Why are they Rosco 5? The truth is, they’re not entirely sure. Needing to be a ‘company’ to get paid for an editing job, they were given three hours to come up with a name. “We just wrote down loads of stuff on a piece of paper.

“The five doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know why we chose it. I don’t even like the number… When I do my lottery numbers, I never pick five,” says Taheri.

“Occasionally I Google Rosco, and a lighting company and loads of dogs come up,” says Beresford.

Beresford and Taheri are longtime collaborators, meeting whilst studying film at the University of Westminster before moving into what Taheri describes as a “kind of boyband household,” and what Beresford clarifies was a “a filmmaking boyband household.” The ‘band’ consisted of: Gideon, who was writing and editing; Behnam, who was writing and producing; a ‘sound guy’ and a Director of Photography. This meant they could produce films on a whim, often with little to no budget.  Although working with your flatmates might be the makings of a nightmare for some, the two say that it was just really good fun. “It was something we all really wanted to do… The chance to actually be a sound recordist or something, instead of entry level work was quite alluring for everyone.”

One of the films they made in this period was Seeds of Love - where a grieving man plants his dead wife’s nail clippings and begins a love affair with the sprouted hand. Beresford played the widow, “and I played… the hand,” says Taheri.  They made the short over three days with their DOP, who “crucially had a camera.” To make a severed hand in a plant pot believable there were a lot of practical effects involved (and a coat of red nail polish for Taheri). “Because it was in lockdown everyone was like ‘how did you do that on your own?’” remembers Beresford.

After releasing it online, Seeds of Love got them attention and an agent, kickstarting their careers. This led to talks with BBC Three about directing Mawaan Rizwan’s debut series Juice, a playful surreal comedy about Jamma (played by Mawaan himself) a young man vying for attention against his similarly energetic family. Jamma’s also experiencing some hefty commitment issues with his considerably calmer, and older, new boyfriend Guy (Russell Tovey).

Under the Juice lens, opening the fridge catapults Jamma across the kitchen island in a wave of confetti. Saying ‘I love you’ makes the walls close in. Making breakfast is transformed into a choreographed dance sequence complete with Jamma blindly catching toast from the toaster. “There’s almost no scenes where it’s just two people talking” says Taheri. “There is, but they turn into a child halfway through,” reminds Gideon. Although directing Juice’s absurd chaos already sounds like no mean feat, all of the surrealist elements in Juice are handmade, not CGI or VFX.

When asked what the decision behind this was, Taheri laughs “well… there’s this thing that happens when you have no money!

"But it also looks more authentic. Feels better. It’s much better for performers to actually interact with something.” 

The sets bring about as much energy as Jamma himself. They include: a bed with a tunnel hidden under the covers, a miniature version of his father’s office, and a full-scale Lollywood set. In the beginning stages of tackling Rizwan’s script, “a lot of our contribution was trying to come up with achievable alternatives to things on the page” says Taheri.  Even though many of Juice’s surrealist moments would probably fall under the ‘unachievable’ umbrella for most people, Rosco 5 struggle to think of examples. Until, Beresford says: “there was the one where he wanted to cry”, with Taheri cutting in: “yeah, he was going to fill up a bathtub with tears. It felt very doable. He was going to cry so much the bath would overflow and trickle down the stairs… but we didn’t have the budget to flood a house.”

They also shot a pilot scene in the basement of a working man’s club, then discovering “there was some sort of health and safety related thing” that meant they couldn’t film in it again. Undaunted, they had Chris Richmond, the series’ set designer, set about replicating the cellar just a floor above the original.

It was on this set they tackled transforming Mawaan and his brother Nabhaan Rizwan into younger versions of themselves. The kids, although fantastic actors, didn’t have experience, so would sometimes giggle or look right down the barrel of the camera during a take.

The idea was that the audience would be eased into Jamma (Mawaan) and Isaac’s (Nabhaan) transformation, by seeing Jamma’s hand turn into a child’s. The problem was: “…this kid had quite a big hand!” exclaims Taheri. As an extra layer of difficulty, they also had “a flickering light that they established in the pilot was going to flicker.” After a while of filming this “weird pile” of children and adults, they cracked it… Jamma looks in surprise at his child’s hand, and the camera pans to Isaac, who has now switched to his child actor. It’s hard to imagine the chaos behind a such a seamless, and emotional, scene.

Their efforts paid off, as in 2024 Juice took home an RTS Programme Award in the Comedy-Drama category, and Juice was recommissioned for series two. Rosco 5 have chosen not to direct the second series, wanting to “play with new toys, and grow as directors.” For them, this means going back to short films and trying different genres - although still within comedy, as well as some exciting projects they’re not quite allowed to mention yet…

Rosco 5 were nominated in the Director – Scripted category at the RTS Craft & Design Awards 2024.