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DFG Interview with Al Morrow

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by DFG
Deep Water, the latest big British documentary release, is about to hit our screens. It’s the story of Donald Crowhurst, a competitor in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Sailing Challenge; a race to sail solo non-stop around the world. Crowhurst was a novice sailor, in dire financial straights, who saw the race as his chance to make his mark and improve his fortunes. Instead, a series of unfortunate events left him drifting in the Atlantic with no hope of even completing the race. Facing bankruptcy if he gives up, he begins to concoct a series of lies about how well he’s doing, which gradually grow out of control – with tragic consequences.

The film has already picked up an award in Rome and is tipped to do well. It’s a gripping thriller of a film, but also moving and thoughtful. DFG met with one of the film’s producers, Al Morrow, to find out more about the film’s production.

DFG: How did the idea come about?

I was looking for something to produce, and I’ve always been a real armchair explorer. I love my stories of Ranulph Fiennes, Shackleton and Scott, and I got into this story through Robin Knox-Johnston. I read his book A World of my Own about him winning the Golden Globe, and found it fascinating, and then I found out about Donald Crowhurst and the other competitors and thought it would make a really good fiction film.

I took it to Jerry Rothwell [the film’s director, along with Louise Osmond] and he really liked it, and then we took it to Jonny [Persey, another of the film’s producers along with John Smithson] at APT Films together. But then we found out about the archive that was available – because a lot of the sailors on that race were given 16mm cameras and tape recorders to record their impressions as they were going round the world – and suddenly we were thinking: actually, it’s a feature doc. Because why would you want to fictionalise that when there’s real material available?

It’s so weird, because I can remember being at Baker Street tube and seeing the Touching the Void posters and thinking, ok if Touching the Void does well, we’ll sell this and we’ll be fine. But if it doesn’t then I don’t think we’re going to get this off the ground. And Touching the Void came out and did brilliantly and we were off then. That makes it sound so easy but it wasn’t really.

DFG: How long was the process between idea and seeing it on screen?

Four years, from thinking of the idea until now. When we brought it to Jonny, he was great because he loved the story immediately and said yes, we’ll come on board and produce it. But before we did anything, before we went to any financiers, we did a lot of archive research. So we really spent six months just tracking down the archive and finding out more and more about the story. And then we cut a short pilot just using archive, and took that to financiers. That really helped sell the film, when they saw the archive and could see how it would work.
DFG: How did you go about getting the funding?

Originally Jerry and Jonny went off to a new pitching forum called Paris Pitches, which was a really great affirmation of the project. There was a lot of interest, and so from there they got a couple of European countries really interested. And then we came back and saw a distributor in the UK, who were really fascinated and into it. We were planning to do the post in Germany. So we had all these companies interested and we were trying to piece it together.

And then we went to see Himesh (Karr) at the UK Film Council, and they were interested. They’d been involved in Touching the Void and we’d go and see Himesh and Paul Trijbits at the New Cinema Fund and Paul would say, ‘yeah, I really like it but I’m not quite convinced. Go and find that ‘cutting the rope’ moment and come back to me.’

So we’d go away, think some more about it, we’d do a bit more research, come up with a different proposal and go back to see them, and they got more and more interested. In the meantime, Jonny set up a meeting with Pathé and they loved it. They said don’t go with the others, we’ll finance it with the UKFC and then Film Four got really interested and they came on board and it happened from there. When it started to happen it happened really quickly.

DFG: So is it mainly UK money now?

Yes. But it’s a very British film in a way, isn’t it? He’s such an English hero.
DFG: What was it about Donald Crowhurst that fascinated you?

There have been TV docs before – it’s not the most original story in the world. But the old documentaries that were done in the 60’s and 70’s [soon after the events told about in Deep Water] kind of branded him as this really weak-willed guy with no experience, who set out having made the decision that he was going to cheat. And I think what’s nice about doing this film now is that modern audiences understand that what happened to him could happen to anyone. OK, Donald took a Trimaran [a multi-hull boat] which was really daring, and people might say ‘why would you take that on the voyage?’ They were untested boats, somebody had died on one the year before, but nowadays everyone races in Trimarans. And people say ok, but he was wasn’t very experienced, but Chay Blythe who set out as one of the competitors, had never sailed in his life – ever. He set off and someone had to lead him out of the Solent and he made it to South Africa before having to stop. That’s an amazing achievement for someone who hadn’t sailed.

So Donald might have been able to do it, with a bit of luck. His boat was falling apart, which wasn’t ideal, and he had no luck. And he told a series of really small lies that were then exaggerated by the press back home. It was the press, I think, that trapped him into this ridiculous situation where suddenly, a few months into the voyage, there was no way out. And even right at the end of that race, he was planning to come in second. Nigel Tetley [another competitor in the race] was ahead of him, and he thought ok, Nigel’s going to win, that’s fine; no-one’s going to care about the person who comes in second, no-one’s going to scrutinise the books. And then Nigel Tetley sinks.

What’s really interesting watching the film – and I never got this in the edit, but I really get it watching it with audiences – is that you know people are behind Donald at the point in the film when Nigel sinks. It happens at every screening, the audience gasps.

This guy had such bad luck, and nowadays he’d come back and if he admitted the forged journey, he’d be a bit of a hero. The fact was that Donald was such a good man, and had this amazing sense of honour – that’s a bit old fashioned now – that he felt he had to jump overboard or do whatever he did. Which is incredible and quite admirable really. I really like him as a character, and I can see how it happened. I was speaking to a friend yesterday and she said you know, everyone gets themselves in stupid situations, and this was just someone who couldn’t get himself out of it.
DFG: You’ve spoken before about how important it was to get the cooperation of the family.

Oh we wouldn’t have got the film made without them.

DFG: So how did you go about convincing them to take part?

They’d had lots of people expressing an interest in interviewing them for various programmes. We met them about two and a half years ago now, and it was just a process. Jerry and I went down to meet Clare [Crowhurst - Donald's wife] and we were so nervous. She didn’t say yes straightaway, but she didn’t say no. So over the next few months as we were preparing the film for the financiers and getting a package together, we’d always let the family know what we were doing: this is the angle and this is what we’re planning. And they’d always be very supportive but they wouldn’t commit. It was just about getting to know them… But I think they just felt – they knew we were going to portray Donald in a sympathetic light, and we were sympathetic to his story, and it was just a very different angle to what they’d seen before and I think it’s twofold: it’s about putting the record straight and it’s about drawing a line under the whole affair. The family’s main concern now is that they can just be left alone. They’re fantastic, I really, really like them.

It’s my first film as a producer, and Clare’s one of those people you can call during the production process with problems. She’d answer saying ‘Hi Al, what’s the problem? What can I do to help?’ It was just incredible support.
DFG: What are you working on now?

Heavy Load [Heavy Load is the story of a punk band made up of people with and without learning disabilities.] We’ve now been offered a deal with a US cable channel and we’re in the very early stages of production. I love this project, it’s just so completely different from Deep Water – it’s an observational doc, no archive. And just so warm and funny – the characters are fantastic. And Jerry’s directing that, which is wonderful.

It’s so scary being an independent producer, because I’m already thinking ‘what am I going to do next?’ But I’m looking forward to Heavy Load.


Deep Water is released in cinemas across the UK on Friday 15th December.

Related Pages

For a review of Deep Water by Kerry McLeod click here.

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