Production

In February 2014, it was announced that FilmNation Entertainment had been selected to sell international rights to the film. In May 2014, it was announced The Weinstein Company had acquired U.S distribution rights to the film, for $3 million.


Inspired by the Technicolor look of the TV programs he watched as a boy, Carney was drawn
to the idea of mixing the drab universe of 80s recession-era Ireland and what the director
describes as “this colorful, amazing world” of pop videos.
“I lived through watching Top of the Pops and imagining that there was this great world of Duran Duran videos,” Carney says. 
“When you lived in Dublin, you couldn’t get your hands on a camera to save your life, or a costume or a look. We found that that was the way we were going to shoot the movie: do a sort of ‘before and after’ thing. You get the greyness of Dublin next to the Technicolor videos that they shoot, which is what’s in Conor’s head.”
“We wanted to give it a slightly different, more filmic look, but keep the spirit of Once. So we kept the handheld, no big lighting, no dollies, no SteadyCam. It was all handheld with that kind of free improvisation,” Orbach explains.

John doesn’t like to do shot lists,” Orbach admits. “We came onto the set and there would be
a mini line-reading/rehearsal. The actors would see where they wanted to put themselves and I
would have a camera and put a wide lens on my shoulder. We’d find the master and go from
there. We found the scene very quickly that way.
“Because of John’s style, which is all-inclusive and open to things that happen, there’s a lot of
room for spontaneity with kids. It has been a bit challenging here and there. There were no
positioning marks on the floor; we let them go wherever they wanted.”
“I like giving actors room to improvise a little bit and move around the script,” admits the director. “Sometimes things that kids say when they’re trying to remember the line that you wrote will often be way funnier than something that I could write. I would often encourage the kids in this film that if they’d forgotten their line, to not worry and just keep going and make some stuff up. It’s been fun and it’s easier to do when it’s your own script.”

For the household, MacDonald had to portray them in a moment when they have fallen on hard times. Any wealth that might previously have made the house an affluent environment is crumbling.