IT’S not long into 20,000 Days On Earth before Nick Cave bemoans the Brighton rain.

More of a surprise is when it emerges he writes a weather diary to help him cope with the horizontal lashings of the stuff which sweep in from the English Channel.

Since moving to Brighton with his wife Susie Bick he’s begun to write about the weather more obsessively. But meteorological eccentricity is only one way Brighton influences his creativity. The fifteenth studio album with the Bad Seeds – Push The Sky Away – is filled with lyrics soaked in the city’s stew. There’s a line in 20,000 Days On Earth, a cinematic masterpiece depicting 24 hours in the artist’s life, where he mentions how, referring to his arrival on the south coast, “you have to drop anchor somewhere”.

The maritime reference might not be an accident. The film’s co-directors – Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth – believe the proximity to the sea fuels his imagination.

“Brighton is manifest in his music,” says Pollard. “That sense of the water’s edge being there, for us, translated as the edge of world, right on the edge of something.”

Pollard and Forsyth worked with Cave on videos for singles from Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, remastered studio albums and an audiobook which brought Cave’s second novel The Death Of Bunny Munro to life. When Cave invited the duo to Brighton rehearsals for Push The Sky Away the material they filmed became the spark for them to make their feature film debut.

Pollard says over the past few years they’ve got to know Brighton and wanted to make the place central to the movie.

“What we love about Brighton is you can film and have a vast nothing outside of a car window on one side and then on the other side an idyllic, beautiful English town. That balance creeps into the lives of those who live there.”

Three weeks of shooting over a year-long period included several drives down Marine Parade to capture unscripted scenes with Cave in his Jaguar with Kylie Minogue in the back, Ray Winstone in the passenger seat and raw exchanges with former Bad Seeds guitarist Blixa Bargeld. A dawn boat ride out to sea to get a shot of Cave standing ashore and shrinking into the distance required a custom vessel with a crane attached to the back and four days’ patience.

“To see the sunrise over Brighton from out at sea was absolutely magical,” says Forsyth, who has worked with Pollard for more than 20 years. “But we had wait over and over for the sea to be still enough to get the shot.”

The filmmakers met at Goldsmiths where they studied fine art. They became known for live happenings and installations including 1998s A Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide, a re-creation of David Bowie’s final performance as Ziggy Stardust, but have gradually shifted to video. Their attention to detail and visual training makes 20,000 Days On Earth a cinematic portrait of Cave the artist rather than a music documentary.

“We wanted a world which is fuller, more intense, more colourful, darker and lusher than the real world. Cinema is at its best when it is heightened and you get immersed into the detail, into the gloriousness of it. We knew that was also one strategy to use to rise above that standard boring music documentary.”

Residents might notice the artistic licence in some locations: the road to Seaford has been shortened to throw up beautiful views to Seven Sisters cliffs from bearded Bad Seeds guitarist and Cave confidant Warren Ellis’s base. Of the duo’s cinematic approach, Forsyth says “the aim was to make something as magical as unusual as Nick’s talent and songwriting skills.”

Perhaps the biggest achievement was convincing Cave to sit on a psychiatrist’s couch for two days of unscripted filming – though Pollard admits they prepped the shrink with themes he had to cover.

“That was a way to try to prick that bubble and the guard that goes up when he is talking to journalists or the media.”

Combined with the rapidly shot scenes in Cave’s Jag, which peel back the layers of an intriguing personality, and with snippets of Cave rooting through the Nick Cave Archive (based in Melbourne but shipped over to England and filmed in Brighton Town Hall’s basement), the filmmakers demystify the mystique of the man and of making art.

Cave’s talks return again and again to transformation – whether that be on stage or as he sings or writes – as part of his creative act.

Forsyth says that sense of transformation reveals the power of the creative act, which he hopes leaves audiences feeling inspired “to finish that novel, that painting, that film”.

“We get that feeling by knowing Nick. He is an inspirational character. Ideas are not gifts handed from down on high to the blessed few. We can all get there if we put the time and effort in.”

l Forsyth and Pollard will be talking about the film at Lighthouse in Kensington Street, Brighton, as part of the Brighton Digital Festival conference ReFRAMED on Monday, September 15. Starts 10am, tickets £15/£10. Visit www.brightondigital festival.co.uk