On the set of Mark Jenkin’s time-bending maritime ghost story “Rose of Nevada,” George MacKay and Mark Jenkin describe a filmmaking approach powered by a 16mm Bolex camera, sound recorded obsessively in post, and hands-on lessons in fishing—while the haunting
George MacKay remembers the moment that best captures what making “Rose of Nevada” felt like for him: stepping into a boat world that was physical, heavy, and unforgiving—then having to perform with a kind of precision that time itself seems to refuse.
Mark Jenkin, writing and directing the time-bending maritime ghost story, built the production around immersion and limitation. The cast learned the basics of fishing on a trawler, guided by actual fishermen. MacKay and Callum Turner then had to “hit their marks more precisely than ever” because Jenkin’s signature analog process pushes the camera to stay strictly present.
Jenkin shoots on a spring-wound 16mm Bolex camera, which can only capture a take of about 20-30 seconds. And while the film’s sound might seem seamless—anchors splashing into water. every heave. sigh. and breath—he doesn’t record it live for the final mix. All sound is recorded in post-production. “from the plunk of an anchor dropping into water to every heave. sigh. and breathe” coming from MacKay and Turner.
“There’s certainly bits where I’m less involved. where I can sit back and look and go. ‘Wow. making a film is a really odd way to spend your life. ‘” Jenkin told IndieWire over Zoom alongside MacKay. “I think it is that moment where George was back in the sound studio. when we were designing the sound. and watching you doing your sort of size and grunts. and that kind of stuff. into a microphone over and over again. Everybody in the room is entirely straight-faced and serious while you’re trying to get the right sort of right expulsion of air to match something you’re doing on the boat. I did, at that point, think: We’re getting paid to do this, this is amazing.”.
On screen, the disorientation isn’t just stylistic. In “Rose of Nevada. ” Nick (MacKay) and Liam (Turner) are fishermen who become dislodged from time after taking a mysterious job. A boat called the Rose of Nevada disappears 30 years ago—its skippers and fishermen vanished without a trace. In the film’s present day, the boat returns to the shore as if from nowhere. When Nick and Liam take a job on the Rose. the men return to the village and find it’s now 30 years in the past. Locals mistake them for people from the original voyage. The question the film keeps alive is simple and unsettling: is it a trick of the uncanny—or have they really traveled back in time?.
Jenkin’s involvement reaches every corner of the finished film. He handles cinematography, editing, music, and sound, in addition to writing and directing. He frames it not as control for its own sake, but as a love of every step. “The big paradox of the way I work is I get a lot of attention for doing everything myself. and I am involved across all aspects of filmmaking. but I do work with a big team of collaborators. ” Jenkin said. “It’s just a strange way to work, because people tell me. I don’t notice it myself because it’s the way I always work.”.
That approach extends to how sound became part of the film’s time-slip quality. Jenkin started using this method more than a decade ago with producer Denzil Monk on a short film called “Bronco’s House. ” at a time when Kodak was “just about to file for bankruptcy.” Fuji had stopped making motion picture film. and Jenkin said. “Let’s make a film while we can.” The only camera they could get was “a 16-millimeter Bolex that was old and knackered.”.
At first, they didn’t think they could shoot audio with it. “So reluctantly. we did the whole thing silently and post-synced it.” Jenkin said the process was rewarding because it allowed them to dedicate time to recording sound once the chaos of the shoot was finished. When they watched it back. the audio had “this quality that we hadn’t really expected. which was a certain level of abstraction in the audio.” From then on. it became a creative choice.
Jenkin described how they used a crystal sync unit on the side of the clockwork camera. or attached a motor to sync it and run location sound. But he’s not interested in that anymore. “I love being able to just concentrate on the visuals while we’re shooting and give all the resources to get the picture right.”.
The payoff shows up in the fishing sequences. Jenkin said they were shot at night in the harbor with the boat tied up against the wall in the shadow of a huge supermarket. which was noisy. His rule was simple: “as long as it isn’t in the frame. then it doesn’t matter that we’re shooting in the shadow of a supermarket.”.
For MacKay. the constraints sharpened his focus in a way that felt almost like training his body and mind to stay locked on the scene. With the camera limited to under 30 seconds a take and with no sound or vocal performance on set. he said it “makes you aim at the target a little more.” He described how having multiple takes and the edit as a later tool let him intentionally offer versions and colors that could be decided later. For this film. the process became about being direct: “I’m just going to aim more directly at what I think this scene is … the only alteration in terms of process or approach is ironically [you] just try and be more accurate.”.
While the production was shot on location in Cornwall, the village seen in the film is more of a composite. Jenkin said it was filmed across six weeks. “Everything that is below deck in the boat was in the studio.” The film was made where Jenkin lives. with much of it in his community. That made it immersive for him in an unusual direction—“bringing filmmaking into my community.”.
MacKay described the crew atmosphere in similarly human terms. “There’s so many of the cast and crew members, and people on the team, that have all worked with Mark on his previous projects,” he said. “We sort of felt like we were coming into a family or like a theater company.”
Even the fishing preparation—essential to the authenticity the film pursues—was more about feeling the work than mastering it. MacKay explained that Nick isn’t supposed to be an especially adept fisherman. and Liam is an itinerant drifter who juggles whatever trade is on offer. but hasn’t “nailed down any single one of them.”.
“I could deal with the heavy lifting and sort of bask in my ineptitude doing it,” MacKay said. “The physicality of that world, of that trade, is really something. The first day we went down to visit the boat, it was pouring with rain, and it was really cold. You’re looking at all the gear. which I know sounds so simple. but it’s so heavy. and it’s rusty. and it’s hard. and nothing goes smoothly. and if you trap your hand. you’re going to be in trouble.”.
He said that understanding the physical reality—whether it was down in the fish hold stacking boxes. or learning what it means for the men to work with their bodies—was the point. “Just understanding that when we came to do the fishing sequences. or down in the fish hold of stacking the boxes. as much as we could experience that physicality equivalently was gold to Callum and I. We were scratching the surface in terms of the reality of doing it.”.
The stakes of authenticity sit at the center of Jenkin’s intent for the film. especially because Cornwall on screen often gets simplified into something decorative. Jenkin said he hoped “Rose of Nevada” would be “in direct and violent opposition to the jaunty. whimsical portrayals of Cornwall. ” the sort that land on streaming services like a stone.
“I would say hopefully [this film] is in direct and violent opposition to the jaunty. whimsical portrayals of Cornwall. ” Jenkin said. “Most of those films aren’t made by people from Cornwall.” He also pushed back against what he sees as a broader problem with art and the ways “phoniness” can creep into authenticity. “Most of those films aren’t made by people from Cornwall. … We do have a problem with all art. and certainly within film. where there’s a phoniness when it comes to authenticity. I quite often watch films. and they may be set somewhere I’ve never been. but instantly I’ll sniff something fake about it. Audiences are sophisticated, and they can sniff out things that are phony.”.
Jenkin’s comparison point is Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 thriller “Straw Dogs,” featuring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. He described it as “a massively problematic film for me. speaking as a Cornish man. because there’s no redeeming features of the Cornish within that film.” He said Peckinpah “recognized something dark within Cornwall that is definitely here. which is ancient and kind of unknowable.” He called it a “masterpiece. ” but added. “I also think it’s quite racist against the Cornish.” That tension doesn’t make him step away—he said it doesn’t stop him from being obsessed about it.
Dark, ancient, and unknowable—the exact language echoes back to “Rose of Nevada,” where the film’s haunted premise presses hard on the boundary between the sea and the past.
“Rose of Nevada” opens in select theaters starting Friday, June 19.
Rose of Nevada George MacKay Mark Jenkin Callum Turner 16mm Bolex Foley ADR Cornwall film maritime ghost story analog filmmaking sound in post-production