56th BFI London Film Festival in October last year it was picked up by Channel 4 and played after Shameless on Halloween night. Then Soda Pictures chose it to be one of six short films in their compendium ‘Joy Of Six’ which was released in cinemas across the country and is now available on DVD through Amazon. Vice then released the video on youtube for it’s online premiere and it racked up half a million hits in under a week..

“The story of ‘The Ellington Kid’ was told to me about eight years ago,” Dan explains. “I was making a music video for an artist who was from an estate on ‘murder mile’ in Hackney. He told me the story and I banked it, knowing that I might use it for a short in the future. Nearly a decade later, I worked out how to frame it and make it work as a short. The film I wrote came from that Eureka moment and was shot soon after.

“It was made over two days in South London with my dream crew of regular collaborators, who I admire and trust. I met the DoP Chris Sabogal over ten years ago when we were at Bournemouth University together and we have worked together ever since. Other crew such as art director Anna Rhodes, make-up artist Lucy Wearing, costume designer Bobby Nichols and colourist Aubrey Woodiwiss I have worked with before on music videos.

“The production was headed up by producer Rob Watson who it took me about six months to find – when I met Rob I knew he was perfect, we sat down to talk about the film and ended up talking about our favourite films for a few hours. I’ll always feel indebted to Rob, not least because he joined me on a tireless campaign to visit nearly every kebab shop in London when we were scouting for locations. I admired his desire to get his hands dirty-sometimes quite literally. At one point in filming I turned around and looked through the back room of the kebab shop to see him furiously hammering a metal pole through the middle of a frozen doner kebab.

“The two day shoot itself was fantastic. It being such a concise script, we were able to focus on getting good performances from our talented cast headed up by Charlie G Hawkins and Hammed Animashaun. I personally want to thank everyone involved in the making of the film.”

The Ellington Kid
Written and directed by Dan Sully
Producer: Rob Watson
Executive Producers: Michelle Eastwood, Jane Lloyd
Representation: Paul McKee @ Love Promos
Director of Photography: Christopher Sabogal
Gaffer: Ben Fordesman
Focus Puller: Richard Bradbury, Andy Hill
Camera Assistant: Richard Jakes
Camera Trainee: Ash Davis
Grip: Amos Bowler
Steadicam Operator: Richard James Lewis
Editor: Dan Sully
Additional Editing: Lawrence Huck
Colourist: Aubrey Woodiwiss
Online Editor: Belgin Kaplan
Composer: Nic Nell
Costume Designer: Rob Nicholls
Costume Supervisor: Lorna Gillieron
Make Up Artist: Lucy Wearing
SFX Supervisor: Nick Thompson
SFX Assistant: Dave Mullarkey
1st AD: Dan Precious
Sound recordist: Xan Marquez
Sound designer: Jay Price
Production designer: Anna Rhodes
Production manager: Ben Trombacco
Location manager: Joe Kotroczo
PAs: Luke Brazier, Charlie Barclay