The Peril at Pincer Point, the debut feature effort from co-directors Jake Kuhn and Noah Stratton-Twine, made its UK debut within the Out of Competition section at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, following its global unveiling at SXSW where it picked up the NEON Auteur Award for Uncompromising Visionary. Utilizing the classic 4:3 Academy aspect ratio, this movie centers on Jim Baitte (Jack Redmayne), an aimless sound recordist dispatched to an uncanny island by an overbearing filmmaker, who subsequently becomes entangled in the mysterious vanishing of Marina (Alyth Ross). The Reviews Hub caught up with Kuhn and Stratton-Twine, as well as lead actors Redmayne and Ross, during the festival.
How did you two come up with the project?
Jake Kuhn: Me and Noah have been writing together for about six or seven years. We usually go on retreats to write, and we go to this small place in Suffolk. It’s very remote, with probably only about 50 people, so it’s perfect for us to write because we can really shut everything else out. There are no distractions. When we went up one time, we thought, we could really write something and set it here, because we could probably get all the locations for free. It’s beautiful. Everywhere you look is incredible. So we thought, okay, let’s come up with a project and set it here. What is this place famous for? The two things that really put it on the map: it’s known for crabbing, as it used to host the crabbing championships on the East Coast in the ’90s, and it’s also famous for a pint of beer called Ghost Ship. So we thought we could make a movie about ghost ships and crabs. We started batting around ideas and came up with this movie, and about three weeks later we came back with all of our friends and shot it. That’s how the film came together.
Why did you choose the Academy ratio, and what’s the thinking behind the colour and black-and-white aesthetic that is not very traditional black and white?
Noah Stratton-Twine: Two reasons for the Academy ratio. One, we’re influenced by films like Roger Corman’s, so that’s what we’re riffing on and emulating. That just felt like the right way to go. If we’re going to do a black-and-white film, sometimes I feel that with the wider 2.35:1 ratio, black and white becomes more of a conscious choice: this needs to be black and white. Whereas with the grain and the 4:3 Academy ratio, you immediately think, oh, this is how I recognise black and white to be. The second reason is personal. I think it’s the best aspect ratio, especially if you’re framing faces, and we’ve got a lot of people reacting to things in this movie. I just like how it portrays an image. We’ve got great landscapes and horizons, and I think it lends itself best to that ratio.
We like the concept that the film feels like it arrived on the shore, as if it washed up in a bottle. There are a number of things we were going to do, and may still do, at the start of the movie to create that. You know when you’re watching a restoration of a film and it says the sound was restored in a lab in Germany? We were going to do a fake one of those. That’s why it leans towards a more sepia look. It feels like the film stock is expiring, and it gives that extra layer of convincing, so you buy more into the deceit. A lot of people these days feel that black and white removes an element of engagement, but I think the warmth of it does something to the eyes and makes you feel, no, this is worth staying with a little bit longer. It sucks you into the dream we want the movie to be.
Jake Kuhn: One of the big things we wanted the movie to feel like was a half-remembered dream, something you vaguely recollect watching on TV as a child. Putting it in black and white, in this ratio, gives it a timelessness. It feels like it’s part of this century and part of the last century, somewhere in between. In the movie, there’s so much mixing and matching of analogue with modernity: a very modern sensibility of conversation with an old way of filmmaking. These mismatched things coming together help the movie feel like some sort of strange artefact while also being something modern. Black and white has persevered since cinema began, and the same goes for this ratio. It really lends itself to feeling timeless and half-remembered, which I think we were both drawn towards.
The film is also a metafilm, about making a film. Was that originally the idea?
Noah Stratton-Twine: We weren’t going in wanting to make a movie about making movies. We wanted the movie’s core theme to be about how far you’re willing to go, how much you’re willing to sacrifice yourself, literally in the movie’s case, for your art. Making an independent film is putting yourself on the line socially, financially and logistically in order to get something made, and it feels a little like, do you really need to give so much of your life to this? It’s not like you’re saving lives, but for filmmakers to persevere, you do have to treat it like it’s the most important thing in the world. Our main character does that almost to a fault. He goes one step too far. But naturally, whatever me and Jake do, because we’ve been doing this for such a long time, and because a core foundation of our friendship has always been film, what we choose to make will always hark back to the process of creating something out of nothing. We enjoy the craft of filmmaking so much that it’s naturally going to imbue itself into whatever the story may be, whether it’s a sound recordist getting caught on a haunted pirate boat or whatever that may be.
Jake Kuhn: This movie is a lot about work-life balance, which is what Noah was touching on, and I wholeheartedly agree with that. This felt like the most natural way in, but it really could be any job where someone has a megalomaniac boss pushing him and pushing him. With film, it’s easier to make that relatable, especially for filmmakers, because there’s this weird dream with filmmaking where it feels acceptable to risk every single aspect of your life in pursuit of it, which a lot of people do. It’s a fascinating world to enter into. That’s why we really liked going with the sound recordist and the idea of the director being above him, because it felt like a very natural fit: a humble job within a machine where people get sold on a dream.
The last thing I would say is that we also found it very fun, because we really like lore and building lore, mainly to make each other laugh. The idea of the director having this great film, *Frogopolis*, makes us laugh a lot. Building out that lore can easily be done through the filmmaking aspect because we’re so familiar with it. It feels like a very natural way of putting in mythic ideas and backstory, which then becomes part of the tapestry of the movie.
How did you two become a pair, and how do you work through disagreements while making the film?
Noah Stratton-Twine: How did we become a pair? We met each other in a very film-focused environment: a very intense short course for about a week and a half in London. It was mainly an international course, so everyone else went back to their countries and me and Jake became friends. Jake was the only one in London, so he became my film friend. We both went to our respective universities but came back, especially post-COVID, when it felt like there was nothing to do but make stuff. You had to justify the time the pandemic had created. We were collaborating, exchanging films and scripts at quite an early stage. I’d been trying to get a short made and couldn’t really get it through the gates, and I became very radicalised by the mumblecore, low-budget movement. I thought, I might as well just try and do that with five of my friends. I went on and did that, and I think that might in turn have radicalised Jake in the same way: I do have these things available to me, so let’s go and make something. Within about a month of Jake seeing a first cut of that movie, we were already outlining what we were going to do together, and we’ve been fused together ever since.
There haven’t really been any disagreements, and I say that sincerely. We’re both really passionate about our ideas and each other’s ideas, to the point where, if someone is really set on something I personally disagree with, I can respect that there has to be a reason. That reason is probably good, so we trust each other’s instincts.
Jake Kuhn: We both come at this from a place of being massive cinephiles. Before we were making any movies together, me and Noah had honestly sat through thousands of movies together. Over the years, growing up together, our sensibilities and tastes have begun to align. At the end of the year, we usually have the same top ten movies, just in different orders. We were both very excited about what the other was making, and we both love entertainment-first, audience-first cinema. When we made this movie, it was so much about making the other person laugh that there were no disagreements. The idea would always be, “Wouldn’t it be funny if you did this?” or “Wouldn’t that be interesting if we did that?” And the answer would be, “Yeah, that would be really funny,” or, “What if this?” Then someone would go, “Yeah, that would be brilliant.” A lot of it had this very enjoyable riff that you get with two people who share sensibilities and are creating something together.
Noah Stratton-Twine: Here’s a way to summarise it. It’s like a writer’s room. When Jake comes up with a funny idea, it’s like, that’s amazing, but now I feel like I have to have a funnier idea, or I build upon that idea. It ends up becoming an amalgamation of loads of things that just me and Jake will find funny, and I think that’s been our superpower.
How did you find your actors, and why did you mostly work with friends?
Noah Stratton-Twine: We had no casting for this movie whatsoever. We spent more time casting the crew, like sound recordists, than anything else, because you want to bring friends in. Jack had a small part in my first movie, which was a traditional mumblecore wrestling film. It followed two characters and the girlfriends or friends around them. Halfway through filming, I realised I needed to inject the film with a third character who didn’t have to do with the actual plot but could affect it slightly and give the audience a moment to think, “Oh, okay, right. The movie isn’t what I thought it was going to be.” It gives them a reason to put their phone down if they’d already picked it up, so to speak. Thankfully, Jack was the perfect character actor, or just had a great personality, to come in. I’d only met him for 30 minutes before he showed up on set, and it was an improvised film, so we weren’t quite sure what he was going to do, but I gave him ideas about how to approach the scene. He came in with so much energy. I can’t put my finger exactly on what he has that’s different, but it’s this real improvised athleticism. With improvised dialogue, people in improv classes feel there are so many rules, and it’s actually less freeing than people are led to believe. One of the main rules of improv is always say yes and never say no, because the “no” stops the train of thought and conversation. Jack can say no and it works. We realised we had someone, and he hadn’t really been in much else and was trying to get there. So we wanted to hone in on that, write this movie for him as a main part and bring him along. Alyth, who appears throughout the film, Jake had just met on a short film he did previously.
Jake Kuhn: They were all our friends. We were looking around and going, we have so many great friends who haven’t broken through in the traditional sense. They’ve done loads of amazing things, but they haven’t broken through, so we need to give them proper work so they can do something amazing. Os and Alyth, who both have very storied careers, especially on stage, were incredible. They took the opportunity and went absolutely nuts with it in a way that we loved, to our surprise. We also had our friend Dash, who had never acted before. We both think he’s the funniest guy ever, so we wrote him a whole scene. It was a lot of our friends who we thought would be really fun in it and add an element that might otherwise be missing.
Noah Stratton-Twine: Then, of course, we realised that with all our friends, it was just a movie full of 20-year-olds. So I thought, okay, who can we get who’s a little bit older than the cast? Mike Mackenzie was the first actor I ever worked with, about 15 years ago, on a short film. He had just retired, so we brought him in, and what he does for the film really works.
The film is about sound. What does sound mean to you, and why did you put it at the centre of the film?
Jake Kuhn: There are two reasons. There’s a very practical reason, which is that we wanted to make a mumblecore movie that was very ambitious in scope, but something we could do on our budget. The sound world we can conjure up is a way of bringing scope into the movie. You can suddenly do a lot more with ghosts, make things feel way bigger and expand everything through the sound design. In terms of what it means to us, Noah is a composer, so much of the atmosphere and tone is within that sound. We thought it was a really good way of pushing the boundaries of what people usually do on smaller movies. It was also a way to inject the movie with something a little more tonally strange, which we wanted to attempt. The other thing is that the sound recordist role was very important, because he has to go and do something, and there’s a very analogue way he can do that. He’s like an investigator, and he’s got this very specific sort of gun that he’s pointing at various things. It gives him so much more impetus to put himself into a situation.
Noah Stratton-Twine: He’s interrogating the movie by literally pointing a microphone at the things he wants to find out about. That’s a unique way into the horror genre, even though I wouldn’t really class the movie as horror in any regard. For me personally, sound is the most important element of film. I think it’s the most forgiving. It can forgive a lot of the mishaps that go into a film. You can have two or three scenes that fundamentally do not work together, but the right soundtrack and the right sound design can glue, fuse and marry them together in a way that feels like there’s no other way to do it. So maybe it’s less about choosing a sound recordist as the protagonist, but I’m so proud that, as the film has been talked about in the press and in reviews, our sound designers, Joe Eccles and Nick Smyth, have been named, because the sound design in this movie really feels loud, like a character. Loud in the sense that you really notice it.
Jake Kuhn: One of the great things about that is that in most improvised movies, the improvisation begins and ends on set. Whereas Joe and Nick were really improvising in the sound design. They would be in the studio throwing things in, throwing ideas in, changing the way we’d seen things previously and finding ways to keep building and building. We really appreciated that. They’re both geniuses and brought a lot to the movie. One of the most important things is creating that mythic, folkloric tone, which goes a long way to creating the atmosphere. That’s what the whole movie is about: somebody entering into this atmosphere as an investigator, and making a mumblecore movie feel bigger than its means.
The directors said there is a lot of improvisation in the film. How did you work with each other through the improvisation?
Alyth Ross: We had a general feeling of where the plot might go. The improv was more that we would try something out and they’d go, “Okay, I like that. That bit was great. Let’s maybe ditch this bit and try again.” So it was almost like fine-tuning the dialogue over a couple of takes.
Jack Redmayne: It was like workshopping, almost like stage rehearsals, but each take was a rehearsal, and by the fourth one it became a really well-oiled machine. By the fourth take, we knew how the scene had to be, we knew the key bits of information, we knew what was funny and, sadly, what was not funny.
Alyth Ross: Jake and Noah are really good. There’s such a cooperative feeling on set. It’s not even just a bunch of friends in a village in the middle of nowhere next to the sea making a film. They can tell you, “Don’t do that bit again,” and you don’t feel like the bottom has fallen out of your world.
Jack Redmayne: I’ll tell you, the first time they told me a joke wasn’t funny, it did hurt. But I’ve grown much more as a person since then. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Alyth Ross: With improv, when you have lines as an actor, what you’re trying to do to make it seem real is really listen and really respond as that character in the moment. When you’re improvising, when you’re locked in, you have to do that. So I think it’s easier. If you’ve got a connection with someone and you’re in the scene, it’s almost like a cheat sheet to, and I’m going to say this and maybe people won’t believe me, but I hope they do, authenticity. Because you have to listen and you have to respond as your character. It’s a real responsibility. Don’t get me wrong, I like doing both.
Is there anything you thought was amazing or very funny that didn’t end up in the film?
Alyth Ross: I thought it was absolutely hilarious when I vomited seawater, but when I watched it in the film, it was actually quite sad, and I was really upset because it was a real comedy moment for me. There’s this bit where I really went for it that night. Because we didn’t know how the film was going to turn out, which is a testament to Noah and Jake being creative mental geniuses, there were bits I came away from thinking, “Oh, that was funny,” or, “Oh, I don’t think that was funny.” Then I watched it and thought, “Oh, that was amazing.” They really managed to make it work. I just really thought my vomiting was going to be funnier.
Jack Redmayne: I’m a very easy laugh. I find everything funny, so I had a great time watching it and I wasn’t upset about anything being cut. There are some great gags in there, some good jokes. The really talented balance Noah and Jake have struck is that the comedy doesn’t take away from the plot or the narrative. It doesn’t feel forced. It doesn’t feel like a bit or a gimmick.
Did you try to fit your performance into the film’s black-and-white, stylised aesthetic?
Jack Redmayne: For me, no. We were discussing this earlier. We think it’s so important to be in the moment and be spontaneous with your character. If you start trying to play the style of the whole film and the whole arc of the story, it loses its realism in terms of performance, and some of the really lovely moments, whether they’re funny or scary, don’t land as well. So I think it’s quite important for all of our characters in this film to ignore the aspect ratio, ignore the fact that it’s going to be black and white, ignore the fact that it’s going to be hugely stylised, and just commit to the situation unfolding in front of us.
This is a story about people who would sacrifice their lives for sound recording. How did you approach that absurdity? I guess “approach” feels like the wrong word, but how do you deal with this kind of absurdity? Do you think it’s absurd?
Alyth Ross: I think people do mental things. I often find that in real life, people tell you stories and you think, I actually don’t know if I would believe that if I saw it on screen. I do think it’s quite far-fetched, but he’s just doing his job. There are no huge stakes at the beginning for him.
Jack Redmayne: From the start, he’s going to get fired before he goes to the island. But it’s not death. I think it’s a great fable about how committing and throwing yourself off the edge into commitment can result in something pretty special. Yes, I’ve submitted myself to 10,000 years on a ship, but the result is a pretty good movie. And we’re all in the film business. We like making good movies.
When you first saw the finished film, what impressed you most, apart from yourselves?
Jack Redmayne: The ability to take improvised scenes, which were all one-camera shots back and forth, and cut them together into a film that doesn’t feel like mumblecore is testament to the whole post-production process and to Noah and Jake’s vision and talent. It feels like a really slick film, in my opinion, one that doesn’t feel improvised, and people are always shocked when we talk about that. I think that’s testament to all of the cast, but also to the editing and visionary skills of the directors.
How did you prepare for your roles?
Jack Redmayne: Noah composed some of the score beforehand and gave it to me: my character’s score and Marina’s. I listened to it before we started shooting to get myself into the world, and I found that a really useful exercise that I’ve taken further now, using music.
Alyth Ross: One of the hardest things about the whole shoot for me was that he played this voice recording of himself singing a little tune maybe four minutes before we started shooting. We only did a couple of takes of my monologue, and it was this improvised monologue that lasted forever. Then, at the end, I had to start singing this exact song. All the time, right before singing it, I was thinking, “I don’t know what’s going to come out.” It was a beautiful song, beautifully sung. But again, that’s testament to him, because he’d composed it on the fly when I’d asked, “Oh, can you please do this?” So yeah, they’re really talented.
The Peril at Pincer Point screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2026.
