GOODBYE CHARLIE BRIGHT (working title STRONG BOYS) was shot over seven weeks during August and September 1999 on location in London

GOODBYE CHARLIE BRIGHT is the story of the close but volatile friendship between two teenage boys as it reaches breaking point over the course of a long, hot summer

The production boasts an impressive array of British acting talent: Paul Nicholls (Trench, the (1999) Danny Dyer (Human Traffic (1999)) and Roland Manookian (Great Expectations (1998) feature alongside some of the UK's best character actors: Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia (1979)), David Thewlis (Naked (1993)), Jamie Foreman (Nil By Mouth (1997)) and Frank Harper (lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1998)). The film was produced by Charles Steel and Lisa Bryer. Writer and director Nick Love makes his feature film debut.

Lisa Bryer of Cowboy Films commissioned Nick to write a feature script after Nick had pitched the idea to her. Once the script was written she encouraged and financed Nick to shoot a short film "Love Story", prior to directing his first feature. She then approached Charles Steel about producing the film. "I'd already worked with Nick as he'd produced a number of short films through my company", says Steel. "I had always been interested to see what he would do next, because I thought he was very talented. I have great faith in his ability and I've always been impressed by the energy of his writing."

Nick worked his way up to director having done just about every other job on a set, from runner to producer: "I had all sorts of irons in the fire as a producer, but I just woke up one day and asked myself why I was doing it. I'd wanted to direct from the age of 18 when I first saw an Alan Clarke film on TV. I really connected with it, in a way I hadn't with anything else."

Love made a short film called Love Story (1999), in which Jamie Foreman, Paul Nicholls and David Thewlis also appeared. "I was advised to make a short film before embarking on a feature, so I did. I do believe that filmmaking is shrouded in myth and that directors are put on pedestals. It's not that anyone can do it, but so much of it is about going out there and doing it."

He then proceeded to write the script for GOODBYE CHARLIE BRIGHT. It's a rites-of-passage story that is strongly rooted in Nick Love's own life as Steel explains: "To a degree, it's a slice of life, and it's also a coming of age story about friendship, but for me it's a story about a defining moment in a young man's life. Charlie comes to a point when he realises he's got to move on and leave behind everything he's known. Knowing Nick and having worked with him and been a friend for many years, I think I've seen that moment in his own life. I think it's very much rooted in a real moment in his life. It gives the script its honesty."

Love stresses that although the script has a basis in his life, it is not straight autobiography: "All my writing comes from people I've met or stories I've heard, but it's not my life story. There's elements of me in all the characters in a way but I wouldn't want to make a film about myself as a direct transcript. On the other hand, my rule of thumb is never to make a film unless I know exactly what I am talking about. It wouldn't work for me to write period dialogue, for example."

Set against the backdrop of a council estate in South London, the story might suggest an all too familiar bleak aspect. But Love's feature is shot in wide screen, deliberately suggestive of American westerns and gangster films as well and it is filled with sharp wit and explosions of colour. "It's set on a council estate because I grew up on one, but I'm not keen on the Ken Loach kind of council estate. My memories of estates are of a very colourful place. I don't have memories of it being somewhere constantly grey and overcast", states Love. Steel adds: "We wanted the estate to look completely different to the kinds of thing we've seen before, both in the way it's shot and also in its design and colour."

To that end, parts of the estate were painted in bright colours. Production Designer Eve Stewart expands: "I talked to Nick in great detail about making the estate panoramic and colourful. We wanted to inject the heat of the summer and youth. We wanted to completely escape the 'down in the dumps' look of so much British cinema and expand the boys' world so it becomes about the sky and the world beyond the estate.

"We were quite restricted by the council and by what you can do with great swathes of grey concrete, so we painted garage doors had colourful laundry hanging, colourful curtains in windows - anything that would inject some colour.

"The peripheral characters offered lots of opportunities to add texture, for example we really went for it in Tony Immaculate's car lot. In Hector's house we were able to inject humour and illustrate his "new" money with naff paintings of Porches and giant portraits of himself. Many of the crew have lived on council estates so we understood the characters we were dealing with.

"Once filming was completed the women from the estate got together to patrol the newly painted parts as they wanted to stop anyone gratifying it because they were so happy with it."

The exaggerated nature and uniqueness of the characters also gave costume designer, Ffion Elinor, the opportunity to emphasise personality through a heightened dress sense. Elinor summarises the look: "Nick wanted to capture how boys actually dress from where he's from - the Millwall football crowd and the Bermondsey area. It's not high fashion, it's real. I went around a lot of estates in Bermondsey and went to a Millwall match which was really interesting. I sat there with a pair of binoculars and looked at what all the supporters were wearing. I took loads of photos and it was very educational."

Financing the film was very straightforward for Steel. "The script had a buzz about it, and this clearly attracted some outstanding acting talent." Love explains his choice of actors: "I love British actors. My idea was always to use the up and coming talent and to put them with more established actors like Phil Daniels and Frank Harper and David Thewlis.

The younger actors had to "perform up", so to speak. Paul Nicholls was always my only choice, because he has a very thoughtful face and when you put the camera close in on him he's got this dreamy quality which is exactly what I wanted for the character. Roland is a boy from Bermondsey and when I met him he'd only done one other thing and I just fell for him. As I got to know him I wrote a bigger role for him." Love spent a lot of time with Nicholls and Manookian and encouraged them to spend time together so their friendship in the film would be convincing.

For Nicholls, the attraction to the part was working with Love: "I'd worked with him before on Love Story (1999) and I really enjoyed the experience. He's sharp and very honest, he's always straight with you and he doesn't mess around. I hadn't played a part like this before and it's a blinding script. I related to that time of transition - being about 16 and just hanging around with your mates having a laugh." Nicholls was the only cast member not from South London and had to study the accent: "It's just a London accent rather than a specifically South London accent. It was very scary at first, especially when I went to the read through and everyone was so creative with the language of the script. At first, I had to just concentrate on the accent, but you can't go far wrong really with a script like that, and that acts as a safety net."

For Danny Dyer the script immediately rang bells of familiarity: "It was refreshing. I had never read anything like this before and I just thought immediately this is me, I have to be in it. I believed in every sentence. Nick is from Millwall and I'm from West Ham, a similar background so the language of the script was totally familiar to me."

Similarly Roland Manookian recognised the characters. "I live in Bermondsey so I can relate to a lot of the characters. I know people just like them. Nick's really caught the humour of south London, there's a lot of sarcasm involved. When I got the script I thought it was too good to be true. I didn't stop laughing. Nick also knows that clothes are important to a south Londoner. People might not have the readies to buy nice stuff, but they'll always look smart. Clothes are a statement and it might sound ridiculous, but the less money you have, the more expensive your clothes will be. I love all the clothes I wear in the film, I want them all!"

Alexis Rodney agrees "Nick Love is very in touch with the street and with people of my age. He's very clued up with what's going on, the writing is brilliant, totally spot on. It's not a bleak story. You get a lot of London stories that suggest drugs, guns and robberies and although this story has elements of that, it is just much more light hearted, it's about boys being young."

Nick Love explains the peripheral characters on the estate are all founded in reality: "Tony Immaculate is based on a Scottish bloke I remember. He was so out of place and I was baffled by him. Hector is based on a guy I met two years ago who had done really well in the property game. I thought he was a total wanker but I was fascinated by him because he didn't care what people thought of him. I'm always fascinated by revolting characters. Eddie was based on a couple of debt collectors from where I used to live, right sleazy characters, but I made Eddie a bit nicer than them."

Jamie Foreman plays Tony Immaculate who dresses like a cowboy and using an American drawl: "I've always been fascinated by people who adopt a different persona. Nick knows his world really well, he understands it, so it's a very honest portrayal. I don't like films about London made by people who know nothing about it, all that gor blimey guv' and doffing the cap. There's been 50 years of that in cinema. Nick shows these people in a compassionate light. He understands how humour can be used as a shield and he can look to what's really going on. He gets to the heart of these people."

Phil Daniels jokes: "When Nick said he was making a film in Kingston I thought it would be on a country estate not a council estate." He adds: "It reminded me a bit of QUADROPHENIA (1979). It's by a guy who actually lived here, the characters are totally realistic. He's got a Millwall tattoo on his lip so there you go." His character, the Falkland war veteran Eddie wears some of the more unattractive clothes to be seen on screen. "He's a laugh to play and the costumes lend themselves to play him a bit larger that life," says Daniels.

Costume designer Elinor adds: "He wears skin-tight T-shirts even though he hasn't got the physique for it and baggy weightlifting pants. He's got a lovely see-through top and a little bum bag worn the wrong way round and poor Phil also has to wear the ugliest pair of shorts on this earth."

Dani Behr, well-known to British TV audiences as a television presenter, plays Blondie. This is not the unusual casting that it first appears as she explains: "I always wanted to be an actress and I persuaded my parents to let me go to theatre school. I did kids' roles for a while, but then got the job on "The Word" which set me on that path. I know it's hard for people to get over seeing me as a TV presenter, so I had to remove myself from TV and start off as an actress in small roles to learn my trade."

Behr sums up what most of the cast felt: "I've done roles set in south London before with dodgy hair and clothes and I really enjoy playing against people's expectations. You either love or hate Nick immediately and I loved him. He was refreshingly honest and I really enjoyed the atmosphere on set (and I've been on some big budget Hollywood ones). There was a real sense of family and it was a joy to work with real people who don't care about your background but were just constantly telling stories and laughing."