Crust Gives Way to Crumbs

A decade after UK filmmaker Mark Locke made waves with his goofy 2001 feature Crust, he is finally at work on a full-length follow-up project. Once again, the comedy narrative involves three friends, but this time, rather than the specter of a seven-foot boxing shrimp, the challenge for the trio lies in making their way through a phalanx of summer weddings.


Titled Three Stags (as in three bachelor parties), Locke's newest comedy amounts to an extremely low-budgeted variation on the Four Weddings and a Funeral theme. While Crust was made for 3.5 million pounds, Stags is banking on just 5,000 Euros, part of which is made up of a grant from the Tamworth Borough Council. Shooting began June 14th and is scheduled to run through the end of the month.

In the interim, Locke has been making music videos for artists such as Misty's Big Adventure, UNKLE, Dinosaur Jr. and Athlete. He also co-directed a 2009 documentary about Athlete lead singer Joel Pott retracing the steps of a World War II relative and has recently been trying to put the finishing touches on a TV comedy pilot, Townies.

Ultimately, Three Stags returns Locke to the micro budgets of his pre-Crust short filmmaking days. As it says on Locke's official website, efforts like Eat In and The Missing Link were "so shoestring they were that bit of plastic on the end of a shoestring."

[Fort Mark Films]