Working in her dream industry was something that Omagh born Aoife McArdle never thought possible.
he writer, cinematographer and director still lives in Northern Ireland although her work has been viewed internationally — including Apple TV+’s most recent success, Severance.
“I’m just one of those people. I love work… I just really love making things I guess, that’s my favourite part,” she says.
Interested in the impact of visual and creative writing from a young age, Aoife was always into art and books, then photography as she got older.
“Watching films was a big part of growing up,” she says.
“I started into investigate it as a job. Didn’t know anyone doing it but I moved to London when I was about 21 and started trying to get into it there, working my way up from the bottom.
“At first, I did runner jobs and I was working jobs the whole time and just sort of trying to do my own stuff at the same time.
“I fell into music videos actually through friends that were musicians because I was always really into music. That kind of got me into then making films.
“I started using music videos as a way to make films. I always wanted to find a way to make short films and obviously, the goal was always to try and get into long form drama as well.”
McCardle’s videography includes Coldplay’s Trouble in Town, U2’s Every Breaking Wave and Bryan Ferry’s Loop De Li, as well as works for James Vincent McMorrow, Bloc Party and Little Comets.
“It meant sometimes I couldn’t always work with my favourite bands because they always wanted a performance video,” says Aoife.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love performance videos but I was really trying to learn to be a filmmaker, so was always trying to use the opportunity of making a music video to try and learn more about trying to be a filmmaker.”
Conversation turns to growing up, often being told that anything creative isn’t necessarily a path in which to investigate.
“I’ve always had a bit of that defiance in me I guess,” says Aoife on pursuing her career dream.
“But you’re absolutely right because nobody told me I could be that at school. I went to the convent in Omagh and it was not on our radar at all.
“I think I just was so obsessed with filmmaking and photography and I just really went after it. I loved doing it so much, I just kept trying to find ways to do it, and then I didn’t think it would ever turn into a job, though.
“I had my day jobs and I would be doing that at night and at the weekend, you know, making little films or videos and using my day job to pay for them.
“Even going to Trinity [College Dublin, where she studied English], I got a grant. I wouldn’t have been able to go to Trinity if I hadn’t got a grant. I did get into photography there. If you just go after something hard because you love it, you want to do it, it became a job.”
Given her full-time involvement in an industry she clearly loves, Aoife wants to offer as much help and advice as possible for anyone, particularly women, who want to enter the business.
“It’s so important that young women get into this industry, especially into the technical roles that were traditionally closed off to women for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
“What I think is amazing now is that it’s changing rapidly, thank goodness.
“Every job I’m on, I’m trying really hard to have as many women as possible and as many people of colour as well. More and more now the industry is starting to wake up and change, thank god, but yeah, it’s been a long time coming.
“All the stories are all the better for it,” she continues.
“We needed diversity of voices. We need diverse of people on every project and job and that goes for all walks of life, especially films.”
There’s a particular theme or importance that runs through Aoife’s work: from her 2017 debut feature-length film, Kissing Candice to the 2021 short film and installation All of This Unreal Time featuring Cillian Murphy — that of light almost as an additional character.
“I grew up watching, thanks to my dad and my mum, a lot of 1940s film noir,” she explains.
“That led me into German expressionist films and I just was always really obsessed with lighting and how much you could create mood and meaning with the lighting and how much you could really deepen a story through lightning.”
While she is no stranger to having millions of eyes on her work — which includes Super Bowl commercials for Toyota and Audi, was she pinching herself when the opportunity to work on science fiction psychological thriller Severance arrived?
Its premise is one that has captured audiences across the globe and follows Mark (Adam Scott), a Lumon Industries employee who agrees to a severance programme wherein his non-work memories are split from his work memories.
The cast reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood and includes Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken and John Turturro and Aoife shared directing duties with Ben Stiller.
“It was a really intense job,” she says of Severance.
“I read the pilot script that Dan [Erickson] had written and I really thought it was so great, so fresh and so original.
“I loved the themes, it was such a great underdog story and also in a way, quite anti-capitalist. It was very much a story where the themes resonate, and obviously resonate more than ever right now, with what we’ve all been through with Covid.
“It was the script first and foremost but then I found out that Ben was involved. I’d really loved Escape at Dannemora [2018 series based on 2015 Clinton Correctional Facility escape that Ben directed and that also starred Patricia Arquette] that he’d done.
“Then I was excited to get involved. We had a conversation and were really on the same page. And then he gave me the gig.
“It was really enjoyable,” she says of filming.
“The storyboard side of it was really exciting for me because I got to have a lot of freedom creating shots. It was a really creative process.”
Was there a moment when she realised the show was special? “We shot it in a really intense way at the height of Covid. We were all masked up and screened,” she says.
“It’s funny; the weirdest thing about Severance is I don’t think I’d recognise a lot of the crew, none of us would recognize each other in real life.
“We had some actors that were a little older and so it was really about protecting them so that ended up being the priority.
“But of course, like with certain moments, despite the crazy hours and all the rest of it where I was like, wow, that’s Patricia Arquette, or that’s Christopher Walken, doing some of this amazing dancing between takes.”
From starting small to working full-time in an industry, Aoife has worked to get to where she is — but it’s not all been an upward trajectory. “I don’t take it granted,” she says. “I feel really lucky but I feel like I’ve worked incredibly hard to get here and just so people know, you do get noes and knockbacks.”
