HOW ONCE GOT ITS START
From The Chicago Tribune:
John Carney said the idea for ONCE came about, "At a Frames gig, actually at Marlay Park. My girlfriend [Marcella Plunkett, who starred in Joh's own BACHELOR'S WALK] and myself were there watching The Frames up on stage. I have known Glen for years...
"We always said we would do something together. I was getting tired of all talk and decided to write a little short story about people in the musical world, and Glen was going to write some tunes. Then I was going to go off and use my super contacts and get a big actor in it. As it happened, through discussions about the film and developing it, I came across Marketa, who had worked with Glen, and I thought she could act in it. Then it worked out that Glen would be the lead. It was a very autobiographical, a very small story. It is really like a visual album that we made, rather than a musical."
The Chicago Tribune noted that the film was shot "in under three weeks for less than $150,000, funded entirely by the Irish national film board" -- part of which, per the Sundance Film Festival's Web site, makes the movie "sport a scrappy, unembellished naturalism."
What Carney didn't want to do with ONCE
When he made ON THE EDGE in 2001, Carney said he had his shot "at becoming a proper filmmaker. And I didn't love the experience. It wasn't in the way of the angry director trying to get his way, it wasn't that at all, but I just found it kind of soul-destroying and a bit disenchanting. I was trying too hard to make a film that would `break out'; I had too much of an agenda.
"I wanted to do it like we did BACHELOR'S WALK. We had a little bit of money but we wanted it to appear like we didn't have any. That lack of money meant no one cared, which is why we had so much creative control over it... The same applied with ONCE. I knew that if I kept the budget down to an absolute minimum, just to pay the cast and crew and be able to afford to feed them, that that would suit the film. The Film Board gave me 100,000 euros under their micro-budget scheme, and that basically funded everything.
Glen: "There was a lot of guerilla stuff. We didn't have permits. We used long lenses when we were shooting on Grafton Street or blagged our way into Bewley's and Robert Chamber's to shoot above the street scenes. We shot the opening scene at 4.30 in the morning, which is the only time now that Grafton Street is quiet."
I'm going to see this unusual film again and again...I'm really impressed.