![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SP_Production-Still.00_04_36_05.Still044-1024x540.jpg\")
Leo Harris in a still from Something Pointless<\/p>\n Leo Harris in a still from Something Pointless<\/p>\n
Stephen Price<\/p>\n
The cast and crew behind a Wales-shot short film starring Game of Thrones\u2019 Owen Teale which receives its UK premiere this month have come together to discuss the \u2018quietly devastating\u2019 production.<\/p>\n
Something Pointless follows an intergenerational bond that forms between a lonely, bullied boy and an elderly man whose quiet, pointless daily ritual becomes an unlikely act of defiance against insignificance.<\/p>\n
From the Academy Award-winning producers of Curfew comes a moving Welsh short that has already begun turning heads on the international circuit.<\/p>\n
The film world-premiered at the USA Film Festival in Dallas this spring, and American critic Jeff York \u2014 who\u2019s covered the Academy Award shorts for 15 years came out of that screening calling it \u201ca genuine contender for such accolades.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahead of its Carmarthen Bay Film Festival screening, the cast and key creatives behind Something Pointless \u2014 a film about an old man, a lonely boy, a desolate wall, and a handful of painted eggshells \u2014 for a conversation that is, in every way, the opposite of its title.<\/p>\n
For those who haven\u2019t encountered the story yet, can you give us the heart of it?<\/p>\n
Asa Bailey (Director, Producer): I came across the script thanks to my producing partner David (Cormican), who runs a short film competition in Canada. He came to me with it and said he\u2019d like me to have a look at it. When I read it, I was first struck by the kind of raw nature of it \u2014 the sincerity. The very unapologetic sentimentality. And the kind of human nature of it. It was almost like a story you\u2019d heard before, because it was kind of so human. A redemption story in a way \u2014 how small actions can have massive implications that you just don\u2019t know about.<\/p>\n
Owen Teale (Aldous Evans): It is, at the heart of it, a great idea. You know why it\u2019s there. What the point is. Something Pointless, which might fulfil \u2014 in your life \u2014 to become something point-full. Our lives are messes of grey, and we sort of anchor for a bit of black and white at times. And the script \u2014 this is a little idea of how you might do that. It\u2019s a very wise, beautiful, touching script.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SP_Production-Still.00_01_08_21.Still011-1024x540.jpg\")
Owen Teale in Something Pointless<\/p>\n
Sophie Thompson (Eleri Evans): I just liked the fact that the old man is doing something he doesn\u2019t really understand. And yet it unlocks something for the little boy \u2014 through what seems like a subconscious act between them. That\u2019s what art is very much about, isn\u2019t it? You don\u2019t always understand it. It doesn\u2019t always have to have a point. And I think we\u2019re raised in a society where things always have to have a reason, a value, a purpose. That\u2019s exactly what this film pushes back against.<\/p>\n
The script began its life winning the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition over a decade ago. David, how did it eventually find its way to Wales?<\/p>\n
David Cormican (Producer, Co-Writer): The script for Something Pointless came to me via the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition, which is a script contest I originated, fifteen or so years ago \u2014 to find the best short screenplays around the world. And Neil\u2019s script ended up winning first place. I want to say it was 2011. I could be wrong \u2014 might have been 2010 (it was). The idea behind the competition is we make one of the winners each year. It\u2019s taken us a few years to get to this one. We came close several years ago \u2014 it would have been a much different project because we would have shot it in Canada with a different team and setting. I\u2019m really glad and grateful that we\u2019re actually shooting it here in Wales. The characters, the cadence, the dialogue, the settings \u2014 it just brings a richness to the material that I don\u2019t think could have ever been achieved having it shot in North America.<\/p>\n
Usually, it always comes down to money. Do you have it? Is there enough? Even if you have it, it\u2019s never enough. My career also shot off at that point \u2014 I was really busy across a bunch of feature films and TV series and just did not have the bandwidth to go back to the short films. Then, over the last year or so, I was in conversations with a new investor who wasn\u2019t quite ready to step into feature films but asked naively \u2014 \u2018is there anything else I can do on a smaller scale, that I can sort of see the whole model from soup to nuts?\u2019 And<\/p>\n
I was like, oh well, I\u2019ve got a great short film I\u2019ve been dying to make for years. And it was always in the back of my head that this script could go the distance and be something really remarkable.<\/p>\n
He stepped up, and then something rather serendipitous happened: his wife is also Welsh. Her family is from Newport. So what started as a practical decision to move production from Canada to Bala down to just outside Cardiff in Newport became something almost inevitable. One wonderful happenstance accident after another. I\u2019d never heard of Newport prior to all of this. And now here we are, falling in love with it.<\/p>\n
Asa, you\u2019re known internationally for high-end virtual production and technology-driven work. What made this the project where you stripped all of that back?<\/p>\n
Asa Bailey: The majority of what I get called to do for studios tends to be all about the technology and the advanced ways that we do things. My art is different to my job. Do you follow? And with this, I naturally sort of fall back on a time when the world was simpler. There was a comfort in things. The days when media was simple, when storytelling was much more simple. Because it is a simple story. It\u2019s a very simplistic, human story. And I didn\u2019t want to dress it up.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SP_Production-Still.00_04_54_01.Still001-1024x540.jpg\")
Leo Harris in a still from Something Pointless<\/p>\n
With Something Pointless, I wanted to try and really keep it crafted. Human. And honest to the script. Because that\u2019s what the script was \u2014 a tremendously human sort of story. To try and hide that with too much style, or too much garnish around it, felt wrong.<\/p>\n
I also have to be honest \u2014 there was a feeling I carried through the entire production. A worry that this might be one of the last chances I get to make a human, grounded film. The world I inhabit professionally is racing toward the technological. And working with real actors, in real locations, letting things breathe and be spontaneous \u2014 it reminded me that machines are never going to be able to replace that. Hopefully making this film has proven that to me.<\/p>\n
Neil, Something Pointless is proof that patience pays off for a screenwriter. What would you say to writers who are waiting on their work?<\/p>\n
Neil Graham (Writer): I think I\u2019m living testament that you should just submit your work and get it out there.<\/p>\n
I think one thing for screenwriters is \u2014 you have to be patient. The history of film is littered with short films and big films that have spent a long time in development or in production. So I think the fact that Something Pointless is going to make it to a cinema screen, having been written many, many years ago, is definitely something.<\/p>\n
The standard advice that I kind of agree with myself on, and what I\u2019m going to try to live by, is just write it down. And then \u2014 who knows \u2014 maybe one of these days you\u2019ll have that finished script. And if you do, submit it. Because if you don\u2019t put your stuff out into the world, you\u2019re never going to know. There\u2019s no downside to submitting. And if you don\u2019t win, or if you win and then your film ends up in development for many, many years \u2014 don\u2019t lose heart.<\/p>\n
Owen and Sophie, how did the role land with each of you?<\/p>\n
Owen Teale: I read it and I wanted to do it immediately. It\u2019s a great idea at its heart. And then I found myself thinking about what was behind the writing of it in the first place. When I prepared for the character, I thought deeply about my own life \u2014 as I would with any part. I had to find the Aldous Evans in me, which I\u2019ve loved doing. And I hope \u2014 when my own last few slugs at life come around \u2014 I can adopt a little bit of Aldous. I may have genuinely learned something from him.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SP_Production-Still.00_10_14_06.Still077-1024x540.jpg\")
Sophie Thompson in a still from Something Pointless<\/p>\n
Sophie Thompson: I liked it because it was so odd. And to Eleri\u2019s particular quality \u2014 she\u2019s someone who just lets it all unfold. She allows the old man to be what he\u2019s being, without questioning it in a restrictive way. And as it happens, she becomes part of passing the baton to the boy. That felt really special to me. Also \u2014 and I will say this \u2014 I\u2019ve never had the opportunity to work in Wales like this before, and something about the language, the timbre, the cadence of it gets into me immediately. I think somewhere in a past life I must have been a bit Welsh.<\/p>\n
What drew the production to Newport specifically, and how did it feel working on home soil?<\/p>\n
Keefa Chan (Cinematographer): For me, Wales is home. And so there\u2019s always something different about shooting here \u2014 a kind of responsibility, actually. These streets, these buildings, these communities. You want to do them justice. The locations we found in Newport had an authenticity that I don\u2019t think you could have manufactured anywhere else.<\/p>\n
Owen Teale: Newport isn\u2019t a place that always gets the spotlight \u2014 but when you look at it properly, it has a real texture. And that texture is exactly what this story needed. For an old Welsh man like Aldous to exist believably, he needs a world around him that is believably Welsh. He couldn\u2019t have come from anywhere else.<\/p>\n
Amy Morris (Line Producer): The director had a very clear sense of what he wanted from the locations \u2014 original features, things you wouldn\u2019t find in the average modern home. So we were looking at period properties, Victorian architecture, beautiful window shapes. We were fortunate enough to find a wonderful Victorian school that let us in to film, and the community there was just remarkable. Genuinely generous.<\/p>\n
Marion Cheung (Production Designer): For me personally, working in Newport felt very grounding. The production was asking me to create something rooted in a place, and the place itself kept offering things. Objects at car boot sales. The school. The wall. I\u2019d wander and find exactly what I needed. It had a spirit to it.<\/p>\n
The eggshell mural is central to the film\u2019s imagery. Marion, can you tell us what creating it actually involved?<\/p>\n
Marion Cheung: When I first read the script description \u2014 \u201ccreate an incredible, breathtaking piece of art\u201d \u2014 I won\u2019t lie, it struck fear into me. It\u2019s the sort of instruction that could paralyse a creative person. But once Asa and I had worked through the mood boards and developed the visual language together, it became more manageable. Just about.<\/p>\n
The challenge was how to make something that looked genuinely like painted eggshells on a wall at scale. You can\u2019t collect enough actual eggshells. So we brainstormed with the art team, and eventually we landed on the idea of 3D-printed stencils \u2014 each one unique, each one shaped from moulds I\u2019d made by hand to the right scale. Then we mixed a paint from acrylic and flour, thick enough that when you pushed it through the stencil, it had that raised, organic quality of a shell. After each pass, you had to wash the stencil thoroughly before moving it, or it would smudge. The drying time alone made the whole process extraordinary \u2014 it took myself and three others more than two weeks.<\/p>\n
And then the plan changed about a week before filming. Originally we were going to drop a smaller version in digitally in post. Then: full-size mural, physical, on the actual wall. On set. The whole crew pitched in to install it. When it went up \u2014 honestly, it did look breathtaking. I say that with complete humility, because it was entirely a team effort.<\/p>\n
Keefa, the film has a very particular visual feel \u2014 nostalgic, warm, slightly out of time. How did you and Asa arrive at that?<\/p>\n
Keefa Chan: Asa and I had conversations early on. I showed him my showreel, and there was a particular shot he liked \u2014 a shot from a film I made in Italy, using a lens I made myself. He particularly liked it because it had a very natural and very shallow depth of field. That led us to conversations about shooting with a tilt shift lens. But Asa was also open to some level of experimentation because he wanted to capture something that has a nostalgic aesthetic. So we talked about films \u2014 references to the eighties, and particularly that period, the seventies. And that led us eventually to settle on the zoom \u2014 the Cooke, in the 19-to-40 and the 30-to-95.<\/p>\n
We specifically chose the zoom because we wanted to use the style that was very prevalent in the seventies. To create a homage to that period.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SP_Production-Still.00_01_13_19.Still012-1024x540.jpg\")
Something Pointless movie still featuring Owen Teale with the iconic Newport Transporter Bridge in the background<\/p>\n
And then there was Owen\u2019s costume \u2014 very conventional, traditional sixties, seventies type. One reference that came up for his character was Jacques Tati. When he does his sequence walking in a scene. That way of being slightly at odds with the world, but with such dignity.<\/p>\n
We shot on the RED Helium, open gate at 8K full frame, because the objective is for this film to be seen on a cinema screen. We also had remarkable support from Godox with lighting and Cook Optics with the lens loan \u2014 without which, honestly, we couldn\u2019t have achieved what we did.<\/p>\n
The most technically demanding sequence was the dream scene in the boy\u2019s bedroom. We built a water tank \u2014 about 140 litres of water taken up to the top floor of the house \u2014 and shone light through it to create a shimmering effect on the ceiling. The idea was that he imagines his room flooding, with shadow creatures on the walls and a galaxy of stars above him. We had to use an iris pull as the camera tilted from the water\u2019s surface up to the bed, managing the exposure shift between what\u2019s in the water and what\u2019s above it. It took a lot of testing, but I think we got there.<\/p>\n
Marion Cheung: I can tell you what the shadow monsters involved from my end. I made Indonesian-style puppets \u2014 plastic cutout shapes on sticks, even cereal packets on sticks \u2014 and we tried all sorts. None of it quite worked. Then I made tin foil hands and stuck them on an artist\u2019s mannequin. Getting closer. In the end, we found a large glove with long fingers and that turned out to be the answer \u2014 because you could actually put your hand inside it and feel what you were doing. And for the starry sky, Keefa and I were quite literally rolling around on the floor of a studio with glittery dresses, moving them while he shone lights in different directions. Which is, I think, one of the more unusual things I\u2019ve done professionally.<\/p>\n
Amy, line producing is often the job that holds everything together when everything is trying to fall apart. What were the biggest battles on this one?<\/p>\n
Amy Morris: How many do you want? The timescale \u2014 we got the green light and we had two months to make it all happen. We didn\u2019t have enough in the budget for a location manager, so that was me. The railway station sequence \u2014 right up until the very last minute, we were all planning to shoot on a live platform. And then literally the day before, we were told by our insurance company that they\u2019d changed their mind. So we had to pivot overnight and find another solution \u2014 hire a bench, film outside the station. So yes, lots of different things. But we worked together and we got there.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The happy accident was the extras. We needed about thirty for a classroom scene and were originally going the traditional route \u2014 drama schools, drama clubs. But in the end we worked with the school children at the school itself \u2014 children with no drama experience whatsoever. And they were fantastic. That for us was a happy accident.<\/p>\n
What do you each hope an audience takes away?<\/p>\n
Owen Teale: The story. I hope that I don\u2019t get in the way too much of a great story \u2014 that they don\u2019t dwell too much on the sense of performance, that they leave with the story in their mind. That\u2019s my job. And the story is genuinely a beautiful antidote to the world. The noise, the constant news \u2014 people saying things for the sake of saying them just to get airtime. The transactional nature of life. This is a beautiful antidote to that world. It\u2019s a tiny little idea that can be expanded upon and will improve the lives of people who watch this film.<\/p>\n
Sophie Thompson: I hope they take what I took, which is that creativity is \u2014 well, it\u2019s a healing and necessary and wonderful and inextricable and unexplainable part of life. And it should never be underestimated.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Something-Pointless_Short-Film-Poster_2026_V1.2-691x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
Something Pointless<\/p>\n
Asa Bailey: I want people to watch real actors, real people making a film. I think it\u2019s really important that we still have this level of human storytelling. And I want it to make them think \u2014 and for them to realise that sometimes doing something pointless is the point. It\u2019s really easy to just be pushed along on the routines of daily life and everything we\u2019re bombarded with. So sometimes maybe people could just look around and think \u2014 I\u2019m going to do something. It could be as simple as picking up a piece of litter and putting it in the bin. Don\u2019t walk past it. Just do something that\u2019s selfless and pointless. Just for no reason. Who knows? Maybe see what happens.<\/p>\n
And also \u2014 the writer had something to say with this script. We have to be grateful for that. For the words on the page. Because that\u2019s where it originates from. I\u2019m just a simple vessel to bring it into a reality of some sort, to record it. What Neil put down was truly beautiful, sentimental \u2014 and nowadays very, very rare. It came from almost a sentimental time before where we are now, where everybody\u2019s worried about their agenda, arguing about stance. This film has none of that. It\u2019s just pure human sentimentality. Bullying is a problem. Family breakdown is something many people have had to face. Illness, love, loss. It had it all in such a small, compact, beautiful little form.<\/p>\n
David Cormican: Neil\u2019s original image \u2014 an old man affixes eggshells to a wall, and it inspires the confidence of a boy who\u2019s been shattered \u2014 has been seared into my brain for fifteen years. I fought for it at every stage of development. And seeing it realised on screen, in Newport, Wales, with this cast and this crew \u2014 I think we\u2019ve genuinely made something that resonates and will hopefully go the distance in peoples\u2019 hearts.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Something Pointless premieres Tuesday, May 19 at 10:15am at The Main House cinema, Ffwrnes Theatre in Llanelli as part of the 15th Carmarthen Bay Film Festival.<\/p>\n