Keith Large

The film is part of an on-going mini-series of short films inspired by the success of the first ‘Wheel Gone Kid’ micro short. The debut film featured the two characters of the Wheel Gone Kid Aki and his mum (Yoshe) played by real life son and mother Reece and Rita Jagpal-Mohan. Neither had ever acted before and I discovered Reece’s talent for acting when I was helping him during lockdown with his home schooling. I discovered he had a fantastic ability to memorise words. This encouraged me to write a little script for his mum and him, which evolved into ‘Wheel Gone Kid’.

The creative vision for the project was to bring more characters into the series and expand the plot of the first two ‘Wheel Gone Kid’ films which centre around Aki driving off in his mum’s car.

The first film I only really thought of filming for a bit of fun as we were coming out of full lockdown and I just wanted to make a movie to get the creative juices flowing again. I collaborated with my long term friends at Spoon Jar Films Wayne Kelly and Matt Holt. Wayne directed the first ‘Wheel Gone Kid’ and took care of the Cinematography and Editing. As soon as we finished filming both Wayne and Matt believed the film would do well at film festivals and were proved right. The media loved the real-life mother and son story and Rita and Reece ended up being featured on Television’s Channel Five News. See this YouTube video.

The biggest challenge of filming ‘Wheel Gone Kid Three and A Half-Plane Stupid’ were the outdoor scenes which were filmed on the hottest day of 2022 and the sunlight was so bright it was dazzling Matt’s eyesight as he tried to film through the camera lens. His experience of previously filming in the Sonoran desert in Arizona helped him overcome this as he’d encountered filming in this extreme heat before. He knew to position himself in the shadow of our mobile home prop nicknamed ‘The Lovebus’.

The scenes on the plane we are really proud of as we used a training cabin simulator at Loughborough College which is a proper 747 Boeing plane cabin used for training Travel and Tourism students. We believe we’ve made it look like the characters really are on a plane.

Looking back, I think we should have had more lines in ‘Wheel Gone Kid Three and A Half-Plane Stupid’ featuring Aki and Yoshe, but the lesson learned is they’ll feature more in the sequel.

I am particularly proud of a project I made with Matt Holt and Wayne Kelly and co-wrote with Maria Smith called ‘Guilty Bunch of Flowers’ It was a short film that went onto win an award in Hollywood and we all flew out to see the film screened at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood. See this YouTube video.

The advice I would give to aspiring directors trying to break into the industry is to attend as many film festivals as you can and watch and learn from the best short films being screened. Then make some successful short films yourself to build up a good CV to present to the industry.

The majority of the actors featured in ‘Wheel Gone Kid Three and A Half-Plane Stupid’ I’ve worked with before on previous films so they are used to our style of writing and what we require in projecting larger than life comical characters.

Matt Holt came up with the sound design and music for the film. Matt is an established musician and plays in the Madness inspired duo The Bed and Breakfast Men. Matt is a natural at composing the comedic sounds and fun music that complements our type of comedy.

We always welcome feedback and criticism from both our team and our audience. This helps us improve our ideas and processes for our next film.