LoftforWords met up with film maker Mat Hodgson, co-founder of London based production company Ad Hoc Films, to talk about the feature length QPR documentary The Four Year Plan.
It's often been said that somebody should make a film about QPR. The administration, the dodgy loan deals with foreign companies, the deaths of two players, the trial of a gang of youth teamers accused of pushing a student under a train, the manager sacked for headbutting his star player, the boardroom full of billionaires, the plot to force the chairman to resign at gun point, the subsequent court case and a hundred other moments I've probably forgotten certainly seem to lend themselves well to both the big and small screen.
The end of last season, with the fate of our club debated right to the very last minute in a boardroom at FA headquarters, could only be described as Hollywood as the verdict sparked the biggest drink up and party Shepherds Bush has seen for many a long year. "Somebody should be filming this," people said. Well, somebody was.
When Flavio Briatore, Lakshmi Mittal and Bernie Ecclestone arrived at Loftus Road back in 2007, so too did Mat Hodgson, a Sheffield Wednesday supporter and film maker who had just set up his own production company Ad Hoc Films with a fellow producer Daniel Glynn.
Hodgson had previously done work for the Mittal family in online projects but was keen to get into documentary work and had a longstanding ambition to make a sports related feature so when the takeover was confirmed at Loftus Road he asked the question. Last Thursday Mat kindly agreed to meet with me for a discussion about The Four Year Plan ahead of the film's debut at the Marbella Film Festival next month.
On how the film came about, how access was gained…
It came about initially through a different production company I was working with that had ties with the Mittal family. I took it on as a bit of an experiment and nobody really knew what was going to happen with the film. The board obviously had a goal, and they are used to being successful as well, so it seemed a natural fit for a documentary.
They were approached, discussions took place and things started to evolve. They had interest from other companies like Endemol to make something so we weren’t the only guys around at the time.
If it had been produced with a bigger company then it would have been more high profile and more glitzy, but it would have been a much bigger deal. I was able to slink into the shadows. For three seasons I sat on that cold concrete step in the director’s box. When you are filming something over a long period of time you are able to slink into the shadows – they just got used to it. I filmed for 90 minutes at most home games listening for something we could use. I think I filmed at 100 games and we’ve used footage from less than ten. Amit did say to me ‘is this going to just be a film of us in different suits at different games’ but I showed them the first cut at the end of the first season and Amit and Flavio were quite uplifted by it.
The first year, 2007/08, was done mostly with archive footage and the cameras really started rolling for 2008/09. They had a bad season that season; it was tumultuous, which was unfortunate for the club but perhaps fortunate for us as film makers. There was a question whether they wanted to continue this film when they were going through a difficult time but I stuck with it. It was incredible footage. We stuck with it with no guarantee of how it was all going to end. It was so experimental but we had to do something with that footage, it would have been a crime to let it go. They were very honest with the camera around.
The way football has been going for the last five years fed into this film and I can’t stress how much I was interested in making it. David Conn [Guardian football business journalist] was a consultant on the film.
On editorial approval issues…
We filmed so much footage – probably more than 900 hours of footage. We began the editing process right from the outset so it became this living, breathing, tangible feast. That was a very important part of the process. I don’t think we could possibly have kept it all to edit at the end.
Nothing has been removed or edited by the board – I’ve got to take my hat off to them really. I said from the start that if you try and do that it will backfire, if this was going to work it had to be warts and all. It was like laying down a challenge to them – if you have got this four year plan then let’s see it through, there would be no point in only filming for one year. There is nothing wrong with backing yourself if you have confidence in your statements.
Flavio was always very fair and honest with me. He always said it as it was and I prefer people like that because you know they’re going to be truthful. I did work with the club, I worked with Paul Morrissey and he was fantastic as the point of contact down at the training ground. It would have been unwise of QPR to just say go and run around with a camera for three years.
People assumed they [the board] were more protective of the final cut than they actually were. I think they trusted me. They never once came into the editing suite, never once. There was no executive producer, no channel looking over our shoulder, it was just me and an editor saying let’s do this let’s do that. We changed it a lot. We interviewed fans for it at one stage and had a voiceover to start with. They never said we liked it like it was before or can you use this music instead. They didn’t interfere with the process at all.
It’s purely observational. I think it does feel very honest. You have got to give credit to those guys because there is some pretty brutal stuff in there.
When did it become apparent things were going wrong at the club?
You could trace it back as far as when they sacked Dowie after 15 matches, but there was enough time left in that season to turn that around. I think when the wheels came off with Sousa that was rock bottom. But they picked themselves up and started again. I had a lot of friends who would say to me when they were going through so many managers: ‘Why are you sticking with this?’ At the time there were no guarantees, it could have just continued like that. I did always believe they would turn it around – with football there is always that chance.
On Neil Warnock…
In the first two years that’s when they [board members] were down at the training ground a lot. When Neil Warnock came in that was when the big shift happened from top to bottom at the club.
Neil has seen it [the film], he loves it. He phoned me immediately after it and was very complimentary about it. He will love it because obviously it’s a great reflection on him and his team. When they came in the whole place changed. Mick [Jones] immediately implemented a different scouting system, in training with Keith [Curle] you could see the players were enjoying training again, you could see what a good coach he is.
Neil just brought an authority to the place that a club needs if it’s going to be successful. I think with some of the previous managers the board got so involved with them because they were not strong enough characters in the first place – Neil was strong enough to be left to his own devices. He had a very clear vision and plan. I’m a Sheffield Wednesday fan so my opinion of Neil Warnock was very different before he came in. He uses humour very well, he’s very generous when he needs to be but also had that real authority and that combination was something everybody really responded to. He worked very well with Gianni Paladini as a partnership as well.
On Paladini and Ecclestone…
He [GP] was very generous to me and that’s not him trying to curry favour I just think that’s his nature. I read the comments and what’s written about him and I can understand why people say what they do but I don’t agree with a lot of it. Italian football is a very different culture with the way they deal with the fans and the media.
Bernie doesn’t really feature in the film. He made it clear it wasn’t his thing and he wasn’t really there outside of matchdays.
On the story about Capello slagging off the QPR manager…
We did a montage of goals from the Leicester home game. Capello was invited as a guest to that game and you see the goals going in with Fryatt scoring and then it cuts to Briatore and Paladini talking to each other in the C Club – it’s subtitled because they’re talking Italian. Briatore says that Capello has said our coach is shameful. So I then focus on Capello using a longer lens and he’s talking to people and saying “I’m sorry to say it” and that’s it. I was abroad when the journalist contacted me about it and I asked him if he’d seen the film, he said no but a friend had. I told him if that was his angle then he had the wrong end of the stick because it wasn’t like that.
On the Hollywood ending…
The year just gone, I knew it was the last year. It was the culmination of the four years and the filming couldn’t go on forever. I would have made a film whatever happened last year – for a filmmaker there is no harm in showing things going wrong, but the ending turned out to be a lot more Hollywood. I was desperate for the club to be successful and I didn’t think it was going to go that well but things just fell into place.
Neil came in at just the right time to get his team together, the division was perhaps a bit weaker, things just fell their way. Things were going so well and then the Faurlin thing happened. Now everybody knows the wheels turn slowly at the FA but for it all to go down to the last day of the season – you couldn’t script that. I was actually very relaxed on that final day because I just thought ‘whatever will be will be’ but it was a mighty relief.
I’ve been embedded with the club for three years, but I also have an outsider point of view. The QPR fans have been through an incredible amount over the last few years. I can’t think of another set of fans who have been through the highs and lows to such an extent. You’re about to win the Championship, or you might have everything taken away. But it was a great day that final day. I toyed with the idea of doing stuff subsequently to it, but that felt like that was the natural cut off point. The last 15 minutes of the film are quite emotional and you don’t need an epilogue after that.
On QPR this season…
I haven’t been back yet, I’m possibly going to a game in the next month. I’ve been abroad recently and I actually watched the Newcastle game in a bar while I was away. It was a weird experience watching a club I have been desperate for success for and suddenly I was removed from it. I will always have a spot in my heart for QPR – it’s been like having an affair where Sheffield Wednesday was the wife and QPR was the mistress, and she was an exciting mistress. I’m pleased for the club with the way it has turned out, and for Amit. He’s cocker hoop with the way things are going. But who was the first person to call him after the Everton game? Flavio Briatore, with congratulations.
Because I make films I find that I watch films thinking how they have done certain shots all the time, it’s taken some of the mystery away, and making this film has done the same thing for me with football to some extent.
On distribution, showings…
The film is 96 minutes long and we’re talking to a couple of distributors about it. There could be a limited theatrical release. There will definitely be a screening in London. The vision for it as always quite big, I didn’t want to just make a film for QPR fans.
There was a lot of footage we couldn’t put in the trailer but I know the film and it will not harm QPR as a club. I would love my club to have a film like this. It will do well on TV I think but it has got to be with the right channel. I tried to make something that isn’t the obvious football film, it’s purely observational with no talking heads, no voiceovers, you have to listen and engage and draw your own conclusions.
We will do this launch in Marbella but then I want to get moving on it quite quickly. We will do something in London with it for the QPR fans, I’ve had independent cinemas owned by QPR fans getting in touch and offering to show it. I want to move quite quickly on it though because things change very quickly in football, particularly at QPR.
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