Making A Beatles Movie In Ireland: Part 2

31st July 2024

Making a Beatles Movie in Ireland: Part 2. My journey with my short Beatles film, Mersey Boys. By Steven G. Farrell.

In 2017 I flew over to Ireland to make a movie with Paddy Murphy and Celtic Badger Media Films. It was a thrill of a lifetime because I had developed the concept with my novel, Mersey Boys. The ten-minute short was entitled Mersey Boys a Letter From Al Moran and it used a screenplay written by Paddy, who also directed and produced the film. The cast included actors from Great Britain (Jessica Messenger and Graham Gill), Ireland (Fiach Kunz, Robert Bourke, Michael Casey and Ben Collopy) and the United States (Rachel Cobb and myself). We shot in Galway in the west of Ireland and Wicklow in the east of Ireland. Rachel and I were on a break from our teaching jobs at Greenville Technical, South Carolina, and we could only attend the shoot in Galway. It took the Celtic Badger Media Films people sometime to mix and edit the film. During my wait, I sat down at my desk and typed a short article entitle Making a Beatles Movie in Ireland. The article was first published online by Battle Royale with Cheese, a British film blog, in 2018. Afterwards, the piece appeared in The British Beatles Fan Club Magazine and The Path: A Literary Magazine. Its final appearance was in my book, Our Path Leads to Readers, a collection of fiction and nonfiction published by PTP Book Division, Fountain Hills, Arizona in 2022.

Making A Beatles Movie In Ireland

I concluded my essay by mentioning that we had submitted the film to several international film festivals such as Cannes. I was confident that the selections would be rolling in, one after another. It didn’t work at that way… at least, not for a few years. However, it is now seven years after my collaboration with Paddy Murphy, and my short film has taken on a life of its very own. Mersey Boys: A Letter From Al Moran has now won eleven awards recognized by Imdb, as well as seven nominations. It has appeared in sixteen film festivals, not to mention several Beatle-theme events. At this point, the film has screened live or via podcast in Wales, Ireland, England, Sweden, Poland, Israel, India, Canada, the United States, Peru and Mexico. The film has given me the opportunity to present my Making a Beatles Movie article as a lecture while screening my Mersey Boys: A Letter from Al Moran in Del Ray, Florida and Greenville, South Carolina. Both the film and the article have provided me with many adventures and new avenues these past seven years.

Brief summary of Mersey Boys: A Letter From Al Moran:

First Scene (filmed in Galway)

Moira (Rachel Cobb) and Gerard Moran (the author) fly to Ireland from the U.S.A for the funeral of their Uncle Al Moran, who had retired to the land of his ancestors after teaching at the Liverpool Art College, England for many years. Moira brews some tea as Gerard starts going through his uncle’s belonging. He begins to read a letter written by his uncle many years ago.

Second Scene (filmed in Wicklow a week later after the filming of the first scene)

Al Moran (Fiach Kunz) is seated in a Liverpool pub and served a pint of Guiness stout by Squire Clancey, the bartender. Ginny Browne (Jessica Messenger), the barmaid, rushes in complaining how the Mersey ferry boat had been late and had held her up. It is obvious from his facial expression that Al likes Ginny. For her part, she enjoys teasing the older American. Shortly afterwards, three young men enter the pub. They are the Beatles: all clad in black leather jackets and carrying their guitars. John (Robert Bourke) makes his way to the bar where he flirts with Ginny, calls Al a ‘square’ and cadges a free pint from the Yank. Al doesn’t like the young Brit and he is jealous that Ginny seems to be charmed by the punk. John then introduces Paul (Michael Casey) and George (Benson Collopy) to the American. Paul is more likeable than John. As the Beatles start to do a sound check for their upcoming night performance, John rushes back into the barroom and demands that Ginny pull out a camera and take a photograph of John and Al. John looks cocky and Al looks uncomfortable as the light bulb flashes.

Third scene (filmed on the day of the first scene)

Moira brings in the tea set as Gerard is finishing up the letter. She points into the desk drawer at a faded photograph. She exclaims: “isn’t that John Lennon?” It turns out that it is the picture snapped years before by Ginny Browne inside of the pub. Does the photograph bare out Al’s claim that he had met the Beatles before they became famous?

Now I would like to write up the second part of the story: it is my Beatle voyage that has been the sunlight in my declining years as I advance further and further into old age and irrelevancy in the 21^st century. Before I continue, I should put in proper place the third leg of the stool of my legacy with the Beatles. In 2023 PTP Book Division published my Beatles’ novel, Al and the Moon Dogs. Like my movie and article, the book has had its own unique voyage through the years. I published The Scousers in 1994 with Dan Rivers a publishing house in Maine. I self-published the novel in 2009 with Bookstand Publisher of California. In this alternative version, I transformed the Beatles into the Scousers, a band that rivaled the Beatles in Liverpool during the early sixties. In 2013 my original Scousers novel was cut by one third and published by World Audience Publishers of New York, New York. I decided I made more money by self-publishing, so I published it under my own imprint of Celtic-Badger Publishers in 2013. Al and the Moon Dogs is the fifth rendition of essentially the same story I had published in 1995. The novel was written when I was over in Japan teaching English in the early part of the Nineties. The premise of the story is that an American, Al Moran, takes a lecturing position at the Liverpool Art College in England. Al soon falls in love with Ginny Browne, a very beautiful but individualistic liberated scouse lass and barmaid, who introduces him to a very cocky young rock n roller by the name of John Lennon. After clashing upon their first meeting, Al and John soon become fast friends; and the rocker introduces Al to his struggling bandmates, Paul McCartney and George Harrison and their struggling band The Silver Beatles. Al is part of the Beatles story until they become famous and move away to London. Al and Ginny are left behind in Liverpool with each other and their memories. Of course, the fictional tale is my re-imaged story of the Beatles.

Back to my short film: Mersey Boys: A Letter From Al Moran.

Paddy Murphy put our ten-minute movie on the film festival circuit without any success after ten submissions. I encouraged him to give it the old college try with another five entries. As 2018 was closing out the film was zero for fifteen. I was stunned because I believed the movie was well-done enough to earn at least one selection. Granted, our budget had been a mere $5,000: small even by the standard of independent short films, but our cast and crew did an excellent job in all of their performances and duties. I still believed that Jessica Messenger as Ginny Browne, Fiach Kunz as Al Moran, Robert Bourke as John Lennon, Michael Casey as Paul McCartney, Benson Collopy as George Harrison, Graham Gill as Squire Clancy and Rachel Cobb as Moira Moran had done a stellar work as an ensemble cast. I knew my role as Gerard Moran was the weakest link in the film. Barry Fahy had done a great job with the camera work. Paddy Murphy, as the producer, director and screenplay writer had been superlative in all three tasks.

I reached the conclusion that film festivals were rejecting my movie because it was a fictional story using the real-life Beatles as the main character. I didn’t have permission to use them, but the film hadn’t been made for commercial purposes. We weren’t making a profit from our efforts. The film was also using tongue-in-cheek satire of whether this story took place in reality, or if it was simply from the imagination of a dying old man.

Around Christmas time of 2018 I saw an advertisement for the Beatles on the Beach International Beatles Festival at Del Ray, Florida. It was to be a three-day long beach party celebration with live music in April of 2019. I must have found the ad during a goggle for Beatles festivals. I figured I didn’t have anything to lose, so I emailed a link of the film to Daniel Hartwell, director of the event, via facebook. It was less than an hour later when Daniel telephoned me and accepted the film for his beach party. I treated it like a major victory! Come April of 2019 I meet my friends Chris and Lynn Wisenbaker in Florida, where we enjoyed the line-up of Beatles cover bands from all over the world. The screening attracted around fifty spectators: not good, not bad, but their response was great. It was run in the beautiful Pavilion at The Old School Square, a historic venue in the resort city of Del Ray. I met Tony Bramwell, who had been an assistant to the Beatles since the days he carried George Harrison’s guitar so he could get into the clubs for free where the Beatles were playing in their earliest days. Tony recently passed away. It was great having a photograph taken with him up on the stage with the big screen behind us where my film had made its world premiere after I had given a brief presentation about the making of the film. I even sold twenty copies of my novel. To be honest about it, I wanted to savor each and every moment because I was convinced that my Beatles movie would be a one-trick pony with the International Beatles on the Beach Festival as its only hurrah. My prediction seemed to be manifesting itself into what New Agers call a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I had been teaching in the Speech and Theatre Department since 2006 when Karen Kotiw of the Human Sciences Department requested that I screen the movie during the International Education Week to be celebrated in October of 2019. Her logic being that since my film was made in Ireland and I was in Education, she could slot it into her week’s agenda. My presentation and the movie took place inside of in the University Transfer Building’s Auditorium, a floor below my office. I love speaking in front of an audience, but doing a presentation in front of my students and peers was rather daunting. All went well, but for whatever what reason the film didn’t look good on the screen due to technical difficulties that were resolved…the next day. Emily Warner, a staff reporter at the Greenville Journal gave me a nice writeup under the title of Greenville Professor Steve Farrell to Present his Beatles Film at Tech.

A shared experience we all had together was when the windows and the doors of the world began to slam shut during the opening months of 2020. It was a traumatic time of illness, face masks and isolation. Covid 19 had poisoned our world with its germs. My classes at Greenville Technical College went from face-to-face to online, stressing out both my students and myself in the process. I was one of the few professors who still reported to my campus office. The hallways were dark and quiet during this dark and quiet epoch. I’m not sure what motivated me, but I decided to jump back into the film festival circuit to test the waters. I must have felt I would have more luck with less competition on the market due to the pestilence. The first one to select my film was The Sprouting Seed Festival in India. I was overwhelmed. I wondered how many young Indian filmmakers actually were impacted by the Beatles and their music. In quick succession my film was selected by The Sweden Film Awards, The Depth of Field International Film Festival in Delaware, and the Near Nazareth Film Festival, Israel. All of them had their screenings online.

The highlight of this slew of successes were when Mersey Boys” A Letter From Al Moran won the Merit Award (3rd place) at the Depth of Field and the Gold Award (1^st place) at the Near Nazareth film festivals. I had entered the film into the event in Israel because my mother had always been a devout Christian, and she had always dreamed about visiting the ‘Holy Land.’ I was aghast when I posted the award at facebook and I received blowback from people who were deeply concerned about the explosive situation between Israel and Palestine. I can only say I did it for my mom. I also stressed that I love both the Jewish and the Arab people. I don’t think politics should be allowed to encroach upon the world of art and filmmaking.

The hot streak continued into 2021 when the film made its’ way into the Fan Fiction Film Festival in Toronto, Canada. The committee even filmed fan reactions to my Beatles film. I think the crowd was limited to around twenty-seven spectators and they all had to wear masks inside of the theater. I also commissioned the same Canadian film committee to make a one-minute Vimeo trailer for Mersey Boys. We received a Best Performance Award, but it isn’t recognized by Imdb.

In June of 2021 I received the biggest thrill of my festivals journey when my film won the Silver Award (2^nd place) for Best Short at the prestigious International New York Film Festival. I watched it on streaming on my computer. About half-way through the thirty-minute program, Daine Lasko, the master of ceremony, announced the film and the producers, Paddy Murphy and Steven G. Farrell. To this day I laugh to myself because Ms. Lasko pronounced Paddy’s name as ‘Patty.’

To compound my victory, the dean at my college projected the photograph of my award up on the screen inside of the University Transfer Building Auditorium’s during the Arts & Science Division’s autumn meeting in September of that year. I was very proud to receive the warm applauds of my colleagues. I also felt it was time to retire: retire from teaching and retire from the film festival world. I was well-satisfied to walk away from a thirty-five-year teaching career and gold, silver and merit awards for my film. I was that proud to place the three awards on the Imdb page for Mersey Boys: A Letter From Al Moran.

Somewhere along the way in the hazy days of 20 and 21, I can’t remember exactly now, my friend Carlos E. Larriega, broadcaster for The Mundo Beatles radio program in Peru, helped me to get my Mersey Boys: A Letter From Al Moran presented at Beatles’ events in Peru and Mexico. The movie was shown live in Mexico City with captions in Spanish by Carlos. My friend from South America had earlier conducted an interview with me that was put up online in the Spanish language that could be translated into English.

I thought my journey was basically over and done with as 2021 closed out. Life has a way of compelling us pilgrims back on to the highway of life to continue our journey whenever we think we can rest upon our laurels. I moved back to my home town of Kenosha, Wisconsin because I had found a reasonably priced flat online, and I had been offered three sections of public speaking at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. During the winter of 2022, I found myself back inside of the lecture halls of higher learning. I didn’t give my film project much thought until later in the year when I saw an advertisement for the Cynon Valley Film Awards in Wales at The Film Freeway web page. I submitted the film because I had not had my film projected on the silver screen in the United Kingdom up to that point. The Covid-19 had finally receded to the point where film festivals could once again put on their live screenings. Upon being selected, I was tickled to see that my film was going to be screened inside of the lovely St Elvans Church in the small village of Aberdare, just a few hours train ride due south from Cardiff, the capital of Wales. I was tempted to make the flight over the Atlantic Ocean, but the arthritis in my right knee said otherwise. I was disappointed not to be able to attend in person, but I felt better when the film received an award for best screenplay. The trophy was mailed directly to me by the organizer, Nigel Evans. Sadly, the award can’t be inserted on the Imdb page because the festival is brand new and needs to have five years behind it in order to be considered a qualifying event. It doesn’t matter because the trophy looks good upon my bookshelf. With the trophy and the screening in Great Britain behind me, I once again stepped back from the Mersey Boys project. However, having a short film and access to Film Freeway proved to be too much of an allure for me as 2023 rolled around.

I found that the Los Angeles market was rich for the taking. Winning an award for best screenplay also planted the seed inside of my mind to enter in other categories besides Best Short such as Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Ensemble Cast and Best Screenplay. The fee was higher, but it cast a larger net. If one uses the discount code for early submissions, it can slash the cost by up to 50%. In succession the film was in The Indie X Film Festival, The Indie Film Festival, the Hollywood Verge Awards and The Best Shorts Competition. Mersey Boys was able to garnish five more awards, including a Recognition Award for Jessica Messenger, our female lead. I was delighted when we took home two prizes in the Ensemble Cast Award category. Conceited me: I purchased a massive statue for a third-place finish. Yes, it sits proudly on my bookcase along with my Welsh trophy. I’m a seventy-year-old man who has never ever won anything in my life save for the military draft. It was a senior moment for me when I unpacked my personal Oscar and started to weep.

I was on a tear, but I wanted to step away before the worm turned and my film would no longer be selected. I saw my last opportunity arise with the Liverpool Indie Awards in my beloved England. My knee surgery having been successful, I was determined to fly over to Europe to attend. The day the film was selected, I made my flight and hotel reservations with Expedia.com. I also persuaded my friend and business partner, Aaron Almani, to meet me by the Albert Docks near the Mersey River. Ronnie and I are currently pitching the Beatles project as a feature-film. I also contacted Michael Derham and Tim Tagg, two good mates of mine from my Japanese teaching days. I pestered them into making the trip to Liverpool to be with me when my film screened on the home turf of the Fab Four. Folks, life doesn’t get any better than this!

Ronnie and I booked rooms at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which is a very short walking distance to the statues of the Beatles near the entrance of the dock. We rode the ferry boat across the Mersey River, visited the Cavern Club, and drank plenty of pints of Guiness stout. I even had a pint with my friend Tim Tagg in the hotel pub late one night. Ronnie wanted to visit a pharmacy which was the exact location (the spot is marked by a statue of Brian) where Brian Epstein ran his record shop before he took on the managerial role for John, Paul, George and, Pete Best. Later on, Ringo replaced Pete on the drums. Speaking of Pete, one of the highlights of trip was when we visited Roag Best’s Beatles Museum on Mathew Street, where we met my mate, Tom Donohue, the Liverpool artist who had done the drawings for my Beatles novel. His charcoal drawing of Al Moran, Ginny Browne and John Lennon, named by me as Ginny in the Middle, hangs on the wall over my head as I write this memoir. I should mention at this point, that Ronnie is slated to play the part of Brian Epstein if we’re able to dig up the finances for our project. Two of Ronnie’s screen credits are in gangster movie productions by Danny Abeckaser; Mob Town (2019) and Inside Man (2023).

My entourage and I (Michael, Michael’s wife Ellie and their niece, Tom Donohue and Ronnie Almani) all meet at the Southport Bijou Theater, a forty-minute train ride from Liverpool. It was wonderful seeing Mersey Boys: A Letter From Al Moran in front of a very crowded theatre audience in England, home of the Beatles. I felt old dude was allowed to tear-up when the folks applauded at the conclusion of the film’s run time. It was the moment that truly made the entire journey worthwhile. Of course, I wouldn’t be Steve if I didn’t walk up at the wrong time for the wrong award. Somewhere out there is a photograph of me attempting to receive the Best Actress Award for a wonderful film produced in London. I was lucky the winner didn’t knock me out. Luckily, I was able to turn my disaster into a joke when Ronnie and I received an Honorable Mention certificate. “Am I in the right place now?” I asked to laughter. I am the absent-mined professor.

By all rights, the screening in Liverpool should have been my end game as far as Mersey Boys: A Letter From Al Moran goes. Yet the film festival fever was still upon me and I did cartwheels in the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin when Jessica Messenger won the Best ActressAward at the Los Angeles Movie and Music Video Awards in July of 2024. It delighted me because I had always felt that Jessica Messenger as Ginny Browne was the real star of my film. Ginny Browne is also the true star in my novel, Al and the Moon Dogs; she is the brightest star in my saga who even outshines the Beatles. She is the best female character I have even created.

Jessica is now married and she has a son. She has started up her own online business since appearing in Mersey Boys: A Letter from Al Moran. She is currently the makeup artist at Villian Aesthetics, as well as a podcast host for Faces Covers. Fiach Kunz, who played Al Moran, has recently done stage work in Dublin in John B. Keane’s play, Becoming Maggie. He has been on British television series Harry Wild, starring Jane Seymour, Witness Number 3 and Vikings since his Mersey Boys days. Robert Bourke, our John, went to Spain to study for a few months. He’s back in Limerick and is working a nine to five job. Michael Casey, the tall Paul, recently starred as the male lead, Mark McDonagh, in the Celtic Badger Media Films’ feature production, Lulu and the Electric Dreamboat. I have lost contact with Benson Collopy, the actor who played George. Graham Gill, Square Clancy, is in Limerick, writing poetry. He has also appeared in a music video, as well as on the television program Vikings. Rachel Cobb, my colleague at Greenville Technical College, was promoted from the classroom to the position of Director of Training & Development at the college. Rachel’s promotion to administration required her to move her office to the other side of the campus. Our paths seldom crossed in the final years of my teaching days. Paddy Murphy is still producing and directing with Celtic Badger Media Films; and he lives in Clare with his two daughters. I, Steven G. Farrell, who helped produce the film and took on the task of playing Gerard Moran, am still teaching writing and pitching my feature-length project. I shall turn 70 on July 31, 2024. I shall write no more!

The End

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