S23 - Ep 1 - Last Breath: From Documentary to Feature Film

What happens when the director of a documentary returns years later to retell the same story as a feature film? This week on Below the Line, Skid talks with Director Alex Parkinson about Last Breath, first made as a 2019 documentary and now released as a feature film starring Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, and Finn Cole. We talk through: How Alex first discovered the real-life story of diver Chris Lemons and shaped it into a documentary built around five minutes of chilling ROV footage The deliberate choice to hide Chris’s survival in the documentary — and how the feature film shifted perspective to follow him underwater Blurring lines between documentary and reconstruction, and carrying that visual style into the feature by weaving real footage with staged material The long road to directing his first feature, convincing producers through lookbooks and rewrites that he could expand his own documentary into a drama Building a crew from scratch and attracting world-class talent, including underwater DP Ian Seabrook, who signed on after watching the documentary The critical role of First AD Jude Campbell in organizing the complex underwater schedule and keeping the production on track Filming in Malta’s massive water tank and on full-scale ship sets designed to preserve authenticity and claustrophobia Working with Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, and Finn Cole to ground their performances in the documentary while making the feature cinematic What emerges is a story about continuity and transformation — a director returning to familiar material but reimagining it at a different scale, with different tools, and for a wider audience. 🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on Last Breath. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.