Double take as famous BBC scenes recreated at Television Centre

What on earth gave you the idea to do these reconstructions?

So I guess it all started in early 2009 when I was on my way by train to Hamburg to attend the Aircraft Interiors Expo (don’t ask...) I had some spare time at Gare De L’Est station in Paris, so decided to attempt to remake a section of the 2001 film Amelie, which I realised had been filmed on the steps outside.

This was hampered by my sub-GCSE French, and the fact that I hadn’t seen Amelie for years.

Two years later at Ostbahnhof station in Berlin I recognised a location from one of the Bourne films. By now I had a smartphone, and so was able to find the clip on YouTube, and make a quite convincing shot-for-shot remake of what is admittedly the most boring 60 seconds of the Bourne Supremacy.

This was not, at this stage, a conscious art project, more something to occupy my time whilst waiting at European train stations.

However, when Forest Fringe asked me if I had any ideas for a project at the Scala cinema in Bangkok, I decided to revisit this shot-for-shot/original location methodology. And so it was that in early 2013 I remade six minutes of the highest grossing movie in Thailand in 2009: Bangkok Traffic Love Story.

I wasn’t sure what the people of Bangkok would make of a guy from London appropriating their local culture, but the Nation newspaper film critic wrote that he liked our version more than the original.

With Bangkok as a successful proof-of-concept, I decided to attempt a more ambitious Redux - Cloud Atlas in Glasgow. The Scotsman gave it four stars which is noteworthy as that's actually one star more than the paper gave the actual film.

So even though The Redux project by its very nature creates derivative work, it also appears to add value.

Since then I’ve made about 40 more Reduxes around the world in an attempt to discover why people like my remakes more than the originals.

I hope that by making fake versions of things that are themselves inherently fake, we can somehow arrive at a greater truth.

What’s the hardest film to date that you’ve recreated?

One of my favourite movies is eighties Japanese noodle western Tampopo, but I’d resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to Redux it as Tokyo is constantly being knocked down and rebuilt, and the Kanji alphabet makes it much harder to search for street signs and shop names, one of my obsessive methods for location spotting. Recently however I noticed one of the trains in the background was actually a monorail. This was a revelation as the Tokyo monorail only runs for about 18km, which meant I could use Google Street View to scour the route for similar places. Eventually I nailed down three original locations on the outskirts of the city, which seemingly haven't been redeveloped massively since the 80s, and therefore I’m planning to Redux Tampopo next year.

In China they don’t have Google Street View, which made the three Reduxes I did there recently especially tricky.

So The Redux Project often documents architectural, social and cultural change - from the historical to the very recent - my Bangkok Redux for instance would have been impossible to film a year later due to the curfew imposed after the military coup.

Most of the work in a Redux is done in preproduction, but in terms of the amount of work spent filming per second of screen time the hardest Redux to date was Avengers: Age of Ultron in Seoul. Not only was it full of superheroic action sequences that required a huge leap in homemade special effects (from cardboard cars to shooting miniatures on a greenscreen) but I also made it before the film was actually released - which meant Reduxing the frenetically edited trailer. The whole thing is over in about 30 seconds, yet took about a fortnight to shoot and edit. I had to release a slowed-down version because it was hurting people’s eyes! It’s a personal fave though, particularly as it was the first Redux to star a real-life movie idol - South Korean actress Uhm Ji Won!

If someone was going to try this, what’s the one piece of advice that you’d give them?

I have four:

There’s no such thing as perfection! I strive for accuracy in all my Reduxes, but for practical reasons often don’t achieve this.
It’s never been easier to make your own culture!
There’s no better way to learn than by copying!
Don’t let your obsessive attention to detail ruin your ability to enjoy films!

Have you had any feedback on any of your reconstructions from the directors of the original movies?

Yes! Chookiat Sakveerakul, the director of The Love Of Siam, posted my Redux on his Facebook page! I apologise to the directors in the credits of my Reduxes, but normally don’t contact them directly, in case they sue me!

How did you go about choosing which scenes to recreate for Live from Television Centre?

I’ve mainly chosen live moments from that went a bit wrong, from the earliest days of TVC to the present. My Reduxes will also be live, which I’ve never tried before, and will therefore probably go wrong too.

We’re a bit limited in which spaces we can film due to the ongoing demolition of TV Centre, but that’s quite apt, as the project is about deconstructing and decentralising television in a TV Centre that’s being deconstructed!

What’s the Holy Grail of scenes that is on your wish-list to recreate?

Gravity.

Also, next summer look out for my Redux of Superman IV: The Quest For Peace: in Milton Keynes!

The BBC hands over the airwaves for an evening of unpredictable and entertaining live theatre, produced by Battersea Arts Centre, bringing live performance back to the old BBC TV headquarters for the first time since its closure. Kirsty Wark introduces four 30-minute theatre shorts featuring comedy, dance and drama on BBC FOUR at 21:00 GMT on Sunday 15 November.