Feature Category: Interviews

In 2014, a short called Delicacy began to take the festivals by storm. Directed by Helen Curran, a northern filmmaker who made the film as part of her BA at The Manchester Film School has gone on to work with some other artists on their movies, but she is now returning to make her second genre short. We found out more…

STARBURST: What can you tell us about Ends Meat?

Helen Curran: Ends Meat is my next short film, shooting in March. It’s a story of a Man driven to do some very bad things, with horrific consequences. It’s a mixture of mystery, horror noir, and Brit grit. The screenplay was written by Kris Heys and I’ll be directing. This was a concept pitched to me a long time ago, but it’s only now that we’re in a position to make it. It’s set over the course of one night in and around Manchester city centre. It plays heavily on juxtaposing the bright lights/busy city against the dark and ominous back streets. I can tell you that the script blew me away. We are very lucky to have such an incredible story to tell.

You’ve been filming around Manchester City Centre, how did you go about choosing locations?

We’ve really taken inspiration from many aspects of the city. One thing I love about Manchester is how the beautiful, sometimes Gothic old architecture somehow sits right with the modern buildings. It gives us a great backdrop to set our story. All the years living here, the view of Oxford Road, or Portland Street at night looks amazing, and the loneliness of the canal and alleyways have always been an inspiration, Ends Meat seems to have brought it all together – even Manchester’s history of old cotton mills plays an element in our film. So a lot of them were there in our subconscious, now we get to see them all in one film!

How much of the film is finished? What will the money raised from the crowdfunding go toward?

We’ve not even scratched the surface as regards filming yet. We spent one night filming some key shots to put together a teaser trailer. We’ve cast the two lead roles (Manchester-based Mark Vanhendrijk and Christopher Faith) and secured most of our locations, but the majority of the work is yet to come.

Any contributions we receive will go towards equipment rental, art and design, location fees, post-production, distribution, and very reasonable actors fees (as this is micro-budget), we’d love to be able to afford crew expenses, at the very least, as well. And, of course, feeding our cast and crew custard creams and copious amounts of tea is essential, but we want to feed them some real food too!

This will be the second film you’ve crowdfunded, what sort of perks will be on offer for fans?

We’ve got some good perks lined up, some exclusive posters, HD digital downloads of the film, and Delicacy thrown in for good measure. There’s also perks to appear in the film as an extra, or to get your photo in there instead. We’re offering producer credits too.

In your opinion, how important is crowdfunding to independent artists nowadays?

I know for me, personally, it’s extremely important, this is only the second time a project of mine has been crowdfunded so I’m by no means an expert, but it’s such an important tool. I didn’t run the campaign for Delicacy myself, but this time I am doing so, it will be a new experience for me. It allows an instant rapport with an audience, and the ability to have complete creative control of our projects. It’s great that from the side of filmmaking we can engage so closely with an audience, almost immediately. When a film is on the festival circuit, it normally is out of public view for quite some time; crowdfunding allows the film an audience before it’s been filmed. It’s a bonus for us making the film, too, that we have support outside of our immediate bubble.

Your last genre film Delicacy did really well worldwide, how was that experience?

That was a completely surprising experience. I never expected it to do as well as it has done. My thoughts were to make a small genre film, maybe it will play in a couple of festivals, and then we can put it online. It’s been over a year and a half now and it’s still touring festivals. It’s been the gift that’s kept on giving. We’ve been in over twenty festivals now, throughout the UK and the US. It’s racked up nine nominations and won five awards including a Royal Television Society student award for Best Drama. I certainly didn’t expect it to do as well as it has in America. I was even lucky enough to attend SBE’s HIFF (Hamilton International Film Festival) in New York last summer! I could honestly not be happier with how it’s been received.

I love genre film as a filmmaker and as a film fan, and Ends Meat brings me back to a not too dissimilar place as Delicacy.

How can people get involved with the Ends Meat fundraiser?

We are raising funds through Indiegogo and have a range of perks on offer, and even if a contribution isn’t possible sharing our campaign, trailer, and social media links online is a huge help. We need to reach as wider audience as possible!

 

Ends Meat is crowdfunding on Indiegogo, you can follow the progress on Twitter and Facebook.

Click to find out more about Helen’s work and Delicacy. She can also be found on Twitter.

Internet video company Rooster Teeth is known for its wide variety of gaming-related video series, especially the massive hit Red vs. Blue, the Halo-based machinama series that has been going since 2003. However, thanks to a very successful Indiegogo campaign, the company is now releasing its first big-screen film, the sci-fi adventure comedy, Lazer Team. That film stars Rooster Teeth regulars like company co-founder Burnie Burns, as well as Colton Dunn, the company’s creative director, Gavin Free, and Michael Jones.

Lazer Team is the story of four unlikely men who come together when they discover the wreckage of an alien spacecraft, and must go on to save humanity. It’s a surprisingly touching, yet never sappy film that takes what Rooster Teeth does well and gives it room to breathe and grow into something rather impressive. We spoke with Burns, the film’s star and co-writer, and co-star Free, from the Rooster Teeth studios in Austin, Texas. 

STARBURST: Watching Lazer Team, it seemed like it was almost more of a sports film than sci-fi or action. 

Burnie Burns: It’s interesting that you say that, because Rooster Teeth’s audience knows us primarily online as being a gaming channel. Even though our biggest shows are narrative shows like Red vs. Blue and Ruby, we still fall in that gaming category, because we do some gaming content. I believe that the things that draw a lot of people to gaming are the same things that draw people to sports and the things that draw people to the sorts of entertainment that are essentially based on conflict or competition. 

We wrote some of that in, but I can honestly say that when we were developing the script for Lazer Team, one of the things we wanted to be careful of – when you talk about it not being a sci-fi/action movie – we didn’t want people to think that we were making a parody of modern-day superhero movies, because comic book movies are so popular these days. 

This is a movie that we’ve wanted to make for a long time. It just happens to be a comedy that has sci-fi elements in it. That’s the way we look at it. It’s like if you went and saw Ghostbusters: you wouldn’t call Ghostbusters a parody of a horror film. You’d say that it’s a comedy with supernatural elements in it. 

Did being based in Austin contribute at all to the sports aspect of the film, what with the Texas football mentality?

BB: Oh, it definitely did. We wanted to communicate very early in the film that this is a very small town, outside of a military base. That’s why there’s not a lot of global awareness taking place until later in the film. The best way to communicate ‘small town in Texas’ is high school football. It just makes the most amount of sense, and it became a great way to introduce one of the main characters, and to have them all in the same place at the same time.

Is Lazer Team influenced by the gaming shorts for which Rooster Teeth has become known? 

Gavin Free: It’s not Rooster Teeth: The Movie. It’s Rooster Teeth’s movie. We don’t want people to be intimidated if that haven’t seen any Rooster Teeth content. We just wanted it to be its own standalone movie, with little hints to Rooster Teeth’s stuff. 

BB: A lot of online personalities are starting to branch out with TV shows and books, and just trying to take what they do online that’s popular and apply it to new formats. But we know that the content that we do online is popular in part because it’s a good format for online entertainment. Something that is going to be in theaters should be a movie, and look a lot more like what you see in a movie theater.

GF: I’d say the style is very similar to Red vs. Blue, in that wrote Red vs. Blue and also the movie, and the way that we interact with each other in the movie. Like, there’s a huge alien threat, and we still have time to bicker about the name of the team. That feels very Red vs. Blue to me. There’s big things happening in the background, but you can always rip on someone. 

BB: It follows that theme that we always liked, which is ‘idiots in extraordinary situations.’ 

The dialogue is relentlessly snappy, which is something that can readily make the leap from the handheld screen to the big screen. How did you focus on bigger visual imagery while trying to keep hold of that verbal style for which Rooster Teeth has become known? 

BB: When we were setting out to make a movie, we wrote out the story we wanted to tell. We’re used to writing episodes across an entire season of shows that we do. So, when you’re writing your feature, you write something where the overall story can be small for a series, because even if you look at half of a season, that’s six hours. And nobody’s going to sit through a six-hour movie.

You just go through this editing and condensing process, and that just makes the dialogue snappier and snappier, because everyone wants to keep their best jokes and best moments in it, so it just ends up really tightening everything. I think that that tightening of everything – in both the scriptwriting process and post-production – that’s the most important part of any kind of production.

In going from the small to the big screen, what sort of choices were made regarding special effects? There’s a pretty good blend of CGI and practical in Lazer Team – like, those are real explosions.

BB: Right. I have to credit our director, Matt Hullum, because Matt spent ten years in Hollywood working in the visual effects industry, so he has good experience in computer-generated effects. But, then we all grew up on the original Star Wars movies, with a lot of practical effects, so we loved those.

GF: I was always amazed when the DP would play back something we had just shot, and how good it looked in-camera. Obviously, there wasn’t a spaceship flying through the air in-camera, but everything else was like, real explosions, real glass breaking. People are actually going flying. It was really cool.

 

Lazer Team is available for viewing in the United States via YouTube Red starting on January 27th, and screenings in the UK are available via Tugg. You can find out when the screenings are happening in your area at the movie’s website.

With the release of her first movie, B.C. Butcher, director Kansas Bowling has become an immediate sensation. The prehistoric slasher was picked up by the twisted minds at Troma Entertainment and was one of the first films to appear on the company’s brand new Troma Now on-demand video service. B.C. Butcher is a shot-on-16mm, rock ‘n’ roll madhouse of a movie. Additionally, it’s a barrel of fun, thanks to some clever choices by director Bowling, including by not limited to a soft toy tiger standing in for the real thing and letting Kato Kaelin improvise to an absurd extent. We spoke by phone with Kansas Bowling from her Hollywood apartment. 

STARBURST: Why did you choose to shoot B.C. Butcher in 16mm? 

Kansas Bowling: I’ve always really, really loved film, and got a Super 8 camera when I was 13 for Christmas. I’m part of the Tarantino generation who were taught that film was gold, and that’s what you have to do. He was one of my early idols – I asked him to marry me when I was 14. 

Just growing up, watching the newer movies and watching the older movies, and really seeing the difference in how they look. One of my favorite movies is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and just those rich, bright colours, and the close-ups of Sally Hardesty’s eyes – that really bright blue – had me wondering, “How do you get that look?” 

I contacted the cinematographer for Texas Chain Saw Massacre before I shot my film, asking what he did. He told me they shot on 16, he told me the type of film stock they used, and I just really wanted to get a look like that. The lower-budgets ’60s and ’70s films always have the best looks and the best colours. 

It is a very bright movie, and it’s a testament to how well it works, even though pretty much every scene is shot in daylight. Was that a choice? 

Yeah – even when they’re sleeping! That was just because we had no budget. We could only shoot in the daytime, but it works. I was thinking at first of shooting day-for-night: shooting in the daytime, but lowering the exposure so that it looked like it was night. However, I was like, “It doesn’t matter. It won’t make the film look darker – it’ll just look bad. Everything can be bright.” We didn’t need any lighting equipment. We just used reflectors for everything. It was the cheapest way to go.

It’s impressive the way the film uses its budgetary restraints to its advantage, to be sure. How, for example, did you come to use the stuffed tiger? 

What’s funny is that when we shot the movie, we knew it was going to be campy, but we were taking it kind of seriously as we shot it. In editing, though, it turned into a total comedy! We weren’t really going to use the stuffed animal tiger at all – we were just going to have it fly past the camera really quick – but we decided to keep it in because it was just too hilarious. 

We just added all these sound effects. Like that scene with Anna Conda, where she sees the Butcher, we just had her screaming for a really unnecessarily long amount of time. Things like that. 

Was the decision to use the Hollywood Argyles’ song, Alley Oop part of the opening to the movie from the beginning, or did that happen after the film got picked up? 

That was actually a decision we made while we were making it. It was an idea from Rodney Bingenheimer, who’s in the movie – he’s a DJ on KROQ – he was like, “You should use ‘Alley Oop’!” I went through a lot of trouble to get that song, but I finally got it. I was so proud that I got that. 

In terms of the other music, how did you come to know the Ugly Kids and use them? 

The Ugly Kids? It was actually a way long time ago. I shot a promo scene first before I did the movie, so I got them for that, even. I hung up a flyer at Amoeba Records – a record store here – saying, “I’m making a feature film, and we need a band to do the soundtrack!” and I think I got three responses. Two of them were like, techno bands, and the third was the Ugly Kids. 

That seems really fortuitous because it seems like that style of music fits really well with the aesthetic of the film. 

Yeah, it’s pretty caveman-ish. 

It ties really well into how I took the movie, which is that it’s a beach party movie that doesn’t take place on the beach. 

Those are my most favorite movies! I love Annette Funicello so much. 

What also struck us was how many women were involved in the making of B.C. Butcher. 

Yeah, that’s just how we wrote the script. Those are all my favorite type of movies – the all-women cast, like Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!, Switchblade Sisters – all those movies had these girl gangs, and they’re the most fun movies to watch, in my opinion, so I wanted to do something like that. And you know, I’m a girl, so I don’t want to watch guys. It’s boring. Girls are better. 

Plus, it seems like all the women get the best lines. 

Yeah, we decided that all the cave men would grunt, primarily, and the women would talk. 

The exception to that is, obviously, Kato Kaelin. How much of his dialogue was written, and how much was improvised? 

It was all Kato. He said a bunch of things I didn’t even know he was going to say, like that part where he says, “Don’t look at my butt,” it was so funny. The actress, Molly, was uncomfortable with kissing him, and they would just touch noses, and he’d say, “More of this later.” Stuff like that. 

The flashback sequence, we just had some film left, and we were like, “Kato, we’re about to roll out. Just say whatever you want.” That was just him, on the spot, being funny. 

How’d the film end up being distributed by Troma? 

I actually started talking to Lloyd before the movie was even finished. I had always had Troma on my mind, because I love Troma so much, and was like, “What if Troma releases it?” 

So, when I finished shooting it, I sent an e-mail to Lloyd, saying, “I have this movie. I shot it on 16mm. It has Kato Kaelin,” and kind of gave him the rundown. He wanted to meet with me, because he was going to be in Los Angeles, so we scheduled a meeting a couple days later at a Mexican restaurant. We met, and he saw like, a little kid walk in without any parents, and he was kind of freaked out. 

But, he really liked what I was telling him, so he decided to take a chance. He gave me a check for post-production, so he became an executive producer, and later on, Troma decided to release it. 

Kansas Bowling’s debut feature, B.C. Butcher, is streaming now through Troma Now, and will see a full DVD/VOD release sometime in March, along with a very limited theatrical run.

2016 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of H. G. Wells, the legendary ‘father of science fiction’ whose best-known works such as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man remain the bedrock upon which the whole genre has been subsequently built. To commemorate the anniversary, Sky Arts has commissioned a run of four stand-alone thirty-minute dramas based on some of Wells’ more obscure short stories, all adapted by writer/actor Graham Duff (TV’s Ideal, Dr Terrible’s House of Horrible, Hebburn, and the Mark Gatiss-starring radio comedy Nebulous). STARBURST spoke to Graham about his latest project and the challenges of bringing the work of one of his literary heroes to the small screen…

STARBURST: As both creator and writer of the series, we’re assuming that you’re a long-time fan of H. G. Wells. How did the series itself come about?

Graham Duff: I’ve been a devotee of Wells since I read The Invisible Man when I was 12. I haven’t read absolutely everything he wrote, as it’s an enormous body of work, but I love all the ‘scientific romances’ as they were called at the time. But my biggest Wells obsession has always been his short stories. I’ve re-read them scores of times over the years. About a year and a half ago, I was on holiday and started reading them for the umpteenth time. And it vaguely drifted across my mind how strange it was that hardly any of them had ever been adapted for the screen. It then took about three days for it to dawn on me that, as a screenwriter, maybe I myself should adapt them!

How did the project find its way to Sky Arts and how involved were they in the creative process and the development of the series?

I took the pitch to Clerkenwell Productions – who’d made Misfits amongst other things – as they were a company I was interested in working with. And it just so happened that they’d been talking with Sky Arts the previous day about the possibility of developing a new horror series. From then on, it just felt like we were swimming with the tide. I have to say, Sky were great – they trusted us and let us get on with making the series we wanted to make. There was nothing you could even vaguely call ‘interference’. It’s been a joy, a passion project brought to life by an incredibly gifted team.

Were the story selections for the series based on your own personal favourites from this rather overlooked corner of the Wells canon?

Wells wrote over seventy short stories so there’s a real wealth of great material to choose from. Initially, I was just guided by the stories which I’d always enjoyed reading. I was very keen to adapt The Story of The Late Mr. Elvesham as I think it’s an absolute masterpiece of mystery and suspense. So that one was in the bag from the start. But a number of other considerations soon came into play; what would work best visually? What would fit the aesthetic we’d chosen? And, of course, which stories we could do justice to on the budget we had!

One of the most exciting things about Wells is he pretty much invented the science fiction genre. So in several of his short stories, we see ideas which have become the cornerstones of science fiction being articulated for the very first time. So quite often, what you’re reading is a sci-fi trope in its purest form.

What can you tell us about the format of the series?

We’ve actually taken quite an experimental approach to the material. I’ve always liked playing around with the boundaries of genre and representation and these stories provided a perfect arena for that. And as soon as Adrian Shergold came on board as director, the experimental side really blossomed.

Each episode is presented by Wells and, as the stories progress, he appears within the stories commenting on the action. It sounds odd, but it really adds an interesting atmosphere to the show. Also, the sets themselves don’t have any walls. So even though the furniture, furnishings, costumes and so on are all rich in period detail, the ‘rooms’ themselves have no walls, so there’s just this blackness surrounding everything. Again, it sounds strange but it really works. It helps give the series quite a strange, dreamlike quality.

Ray Winstone seems like an unusual choice to play Wells. What particular qualities were you or the production team looking for, in general, in the actor who was going to play Wells?

For Wells himself, it was crucial we get the casting right. Although he isn’t on screen all the time, Wells plays a big part in how the stories are manifested. I think the idea of Ray playing H. G. Wells has surprised some people, probably because there’s an assumption that Wells was another product of the Oxbridge system when, in reality, he was a working class man from Bromley. Ray really relished playing Wells – partly, I imagine, because it’s quite different from the kind of ‘geezer’ roles he often gets offered. 

The series boasts a pretty formidable supporting cast with established names such Michael (Harry Potter, Doctor Who) Gambon, Rupert (Sherlock) Graves alongside up-and-coming talent including Luke (Unbroken) Treadaway and Antonia (Misfits) Thomas. Beyond Wells himself, how involved were you in the casting?

I was involved in all the casting! There are actors I’d worked with before who I was keen to have involved in the show, such as Tom Goodman Hill, who played P.C. in Ideal, plays a priest in an episode called The Moth. The casting has been a dream. I’d like to think my scripts played a part in attracting great actors. But, in reality, I know that Adrian Shergold is such an exciting director to work with that actors flock to him. Actors like Rupert Graves, Leanne Best, and Michael Gambon had worked with him before and were very keen to do so again.

How closely did you find yourself working work with director Adrian Shergold in the process of bringing the scripts to the screen? Did you share the same ‘vision’ of what you wanted to see?

Adrian and I clicked from our very first meeting. Right away it was obvious that we were both talking about making the same show. Adrian has made some pretty impressive television over the years, working with people like Dennis Potter and so on and his instincts about how to interpret a scene are usually spot-on. One interesting thing is that TV directors of his seniority quite often settle into a kind of comfort zone. TV schedules are always super tight, so an experienced director will often do what they know will work. Adrian, however, was keen to experiment on virtually every scene – hanging the camera upside down, putting sticky tape on the lens and just generally taking risks. It was really exciting to collaborate with someone so unrestricted by convention.

Do you think this sort of series would be difficult to place on mainstream TV, which tends to increasingly play it safe?

I think a mainstream channel would quite possibly have been interested in a series of adaptations of HG Wells’ short stories. However, I think it would have been pretty difficult to get this version of the show commissioned by a mainstream channel. Like I say, it’s fairly experimental in a number of aspects – the production design, the soundtrack, the structuring, the casting – and I think a more mainstream broadcaster would have tried to curb those elements and insisted we take a more traditional approach.

I have to say Sky Arts were extremely encouraging and supportive from day one. They understood that the experimental approach Adrian and I were proposing wasn’t wilful. It was something which we all felt would add to the stories’ sense of fear and dislocation.

The soundtrack is provided by members of both Massive Attack and the Cocteau Twins; viewers often complain about intrusive and inappropriate background music in TV dramas these days; how does the soundtrack of Nightmare Worlds differ and how important do you think the right musical score is to the success of a TV series?

One of the very first ideas I’d had for the series was to avoid the traditional approach to scoring period dramas – pianos, cellos and decorous woodwind arrangements and so on. I was very keen that the majority of the score should be electronic. A lot of Wells’ ideas are about the shock of the new, so I thought a non-traditional score would help foster the feeling of unease.

I’d met Damon Reece and Elizabeth Fraser after a Massive Attack show in Manchester a couple of years back and we’d got talking. I’d always loved both Massive and the Cocteau’s and it turned out that Damon and Elizabeth were big fans of my series Ideal. The idea that we should collaborate came up, so we kept in touch and I filed the idea away for future reference. Then, when I was first developing the Wells project, it just seemed obvious they should be the people to score it.

Music is one of my life-long passions. And I’ve been deeply involved in the soundtrack to pretty much everything I’ve made. With Ideal – even though it was cues as opposed to especially scored music – the soundtrack was absolutely crucial to the show’s atmosphere and appeal.

What can viewers expect from the series and what would you like them to take away from it?

I think it’s a genuinely creepy and unsettling series. It deals with some of our most primal fears and I think, due in no small measure to the genius of Wells’ original ideas and prose, the stories are unpredictable and emotionally engaging.

And I would hope the series would encourage people who only know The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man to seek out Wells’ short stories. I genuinely think they are amongst some of the best stories written in the English language.

The series commemorates Wells’ 150th birthday, but do you think there is the potential for further episodes should these go down well? Are there any other writers you’d like to do something similar with?

Adrian and I would love to make more. I’ve already drawn up a list of further stories I’d like to adapt. And I’m also involved in developing another horror series based on the works of another great writer of the macabre – but I don’t want to talk about that right now, as we’re only in the very early stages. 

A bit like asking who is your favourite child, perhaps, but which episode or episodes are you especially proud of and what, if it’s possible to say, are the stand-out moments in the series?

There’s an episode called Devotee of Art that I’m particularly proud of. It’s about a painter who’s offered the chance to attain great fame but at an extremely high price. I don’t want to talk about specific moments, as I’d like audiences to come to the stories with innocent eyes so to speak. Suffice to say, there are points in every episode which should make audiences jump, as well as several goose-bump inducing moments.

The Nightmare World of HG Wells screens on Sky Arts on January 28th (Episodes 1 and 2) and February 4th (Episodes 3 and 4).

Infinity is a slick sci-fi cyberpunk universe that started out as a highly successful skirmish wargame. It is now being adapted into a table-top roleplaying game for those who want to live in the world of Infinity for a while. We caught up Modiphius Games supremo Chris Birch, who is developing the new game. 

STARBURST: Why the Infinity Universe?
Chris Birch: I remember first seeing the minis in a store and thinking WOW these would be amazing as RPG characters. The sense of imminent action in the poses just screamed at you and so I started looking in to the world more. It’s a great combination of space opera and cyberpunk/transhuman adventure with an epic big plot that was ripe to be turned in to an RPG game. Before there was a skirmish game, though, there actually was an RPG. Infinity started life as a homemade RPG setting for the early roleplaying adventures of Corvus Belli founders Alberto, Carlos, Fernando, and Gutier so it was amazing to be given the trust to take their baby and expand on the world for them.

How different will it be from Corvus Beli’s miniature’s game?
The RPG system itself was inspired by the multi-d20 rolls of the Infinity game, but where the skirmish game is amazing for intense battles, the RPG lets you race from battle to battle, mixing social escapes with wild races through futuristic cities or war torn jungles, epic hacking, subterfuge and conspiracy – all in one game session. Otherwise, we’ll be bringing to life the Infinity universe, focusing on things off the battlefield, exploring the universe and the many plots – letting you explore characters you’ve not seen before, learn what it’s like to be a fragment of the powerful AI ‘Aleph’, a Maya media star or one of the many agents of the factions.

Is there a language barrier?
The Infinity RPG is being written in English, the skirmish game was written in Spanish and translated to English. We are working on translations with various partners though as the game has huge followings across Europe, Russia and in South America,

How would you describe Infinity to a non-gamer?
In the twisted jungles of Paradiso, humanity fights for its survival. The fierce, alien warriors of the Combined Army have poured through the Acheron Gate, descending upon the emerald jungles of the newest colonial world in a seemingly unstoppable torrent. The bestial Morat pound the Paradiso Front, where brave men and women fight ceaselessly to maintain a desperate defensive line which the sly Shasvastii penetrate with devastating ease. In the star-swept skies above, the collected might of humanity’s armadas maintain a life-or-death blockade to cut off an endless horde of alien reinforcements. And if any of humanity’s fractious forces should falter, then all may be lost…

But beyond that terrifying holding action, the intrigues and adventures of the Human Sphere spin on. Space pirates cruise through the shattered planetoids of Human Edge. Scientist adventurers delve the oceans of Varuna. Merchant guilds scheme amidst the scourging sands of Bourak. From Yutang, the Emperor gazes forth from an uneasy throne. Titanic war machines stride across the icy plains of Svalarheima. Byzantine hypercorps struggle for dominance amidst the chrome towers of Neoterra.

How is this different from other space/cyberpunk RPGs?

 The machinations of two major AI’s – one who seeks to cradle humanity, the other very alien – seeking to evolve to a higher state are intertwined in the Infinity universe. The story actually brings together a lot of transhuman ideas within a space opera setting and keeps it fresh. I think if far future space opera is your thing you’ll like what Corvus Belli have dreamed up. Being able to pick up gorgeous metal miniatures of the epic heroes and heroines is the icing on the cake!

How different is it from other Modiphius games?

The Infinity RPG uses the same 2d20 system developed for Mutant Chronicles and the new Conan RPG. It’s obviously heavily flavoured to replicate the feel of the Infinity universe and some of the memorable mechanics of the skirmish game so fans feel at home playing it. The 2d20 system was developed by Jay Little, designer of the X-wing Miniatures game and Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG and we have plans for it to appear in the John Carter RPG and several other major RPG’s coming out in the next couple of years.

What’s next for Infinity?
We unlocked 20 books in the Kickstarter, covering all aspects of the universe but we have more planned over the next couple of years and lots more exciting products like a line of geomorphic maps tiles for use with the miniatures. People who missed out can still join in through our webstore

What’s next for Modiphius?
The Conan Kickstarter is launching in the middle of January – you can find out more at http://www.modiphius.com/conan – we’re unveiling a stunning new cover art by a major name artist and have so many big name artists on board it’s been an incredible experience. We also have the John Carter RPG coming this spring, and the Kung Fu Panda board game amongst others.

Why Kickstarter?
Growing a line of RPG’s or board games is hard work – and distributors don’t want to take the risk so there’s very little money in going it the traditional route, unless you have major funds to invest upfront. With cost prices increasing and wanting to put in top name artists and sticking to high production qualities publishers are having to turn to Kickstarter to get the kind of customer base that can keep a new game alive. Of course, with projects like Infinity and Conan, you have a great customer base, but distributors still won’t order the volume of product to justify the level of production. Modiphius doesn’t use Kickstarter for every project (the Dust Adventures RPG was released with a small pre-order straight in to distribution), however major projects with extensive product lines need the boost of funding that Kickstarter brings. The key thing for us is being able to give those people who believe in us a really, really amazing deal in return for helping fund the development of the line. People have said of the Achtung! Cthulhu project that it’s ‘the Kickstarter that just keeps giving’ and whilst we’d often had delays I’m proud of the fact that we’ve stuck to our quality and give people back as much as we can. We’ve even gone on to offer stretch goals in each succeeding Kickstarter for previous projects so people keep benefitting from our success and plan to invest in the community as the projects grow.

You can find out more on the Modiphius website here.

Composer Joseph LoDuca has worked with director Sam Raimi since the very beginning. From the 1981 cult favorite The Evil Dead through Xena: Warrior Princess and beyond, the composer has lent his skills to the Raimi’s mix of comedy, action, and fantasy / horror. Most notable has been LoDuca’s work on each and every iteration of Raimi’s Evil Dead films (Fede Alverez’s 2013 reboot being the obvious exception). This is up to and including the new series for Starz, Ash Vs Evil Dead. Those familiar with LoDuca’s music might be surprised at the tone his tunes take in the series. The music – out now via Varèse Sarabande – is an excellent mix of horror, action, and rock ‘n’ roll themes. We were lucky enough to be able to ask composer LoDuca about his influences and plans for the series…

STARBURST: Your television work as of late has been rather more action-oriented. What’s it like combining action and horror for the small screen – or do you just see Ash vs Evil Dead as a really lengthy film?

Joseph LoDuca: Good question! I read most of the scripts ahead of time, although the season finale came as a surprise, or should I say, a shock! We only work on one episode at a time, and each contains its own adventure. Still, there is an overarching set of rules and a few themes that work for the music in this world.

The Ash vs Evil Dead score seems to have a real arc to it – getting really pounding in the middle, and bookended by more traditional horror elements. Is it just the nature of the tracks selected for the Varèse release, or did you intend for the music to change over the course of the season?

The tracks generally follow the outline of the season. When releasing an album, I always put thought into having the music flow to make it enjoyable for the fans who listen from top to bottom.

As a sideline to that, the score really plays with a lot of different versions of the particular feel, with the horror elements use electronic instrumentation, as well as tense, creepy strings, for instance. Is that one of the benefits of TV, being able to play around?

I think electronic elements, when well-considered, can add another dimension, an emotional one to any style of music. I felt that since the first Evil Dead, even when the tools were much cruder.

We think we can hear the influences behind Ash’s Theme, but did you draw from many others besides John Barry?

Not really. Although, ‘60s and ‘70s TV and film music was definitely the tongue and cheek referent. Ash is stuck in the ‘70s, and the lone gunman-with-a-chainsaw was my image of him as he appears in the new series.

Additionally, why so long for Ash to get his own theme?

Timing, I guess. We didn’t really consider him a hero in the first two movies. He was the tortured Shemp. In Army of Darkness, there was a ‘hero’ theme (check out Building the Deathcoaster). It is epic, albeit more of a good vs. evil thing.

This is a franchise with which you’ve been for over 30 years. What are the positives and negatives of such a history – for instance, do you find yourself wanting to reference past work or do you look to starting fresh with each instalment?

There are a few tongue and cheek references, some which might blow right by you. Just having a bit of fun. The approach to the music has remained the same. The music is dead serious, no matter how ridiculous things get. Only occasionally do we tip the scales in favor of outright comedic music. The retro rock card has helped a lot for the series. I really enjoyed re-recording Time Has Come Today with Bootsy Collins.

Given that we’ve recently seen Army of Darkness and Evil Dead II vinyl reissues, can we start salivating for the original Evil Dead?

I am in the process of re-recording the original score along with a re-imagined score of new music and am looking into the possibility of playing it live to picture in a series of concerts. Stay tuned!

You can find more information about composer Joseph LoDuca at his website (http://www.loducamusic.com/), and information on how to get the Ash vs Evil Dead score can be found at Varèse Sarabande (https://www.varesesarabande.com/).

Nicholas King has a successful career as a stuntman but it is his role as the evil, child-possessing Baghuul that he is most known. As Sinister 2 is released on Blu-ray and DVD, he took the mask off just long enough to tell us what it’s like to be the new face of horror.

STARBURST: I guess the first question has to be how does it feel to have become something of a horror icon?

Nicholas King: A lot of people have said that. Personally, I don’t think I’m anywhere close to being an icon like Freddie or Jason or Michael Myers. Those guys are the true icons, whereas I’m just getting started. Having said that, it’s still awesome!

How did you come to get the part of Bughuul?

My dad was the stunt co-ordinator for part of the first one and he found out there would be an audition. So myself, my brother, and few others went down for it and it turned out to be Scott Derrickson picking who he thought had the best body shape for the character, and luckily that was me. Not that glamourous, really.

How would you say Sinister 2 differs from the first film?

It goes much more in depth with my character. It shows where Bughuul comes from and why he’s doing what is doing which is really interesting. If we go to a Sinister 3, I would love it if we went back to the ‘60s or ‘70s era, like from the videos from the first film. Talking with people that seems to be what everyone wants to see so that would be cool.

How much of your day on set is spent getting into the makeup and then sitting around in it waiting for your scene?

For the first film, it took about 3 hours to put the makeup on; there would be up to 15-hour days and then another 2 hours to take it off. For this film, we came up with a different strategy. Thankfully, it was only an hour or so to put on and the same to take off so there was less hanging around which was great. We used gloves this time too which helped a lot.

Did you manage to keep any of the costume?

The only thing I own is the mask from the first film, which is pretty cool.

As a stuntman, was this a pretty safe role in your career?

It’s a completely different field from what I’m used to. This time, I’m actually acting rather than just being in and out of the film and doing stunts.

We believe your father and brothers are stuntmen too; kind of a pretty dangerous family business!

Yeah, it can be, although for the most part it’s pretty safe. It’s something I always wanted to do and I was raised surrounded by it. I did learn a trade before I went into it, but it was always there.

SINISTER 2 is out now on DVD and Blu-ray.

Starting back in 2009 with the first Paranormal Activity movie, Blumhouse Productions has been a major player in the world of modern horror. Headed up by Jason Blum, the company has produced the likes of the Insidious franchise, the Sinister series, the Purge movies, Ouija, The Visit, the stunning Gift, and, of course, the aforementioned Paranormal Activity saga. With Sinister 2 set for a home release later this month, we were lucky enough to grab some time with Jason to discuss the future of the Sinister franchise, the state of modern horror, and even snag some brief words on the company’s upcoming Amityville movie.

SHARE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW OR ON TWITTER @STARBURST_MAG

Find your local STARBURST stockist HERE, or buy direct from us HERE. For our digital edition (available to read on your iOS, Android, Amazon, Windows 8, Samsung and/or Huawei device – all for just £1.99), visit MAGZTER DIGITAL NEWSSTAND.

CLICK TO BUY!

MORE FROM AROUND THE WEB:

We catch up with MO SHAFEEK, production manager of record label MONDO to find out more about the company’s rise to success…

Austin, Texas’ Mondo has come a long way since they started selling pop-culture inspired posters and t-shirts. In the last five years, the company has become a powerhouse, branching out into toys and VHS tapes as well as the gorgeous screen-printed posters upon Mondo built its reputation. However, if you’re familiar with Mondo these days, it’s likely due to their amazing series of vinyl records.

Be it a reissue of a classic genre score like The Omen or a white-hot new release a la Junkie XL’s Mad Max: Fury Road, the label’s known for taking things to the next level. A recent example of the Mondo creativity at work is the Bizarro variant of the theme to Superman: The Animated Series: it’s a die-cut purple record in the shape of the iconic ‘S’ shield, with the logo silk-screened onto the B-side, which plays in a reverse groove from the inside out.

STARBURST: What was the path that led you to what you now do?

Mo Shafeek: I used to tour manage musicians back in the early 2000s, so I ‘worked in the music industry’ for a little while, but on the actual gig side of things. I’ve always had a huge love of music, and I also went to film school before that. After ending the tour managing, I found myself running the shipping/receiving department for an online web store.

So, when I moved to Austin, I found myself in this weird position where I didn’t want to get stuck with a 9-to-5 job so, having shipping and receiving experience, I applied to Mondo, having only known them as this company that sold posters that I liked, but obviously needed shipping help. I applied for the gig and ended up applying at the right time, because they needed a general manager.

Mondo’s website is called mondotees.com and it was once a T-shirt shop, but they were in the process of becoming this online presence that sold posters and needed help transitioning out of this past where it was primarily a retail space operating out of a movie theater lobby. So, I came in and helped them transition out of that, and after that – Mondo has always fostered this idea that everything is possible, and anything is possible – we produced our first vinyl LP, which was the soundtrack to the 1980 Maniac, by William Lustig.

One thing led to another, and The Beyond was a huge hit the following year, and we decided we were going to try to do one new soundtrack release a month for the whole year of 2013, and then it just became a full-time job. I couldn’t do the poster stuff anymore, so I very quickly became the soundtrack guy, rather than the general manager who also produces soundtracks.

As a film major, and someone who was involved in film early on, were you a fan of scores and movie soundtracks before you started working for Mondo?

Oh, absolutely – to an embarrassing level. If you were to look at my CD collection from the mid-’90s, when I had a disposable income and could buy what I wanted, the soundtracks that I loved buying were all over the map. I had the soundtrack to Spirited Away next to the soundtrack to Con Air. That was the level I was working at. I just loved film music in all shapes and sizes.

But, you never have in the back of your mind that someday you’ll work with this. It was just more, if I had money to spare, whatever movie I was obsessed with, I bought everything that I could from that movie. A lot of the time, the only thing that you could buy for a certain movie was the soundtrack. Now we live in that age where you search for your favorite movie and merchandise, and you can find pop-culture T-shirts and Rubik’s Cubes and enamel pins and all this stuff out there in the world that someone’s producing. But at that time, in the ’90s, sometimes all you had was that soundtrack.

In the last year or so, Mondo has really undergone some transformations, especially in your department, to the point where I don’t even know where to start. What was the impetus to move from so many reissues to more first-run releases?

While it appears that way more so now than then, we were trying to do new releases from the beginning. We just didn’t realise how long it would take to make these things happen. Looper is a perfect example. We were on-track to have that soundtrack out within four to five months of when that movie was out, but that project took literally a year and a half to get off the ground.

Drive was a two-year project. We were trying to get into the groove or the pocket of releasing albums in their relevancy, while also still doing assorted past-release titles, and we were finding that sweet spot of releasing new releases was never in our favor. It’s really hard to do. With indie titles, it’s a little easier, because you can see a movie at a festival, and then when it gets acquired by a distributor, you can find out when it’s getting released.

Spencer is really good at that. He’s timing out Turbo Kid to come out when home video gets it, and Cooties, as well. He’s been doing it for years, and he’s great at it, and we’ve gotten better at it, for sure: like Mad Max and Jurassic World, but, as you’ll notice, those are pre-orders because these scores aren’t being finished until like four weeks before the movie comes out. Vinyl takes like four months to produce, so it’s not until you get the track titles that you can actually start making this thing 

If you’re trying to say that we’re doing bigger-budget, more mainstream titles than earlier indies like Looper, then I’d agree that yes, that is a new thing, but we’ve been trying to do a mix of the old and the new ever since the inception of the Mondo vinyl soundtrack label. I mean – none of us were familiar with this world from the start. Spencer’s a veteran, but the rest of us just learned how to do this thing as we were doing it. We’ve gotten better at it, for sure, but it was a lot of trial and error.

It seems like what Spencer Hickman does with Death Waltz dovetails nicely with what Mondo’s doing.

Oh, yes, absolutely. I think that earlier, we would’ve moved a few titles from Death Waltz to Mondo, because we were trying to clearly define a line in the sand as to what we’re both trying to do. Now we’re better at clearly defining what is a Mondo title and what is a Death Waltz title, but really, I think that we all just love all types of cinema, and I think that we like the idea of there being a record label and another sister label, so that if you don’t like the mainstream stuff like Jurassic World, you’re still going, ‘I trust Death Waltz, because I like the dude who has been curating this label for the last five years and trust his choice in movies. I might never have seen Cannibal Apocalypse or Zombie Holocaust, but he puts out good records and I trust him.’ As opposed to this ‘corporate Mondo’ that puts out all these mainstream titles.

Going back to production: everyone puts forth production delays as the toughest part of record releasing these days. How do you cope?

You never really cope. You take the punches and keep moving. At any given time, we have to have 15-20 given titles in the works, because your dream to release something on a certain day, to coincide with a certain anniversary, might get hit with a production hiccup that suddenly now makes that project three months later. So, what are you going to put in its place, because you need something to release in the month of October? What are you going to do? You’re going to have to work something into the schedule somehow.

We’ve gotten pretty okay at it, I think, but it’s never going to be normal because there’s no coasting on this thing. But I don’t want to ever coast, so that’s okay. I want everything we do to have our full attention to detail and full sincerity. When you have this many releases in production, you have to remind yourself that is a constant process of paying attention to all the balls you have in the air, because one mistake, and it’s over.

That sounds as if you’re really paying close attention to consumer demand, and responding as necessary. I’m thinking specifically of the fact that there are now retail editions of many releases.

I remember back when I first met Spencer. It was a couple of years ago. We met with him at a restaurant in Los Angeles – sort of a meeting of the minds, long before we had any idea we’d be working with him. He very nicely told us what he thought we were doing right and what he thought we were doing wrong.

One of the things he thought we were doing wrong was not offering retail versions or being better with our retail, because he had found that a lot of his success had come from being available in record shops and being something people could pick up and buy. It wasn’t only for those who were in the know. You want newcomers and people looking in from the outside to be like, ‘They’re accessible, but they look like something I could subscribe to, because they’re not in Spencer’s Gifts or Best Buy.’ The retail version comes from that idea of maybe we were being a little too precious.

I like to think that there are people who just want the record. They buy from us, and they see a record, and they’re like, ‘I love that soundtrack! I want to own it. Can I buy it?’ You don’t want to be, ‘No, because you weren’t one of the first 500 who wanted this colour.’ It’s not like that.

We still have fun with people who like collectibles, but at the end of the day, we never want to be exclusionary. That’s never been our business model. I mean, it’s fun to be in the know, but it’s also fun to welcome newcomers and have people actually get the things that you’re trying to make, you know? I like to think of it this way: if I was a general, casual fan, would I be able to get Mondo stuff? I think I would, and I like that now, because that’s not the way it was two years ago.

You can find Mondo’s latest news and releases at mondotees.com. They’re also on Twitter @MondoNews, with Mo Shafeek @moshafeek.

STARBURST catches up with Big Finish’s co-executive producer Nick Briggs to discuss the upcoming audio series of THE PRISONER…

STARBURST: We understand you’ve always been a great fan of The Prisoner. Can you tell us when your interest all started?

Nick Briggs: My interest started even before I’d seen it. My father had told me about it when I was young. He told me there had been this great series about a man ‘trapped on an island’ and chased by a ‘big orange ball’. His hushed tones and enthusiastic telling made an impression on me, and when it finally popped up again in the late Saturday night schedules of ITV, in 1977, while I was still bathing in the warm glow of having watched Doctor Who earlier in the evening, I pounced on it the way an archaeologist pounces upon a long lost relic. And, of course, the ball was not ‘orange’, only the ‘alert’ was! From the moment I watched the opening sequence, I was hooked! 

And were you ever in a fan club? Have you been to Portmeirion?
I’ve never been to Portmeirion, but that will change. I am a member of Six of One . My recent membership of Six of One went wrong. I sent them money, but got nothing back. Eventually, I spoke to them via Facebook, and they’ve very kindly extended my membership to account for the missing time. Decent folks, I thought. And Rick of The Unmutual has been very supportive of the whole audio reimagining right from the start.

How long have you wanted the chance to produce The Prisoner on audio with Big Finish, and how did it finally come about?

I had been mentioning it for years. Then, five or six years ago, when I started talking to ITV about possibly doing productions based on Gerry Anderson’s shows — after I’d spoken to Gerry and he’d told me he’d love me to do this, but that I’d have to speak to ITV — I also mentioned The Prisoner. At that time, they indicated they would like me to do something based on the most recent iteration, featuring that chap from Mel Gibson’s crucifixion movie. I wasn’t keen on that, so I left the subject alone. Then, when, recently, I started talking about Thunderbirds again with ITV, and was, very reasonably, told that we couldn’t do anything while there was a brand new series on the way, the people at ITV kindly said, ‘But we’d love to work with you. Is there anything else you’re interested in?’ I said, ‘Well, err… The Prisoner!’ and we very quickly sorted out a licence. That was at the end of 2014, and I projected at January 2016 release and have worked on it throughout this year. Post-production and packaging design is now in its final stages.

And the Big Finish stories, are they a re-telling of the TV series, or a set of new stories shuffled in the gaps of the original? What period of the original do they cover, if any?

This is a reimagining of the original that is very close in tone and style to the original. There are new twists and even a brand new, totally original episode. There are four episodes in the first box set. Three of them are adaptations of old episodes. Arrival becomes Departure and Arrival, then there are The Schizoid Man and The Chimes of Big Ben. The last two feature the central themes of the originals, but they unfold slightly differently. There are moments that come direct from the originals, then there are even lines you will recognise. This entire project is made out of unfettered love for McGoohan’s superb original.

The Prisoner was, to overuse the word, an iconic ‘60s TV show. How do you get that ambience into an audio?

With the style of dialogue, with the performances and the soundscape. It feels right. And the music! I’m so excited about the music that Jamie Robertson has done for us. It is very much in the style of the original series. A real ‘big band’ sound crossed with a 1960s pop vibe with the occasional dash of ‘Bone’. The tunes are different. This isn’t the original series, of course. It isn’t episodes fitting into gaps, the way we do it with Doctor Who, so it felt wrong to me to have the same theme tune. It’s a theme tune that sits right with this reimagining. It is evocative of the original and, to me, feels like it could have been the original. I’ve had a number of people mistake it for the original, even though it’s a completely different set of notes. It just has that Prisoner edge and style.

Part of the imagery of the TV show was the setting of The Village, the gardens and the wonderful Italian style buildings of Portmeirion. How do you approach recapturing the setting?

That imagery is in the box set packaging. And characters refer to it in the script. Their references are slightly more extravagant. Naturally, they had to cheat with the location, to make it seem bigger than it actually was. We don’t have to worry about that on audio. We don’t have to use stock footage for the mountains and cheat the geography. I think I’ve populated it with a bit more 1960s stuff. There’s a reference to some plastic flowers and toy windmills, but we have the Green Dome and the Stone Boat, for example. The idea is for you to imagine it being in that classic setting.

And will Rover be coming back?

You bet Rover will be back! Rover is a ‘she’ this time. Why not? It’s only a term of ‘affection’ from the powers at be, naturally. And there’s something a tiny bit different about her. She makes the same noises, plus something even more unnerving. I won’t spoil the surprise, though. See what you think.

You’ve announced the cast including (righty) a whole host of actors playing Number Two and Mark Elstob as Number Six; can you explain something of what you were looking for with each of these roles?

I’m very big on gut instinct. And all my Number Two actors are people who I had a gut instinct for. Could I imagine them sitting in that chair? Could I imagine them facing-off with Number Six? If I could, then I cast them. They’re all brilliant, actually, but I can reveal that the man I was thinking of right from the word go was Michael Cochrane. And he is amazing. He loved the original show, they all did. And John Standing actually worked with Patrick McGoohan on Danger Man, and on another project after The Prisoner.

And how did Mark Elstob get the lead part of Number Six?

I was considering all sorts of options and had a number of meetings. I was thinking of famous people… But then I realised that I didn’t want a well-known actor’s ‘persona’ to get in the way of McGoohan’s incredible creation. What I needed was someone who would give an entirely original performance that would be rooted in the role as created by McGoohan. I wrote it for Patrick McGoohan, so I wanted a strong leading man in the old-fashioned mould, for whom The Prisoner really meant something. I’d worked with Mark 20 years ago, thought he was superb and knew he was a Doctor Who fan. I chanced my arm that he would know The Prisoner too. I was right. And you know, his voice is not entirely unlike Patrick McGoohan’s. He says he’s channelling McGoohan, but actually, if you listen to his natural, speaking voice, it’s more or less there without even trying.

Mark tells a story that, at the last minute, I asked him to get closer to McGoohan than I’d originally asked him. What I actually meant was that I’d written the scripts with Patrick McGoohan in mind, so I wanted to be sure that he didn’t decide to do something completely unlike Patrick McGoohan. Anyway, it’s really great what Mark is doing. He is a great leading man. Really enthusiastic, brilliant actor and very welcoming and inclusive with everyone in the cast. Very rewarding to work with. I hope I can work with him for years to come.

Among the many, many other ranges Big Finish produces is Jago & Litefoot, starring Christopher Benjamin as Henry Gordon Jago. He, as you know, played the character of Potter in The Prisoner on TV (and also a character called Potter in Danger Man). Is there any chance of Potter appearing in the Big Finish version of The Prisoner?

It’s not beyond the realm of the possible, although I’m not sure Chris has much affection for or memory of his work on The Prisoner. Also, there’s one episode of The Prisoner in which he’s dubbed by another actor!

And do you think Patrick McGoohan was right to only produce one series, and what did you think of the ending? Will you be getting that surreal on audio?!

I don’t think McGoohan had any choice, did he? I think he couldn’t produce as many as Lew Grade wanted. Is that right? But the ending so enraged the viewing public, allegedly, that I imagine a further series wouldn’t have been possible anyway. Well, not unless he’d promised to ‘explain everything’. Yes, Number Six wakes up in the shower, to find that he dreamt Once Upon A Time and Fall Out. That would, of course, have been awful! Even though, of course, those two episodes have dream-like qualities, don’t they? It’s at that point that the narrative style of series trips over the divide between adventure stories into the realm of allegory.

It’s an interesting dilemma and perhaps a dichotomy that will be interesting to tackle. I’ve a few guiding ideas running through the episodes already, things that will be integral to the ideas currently coalescing about the possible ending to the audio series… These give me a guiding light to follow, but nothing is set in stone, and, of course, whether or not we continue depends on the reaction to this first volume. I’m optimistic and really keen to do more.

Back to the original show. Do you have a favourite episode and has that changed now you’ve written your own stories?

My favourite episode has always been The Chimes of Big Ben, largely because it’s the first one I actually saw. First time round, in 1977, I missed Arrival. But I really do love them all. I’ve just recently got very fond of Many Happy Returns, which I watched again last night. Now, that’ll be a big challenge on audio! Even bigger than The Schizoid Man!

The first set of four stories of Big Finish’s THE PRISONER will be released in January 2016.