Feature Category: Interviews

Mr. Robot is a show that has made huge waves across the globe over the last few months, and its set to make its UK debut later this month. Telling the unique tale of a computer programmer battling anxiety and his demons, and who ends up finding some form of solace with the mysterious Mr. Robot, the show is sure to be the new favourite of many a genre fan. In preparation for Mr. Robot’s UK bow, we were lucky enough to grab some time with the series’ creator, Sam Esmail.

STARBURST: Mr. Robot is one of the most unique TV shows of recent years, but where did you get the concept from initially?

Sam Esmail: It came from the geeky friends that I ran with growing up. I was a huge computer nerd who was tech-obsessed. Growing up with my friends, just being there in this little subculture of coders and hackers, I was fascinated by that world and I always wanted to come up with a story to talk about that world and to talk about these characters in that world. The point of it was that whenever I would watch a movie or TV show about this world, it was so often so wrong and just so off the mark. So it was kind of like having a passion to tell the story down to the frustration of seeing these poorly representative films and shows.

Even though you had prior knowledge of that world, how much research was required on your part?

As passionate as I am, as much of a tech enthusiast I am, the details needed led to me bringing in tech consultants to build the screens and to get all the finer details right. I’m not gonna claim that I’m that good. We’re so detail orientated, though. We brought in a cyber security engineer, we also brought in someone from the FBI’s Cyber Crime Division, all to make sure that everything we were doing was accurate.

And were there any TV shows or films that you directly drew influence from?

On top of being a tech geek, I was also a huge film nerd, and I would say that I probably ripped off every movie and television show I’ve ever watched. The two eras of filmmaking that I would say really influenced the show were probably the ‘70s paranoid thrillers – The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, Taxi Driver and Clockwork Orange – and then you have the ‘90s. In the late-‘90s you had these great thrillers – a lot of Fincher, The Game, Se7en, Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense. Those two eras of filmmaking are probably the heaviest influences on the show.

When you were first putting the show together, was there a particular aim or endgame that you were looking to get to?

Yes. When I originally started the show, I originally considered it as a feature, so I knew what the ending was. Now that we’ve turned it into a television show, that hasn’t changed. The show’s really about this emotional journey that Elliot’s going to go on, and there is an ending to that and we’re building towards that.

A second season is already on the way, but how long do you envisage the show running for?

Probably four or five seasons. It’s not going to be any more than five. It’ll either be four or five, that’s what I’m planning it out to be.

Given how Mr. Robot is so unique, how easy was it to find a home for the show?

Well it’s interesting. We shot the pilot and I also had a bible for the first season, but USA was certainly in an interesting position. It was a big opportunity for both of us, as they were looking for something to rebrand their show and take it into a different direction. Because Mr. Robot really wasn’t envisioned as a television show and was seen as more of a ‘film’ thing, we were in a unique position to help each other out. I’d also never done television, and they really put a lot of faith in me because they were looking for an audacious attempt to doing something incredibly different. I think it was like a good marriage, and it was certainly good timing for the both of us.

Considering how you’d never done any TV before this, and taking on board how much of a huge success Mr. Robot has been, you’ve all of a sudden found yourself thrust into the spotlight. How has that been for you?

It’s really weird. It feels great and I appreciate all the love and admiration, but the show was always in my head this weird, small thing. Elliot’s such an odd character, the world is such an odd world – I always thought the peak of it was to be get to cult status. I didn’t think it would break out past that, and it has. It’s been obviously flattering and humbling, but also just very unexpected.

With the role of Elliot being so key to the show as he is essentially the focal point and entry point for viewers, how extensive a search was it to fill that role or did you always have Rami Malek in mind?

No, we probably auditioned over a hundred guys. I remember getting nervous during the audition process because I was seeing a lot of great actors and it was not feeling right. I was thinking to myself, “Oh my god, this script is terrible! I can’t blame these guys”. It just wasn’t working. So there was a real concern there. Then Rami came in. Not only did he play it brilliantly, he elevated it. He actually brought a warmth and humanity to the character that I actually did not envision when I first came up with the character. That was something that Rami sort of created on top of it. It just took the show to a whole other level.

Away from Elliot, how easy was it to bring the rest of the cast together?

You know, Christian was sort of… I didn’t write it with him in mind, but it was almost as if I did. I’m a huge fan of his from Pump Up the Volume and Heathers and True Romance, but particularly Pump Up the Volume and Heathers it was more like those characters were the Mr. Robot character. Like a younger version. They were both anarchists, and Mr. Robot basically looks like the adult version of that. Then we had Portia Doubleday, Carly Chaikin came in… two very distinct female characters and it’s almost like they were positioned perfectly. Then Martin Wallstrom, who I’d never heard of before. He just brilliantly plays Tyrell. I couldn’t be happier with the cast.

As well as writing, you’ve also directed a few of the episodes. Did you prefer the writing experience or the directing experience?

I definitely prefer the directing experience. I never came into the industry to be a writer. Actually, I always wanted to be a director. I only wrote just to sort of make my own films, and it was also the cheapest way. I couldn’t afford to just produce my own films, so I had to write to sort of sell and make money and then eventually come up with my own storylines to direct. But I definitely prefer the directing process.

And finally, is there anything you can tell us about Season 2?

We left Season 1 with Elliot’s sort of realisation about this incredibly serious disorder, and Season 2’s essentially him finding his way and addressing that disorder.

Mr. Robot will be in the UK on Amazon Prime Instant Video as of October 16th.

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With the imminent TV premiere of the brilliant Inbred, we had a chat with cult British filmmaker and modern-day auteur Alex Chandon to find out more about the hilariously gory rural movie…

STARBURST: What was the reason for the gap between Cradle of Fear and Inbred?
Alex Chandon: Ultimately, it’s because it’s so difficult to make a film like those two. They’re polar opposites apart, but they’re both really ambitious for what they are. In both cases, I was involved with the pre-production, the filming, the editing and all the effects. So it can take up to two years to do, and not earning any money doing that, so it’s such a sacrifice that it’s not really sustainable to keep doing that. I guess I just took time off to do other little projects, things that’ll pay me a little money. So I was doing some digital effects work, writing scripts and stuff. Everything I do I want to be quite ambitious, I do aim a bit high and make my life quite difficult, but it’s just the nature of the films I like making.

People say why haven’t you made anything since Inbred, as it’s been a couple of years, but again it’s just wanting it to be the right project because I know it’s going to be another big sacrifice. Even if we did have a lot more money thrown at us, it’s not easy making films!

You do a lot of different roles when you’re making a film, that can’t be easy…
On Inbred, I did the location scouting, wrote the script, then doing all the casting sessions as we couldn’t afford a casting director. So we’re driving around the country meeting actors, then directing the film, then working with the editor on the edit, doing the digital effects. Then working on the poster art, helping with the sound, doing the script transcribing, doing the deliverables at the end; mastering everything, doing the grades – it’s kind of never ending. There was a couple of us working on it, me and Margaret Milner, the producer, it was just really, really difficult. I like doing as many of the creative jobs as I can, in a way, so I can give my overall stamp over everything. With the digital effects on Inbred, there was about four of us doing it.

That must really take its toll…
On my next film, I’d love to take a bit more of a backseat on some of the tasks and roles, but then again that just means you need a bit more money to pay more people to do all the jobs. It’s kind of catch 22, I really want to make films but it’s getting more difficult to find the funding now because now that a lot of people can afford to make films at home with the equipment getting cheaper, the technology’s more available. What that means is the market’s just flooded with substandard stuff – especially horror films – and I think it’s had an impact. You’ve got to rise head and shoulders above that, and that’s what we tried to do with Inbred. I’m pretty glad it shows on screen.

It certainly does – the gore particularly is remarkable!
People say it looks like a million quid, and at the time we just didn’t tell people the budget because we didn’t want to harm any sales by saying how much it cost, but the budget was just over £100,000. In Hollywood terms, that’s hardly the catering budget! I think we worked wonders. Again, it’s catch 22 because when people hear about that, they want you to make another Inbred for the same amount of money, and it just becomes harder and harder, so I really have to think about what I want to do next. Make sure it’s the right thing, really.

Inbred was voted the number 25 in the 2012 STARBURST writers’ Films of the Year, yet it’s still rather unknown in the mainstream…
It’s kind of weird because it went down so well, and I toured it around the world, it played all the different territories, it was nice to see it on a lot people’s top 5 films of the year. On the other hand, it really did piss some people off for some reason – I don’t know why! I guess it’s a little bit un-PC and a bit in-your-face. I tend to make Marmite films – people either love them or hate them, which is much better than everyone taking that middle ground of ‘yeah, it’s alright’. I was really pleased with the reaction it got, and I’m hoping the screening on TV brings it to another audience as well.

And it should be uncut, too, which is good. Was there many problems with censorship?
I heard a rumour that they might have had to edit the film in America; I think it was a bit hard-core for them. I don’t think they really understood the humour. The American trailer makes it look like a really nasty Texas Chain Saw Massacre type of film. They’re selling it with the brutality. I always saw it as a kind of very dark comedy. You’ve got a bit of gore, then you can laugh about it.

What were the influences for the village folk?
When I was writing it, I just wanted to write off the wall, deranged English farmer types. I based the whole thing on the stereotypical American-style backwoods horror like Deliverance and Texas Chain Saw. I just wanted to have an English versions of all those kind of nutters. I always wanted to have the evil barman and the whole village to be really strange and fucked up.

The cast really throw themselves into their deranged parts…
Dominic Brunt’s character, Podge is one of the more memorable characters, I think. He was just totally invented by Dom. He invented the facial twitch, he went and bought the costume and went and got his teeth made for it. The actors brought a lot to the parts; they’d say I’ve got this amazing prop, so it was like, ‘yeah use the prop!’ The guy who played Gris got into method a little bit by camping out in the woods and carving his own carrots. They all added to the whole feel of it. It felt quite naturalistic; in that way, what I like about it, is you do tend to like the inbreds, even though they’re really evil fuckers. I think people quite enjoy the company of the inbreds, they’re a motley bunch of deranged lunatics. A ‘special’ community – not the sort of place I’d want to end up at night, though.

And the village is just like places many of us have been to…
Yeah, but I didn’t base it on any location, we wanted it to be stereotypical, so people couldn’t say ‘oh, you’re just taking the piss out of northerners, or Yorkshire people or Scottish people. I think we’re quite nice to Yorkshire in the film. We make lots of reference to Yorkshire and English folklore and stuff like that, but we wanted to just throw it all in the mix we don’t get labelled as having a go at a certain group of people.

Inbred has such a fabulously satisfying ending – brave even.
Yeah – we kind of put the spoiler on the poster and deliberately put the happy music on the end and I love it that people get the wrong idea about what’s going to happen. Initially, the script was a bit different and it had more of a hero ending, but we much preferred this one, it was much better.

The door’s almost left open for a sequel, would that be an option?
I’d quite like to explore them more. I think if we did one in England, it would definitely be a prequel rather than a sequel. Go back to the ‘70s, have them hanging out with Jimmy Savile and stuff like that, listening to Gary Glitter. Just make it very wrong. That could be fun, because no-one’s got mobile phones and we could dress everyone in stupid flares that could be a good one.

I’ve got a couple of scripts that I’m developing, one’s an Inbred idea and it’s just very early days yet. I’m desperate to do another film again, it can’t come soon enough really!

I love the inbreds, thinking about another Inbred film if I was to do one, I’d want to know more about them really; know more about their history and how they get away with it for hundreds of years and stuff like that. Maybe one day…

Moving on to your earlier film, Cradle of Fear, we heard there was plans to do a ‘director’s cut’ at one point?
I got an email recently about a company wanting to release in HD, so I said what my plans were to do a re-cut, pretty much just to make it much shorter so it flows much better. Keep the music and just put a bit more blood and tits in it, which is always good fun! That would be nice, but I don’t want to take up too much of my time. Obviously, it can’t be a priority project, so it’s hit the backburner a bit. All the elements are there to do it, I just need the time and the enthusiasm; maybe have someone else helping me make that happen, that might be good.
If we did do this with Cradle of Fear I’d probably use it as an opportunity to do a bumper Alex Chandon package with everything I can get my hands on and copyright cleared on it. All those original films – Bad Karma and Drillbit – they were mixed back in the day when we only had two tracks so all the music is mixed in with the sound effects, there’s no way I can take the music out. There’s copyright stuff all over there so depends if someone wants to put it out or not, otherwise I’ll probably just stick them up on a YouTube channel. There’s versions out there, but it would be good to do the definitive ones up there. There’s new software now that I’ve been playing with that can remove grain, not stupidly, I like the VHS aesthetic, but I’ve managed to clean up of the Bad Karma stuff so it looks really nice, so I might actually remaster them but that might just be a little sort of afternoon project of mine one day.

What have you planned for the future?
I think with my next project I need to think about the Internet as a marketing tool. Times are really changing and the way films are being sold now. I think the Internet’s going to be my friend on the next film. Maybe set up a channel, maybe even making the film available exclusively to people online all around the world that would be a dream.

Like going down the crowd-funding route?
I’m looking at Kickstarter now, but maybe just for pre-production money rather than the total budget or just be very honest about what the money can get us, rather than ask for a million and then being disappointed. I’d rather ask for a bit that would help us get further down the line. But if I did that, I’d spend a bit of money and make a 5-minute short. The Kickstarter would probably be for a crazy post-apocalyptic film – it’s kind of like Drillbit really – which is my anti-hero film set in the future. As superheroes are so big at the minute, it’d be really good to have a superhero who’s completely deranged. It might be time for something like Drillbit to come back as well. I’m not short of ideas and I’m not that precious of them either. I’d rather just get stuff out there or just move on to the better idea. Like I said, it’s such a struggle to make the films, it’s annoying because I’ve got such a backlog of pretty decent ideas and it’s just finding the time to make them now.

My problem is I’ve been into doing things myself a lot of the time, so now I’m looking to team up other people and become part of a production company. I’ve worked well with a group but I kind of want to join a group now. I feel I need help now to push my career to the next stage, but it’s something I’m looking forward to and I feel it’s the right time as well. I’ve had lots of experience now, and I’m at the right age to move on to something with a bigger budget, more responsibility. But in a way I am like a big kid at heart and I’ve always liked these stupid, mental films. I was happy in a low budget world, but it’d be quite nice to try something a bit higher budget. It’s funny old business, it doesn’t work like other businesses, it’s who you know and sometimes it’s what you say or what you don’t say. It’s an odd one, it’s difficult to get backing, it’s just a bit of struggle. Any money that does come in, goes to the usual suspects.
Even though I’m not that prolific, I spend my time in between making films and working on stuff that is film related. A lot of the time it’s just developing the script or hurrying down the next project or finding the inspiration, or raising the money – it’s almost like an ongoing thing. It’s a bit of an addiction really. I love making films, but it’s just so much hard work, it would be nice to get a bit of peace of mind and I guess a bigger budget would buy us that really.

Alex Chandon’s INBRED screens September 25th on HORROR CHANNEL (SKY 319, Virgin 149, Freeview 70, Freesat 138).

With The Messenger released in UK cinemas following successful screenings over the summer, STARBURST caught up with lead actor Robert Sheehan…

STARBURST: How did you become involved in The Messenger?

Robert Sheehan: It was through David Blair – Darth Blair, the overlord himself who I love very much, who has got the best moustache of all the moustaches. The problem with his moustache, on a slight tangent, is that it’s quite hipster, which I’m sure he’d be very happy about. I’d worked with him about four years ago on a BBC thing called Accused and we had a good experience on that together. He got the script and sent it to me, and I said yes absolutely because he’s a very, very safe pair of hands. He’s someone who’s just really, really fucking good at making drama, so there were no qualms there. The script was incredibly strong from the get-go and then got better and better, and then it went though an 18-month quagmire of trying to get funding before it finally got its shit together. So off we went, and then we got those lovely other actors on board over a four-week period. It came together fantastically for very little money.

What attracted you to the part of Jack?

The character had a really interesting approach to his situation. The character is quite peripheral in a societal sense; he’s completely a law unto himself. It’s interesting playing those characters because you get to write the rules entirely. He’s someone who’s been rejected by society, or so he thinks, because he keeps showing up and doing the most obnoxious thing you can possibly do, which is try to tell people who’ve just lost someone – quite badly since he fixates on violent deaths – that the dead want to tell them something. It’s the worst fucking thing you can do. He ends up hating people, hating everyone. It’s always a richer challenge when you’ve got a strange character like that to explore and help to shape him. It challenges your imagination as an actor, much more than the regular stuff.

The film takes a more realistic look at how someone’s life would be adversely affected by talking to the dead. Was there anything you did to get into that mindset?

When you meet someone who has a disorder or an illness they have to live with, they speak about it like it’s a sibling, since there’s such a familiarity with the thing they have. Jack’s situation is like an illness to him, a thing that he just has to fucking live with as best he can. I like the way the script gave him a very humdrum approach to it, as well as the dramatic imperative.

As well as a supernatural aspect, the film also suggests mental illness as a possibility for Jack’s experiences. Do you have a particular take on it one way or the other?

No. That’s the ultimate red herring of the story: is he insane, or is he experiencing this thing as a delusion, or is it actually happening? To perform it, I just had to believe it was happening, because for him it was completely happening. My opinion on the end of it is: I don’t know. I don’t know which one it was. I’ve seen the movie once, but you can’t ever really know one way or the other. I like the fact that I don’t have an opinion, because it just means that I don’t feel like I’ve landed on either side, even though I’m in it. My obligation was to be completely in the head that it was happening. And so that’s where I was.

Did you do any research on mental illness?

I’ve been asked this quite a few times, but I’m not sure if any sort of research on mental illness could have helped me all that much because I’m not sure he even was mentally ill. He certainly wasn’t behaving in a mentally ill way, he’s just very sanely experiencing these things. So I just had to commit to the truth of what was happening and not think anywhere in my head that I was mentally ill. That was the long answer. Short answer: no!

In the last few years you’ve cropped up in a number of genre pictures, such as The Mortal Instruments, Demons Never Die and Season of the Witch. Would you say you have a particular affinity for them?

I love fantasy stuff; I love the departures from reality. I’m a huge fan of the works of Isaac Asimov, and when I was young I read Philip K. Dick and Philip Pullman, and still do, so it stands to reason I would enjoy that stuff in films. It’s a lot of fun to do; the little boy inside you is jumping up and down going “Woohoo! I get to shoot a flamethrower today! Go on!”

It’s fairly safe to say that most people’s favourite character from Misfits was Nathan. As positive as viewers’ reaction to him was, do you feel his popularity has left a degree of expectation from people of the kind of characters you should play?

Absolutely. It’s not the fault of the people, it happens on a different level. When people become familiar with you in a certain mode, they seek that out when they see you again. I do it with actors, I think everyone does. After I did Misfits I consciously stayed away from parts that were the same. I wanted to do other stuff, and that tends to be the nature of how I choose things or go after them. If it represents something I haven’t done before I’ll jump into it two feet first. The idea of doing something that’s a derivation of something else that’s a derivation of something else would make me want to jump off a bridge. I’d get that bored I’d just be sick of life. I suppose I’m quite a restless sort of character by nature.

What do you have lined up next?

There’s a film just announced so I’m allowed to yarn on about it which will be happening later this year. It’s made by this guy called Dustin Lance Black and it’s called The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight.

That’s a very precise title.

Very precise. Very long for the Americans, hopefully they’ll be able to retain it! It’s an exploration into the nature of love as a concept and how to marry it with reality. It’s about two people who are very cynical about love, since they think it was the cause of the destruction of their families when they were young. My character is an English psychology major and he talks about the mountains of statistics against the idea of love prevailing between any two people in any real way. He very much married to the numbers because they’re there and they’re immovable. He meets this American girl, who is played by Hailee Steinfeld, and they have a five-hour flight from New York to London where they actually feel the beginnings of this attachment, but there are ulterior motives going on. It’s a really grown up script about love, but it’s actually adapted from a young adult novel, so in my head it’s kind of like an antidote to a lot of the sensationalist love stories that have been out over the past five or ten years, which I think paint this very unrealistic view of love.

An idealistic and naïve view?

Totally. Where love is not real, it’s more of a drug that people get off on at the movies, whereas this is taking love as very much an ingredient of our reality and having to practically live with it and all the implications that go with it. It goes into all that stuff in a very interesting and challenging way, and it becomes like a conversation between the two characters. There’s another thing, but they haven’t announced it so I’m not allowed to talk about it, but I’m doing it soon.

That’s a very exciting description.

Very, very exciting indeed, I tells ya! It’s going to be mega! Hold your breath!

The Messenger is currently screening in selected UK cinemas.

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Last year’s B-movie sensation was the aptly-named Canadian werewolf/cop movie sensation, Wolfcop. The movie was a bloody, ridiculous blast of entertainment, and the whole of it was made even more over-the-top by the score. As done by Canadian instrumental stoner metal band Shooting Guns, Wolfcop sounded like it looked: big, loud, and fun. The limited edition of the Wolfcop soundtrack sold out so fast that it’s just been repressed by One Way Static Records, and the band has also released a 7-inch featuring selections from the score, as well as a track that didn’t make it. We spoke with Jim Ginther of Shooting Guns about their work on the soundtrack, as well as their future plans.

STARBURST: As a band, Shooting Guns is rather more epic than might be expected. Six members make for a really huge sound. How did the band come to be more than your standard power trio?
Jim Ginther: This project started out in late 2008 (as a way of coping with the brutal winters we get out here) as a 4-piece and then added synth about 6 months later, which really filled out the sound. We’ve had a couple of lineup changes but stayed as a 5-piece until working on WolfCop, when we enlisted the amazing Toby Bond to help with scoring. The fit worked so well for us that we kept things as a 6-piece and haven’t looked back since.

The new EP features two songs from the Wolfcop soundtrack. What led you to pick the two that you did?
We picked Barn Burner since it was the ‘single’ on the soundtrack and felt it deserved some attention since it actually wasn’t in the movie (although we hear it will be in WolfCop II). We all agreed that Burchard Von Worms had to go in not only because we really like the track, but also because it’s 100% Toby Bond so it really showcases how versatile and creative he is.

The cover of ‘Moonlight Desires’ on the B-side is fantastic. Why wasn’t it included on the original soundtrack release, even though it’s in the film?
The biggest reason why it wasn’t on the soundtrack is because when the soundtrack/movie came out, we didn’t even know if that song had made the cut. Apparently it was sent to Gowan’s people for approval (we’d like to think Gowan vetted it himself) so we didn’t know the verdict until we heard the track playing over the end credits at the WolfCop premiere!

We love the fact that the video for ‘BarnBurner’ actually features Shooting Guns. What was the band’s involvement in the video concept?
We did a lot of behind the scenes work to get everything ready to shoot (lining up grants, timelines, etc., thank you Creative Saskatchewan!) but a really cool part about the concept is that it was written by Lowell Dean himself (writer/director of WolfCop). I went down for the filming not even fully understanding the treatment but wanting to see the process… and definitely not expecting to be in the thing, which was a funny surprise. All of the crew had worked on WolfCop as well so it really felt like an extension of the movie. Having WolfCop himself in full makeup certainly didn’t hurt either (except for when he put me in a head lock).

Since the release of the soundtrack, you’ve put out a split with Hawkeyes, Brothers of the Nod. What else is in the works — a possible tour?
We’ll be releasing another 12” split with Moncton-based ZAUM in November. We’ve been good buds with those guys for a long time so we’re really excited about this one. Funny enough, all of our tracks from this forthcoming release were actually from the WolfCop sessions. We combed through 6 months of 20 minute jams, found parts that (somewhat) complemented each other, and cobbled a side of a record together. It’s a very unique way of putting an album together for us but we’re really happy with how it turned out.

We set up Pre-Rock Studios so that we could work on the WolfCop soundtrack and now record everything we do so now we’re in an interesting position where we’re actually sitting on more material than we can release (the soundtrack repress, a 7”, and 2 x 12” splits is a lot for one year!). We don’t have any tour plans right now but since winter will be here soon, it seems like the ideal time to keep working in the lab and putting out new material for 2016.

Wolfcop II is officially a go — will you be doing the score for that, as well? If so, do you have plans to revisit the themes of the original, or are you opting for something entirely new?
Nothing has been confirmed yet, but we do have a great relationship with the WolfCop people, Echolands Creative, and Cinecoup. Part of the idea with this music video is that it can also serve as a teaser for WolfCop II (since the BarnBurner track will be in the sequel), so I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to imagine us working on it. That said, projects like these have a lot of moving parts and filming is just getting started so we’ll likely be able to give a better answer closer to the New Year. If we do end up doing the score, at least we now (somewhat) know what we’re doing and you can expect much of the same, but with more Rush and Brad Fiedel (The Terminator) influences coming through.

You can find more information on Shooting Guns at their website.

John Fallon, best known as an actor (Saw II) caught up with us at FrightFest to discuss some of the very personal religious themes involved in his first feature, The Shelter.

STARBURST: What is The Shelter about?
John Fallon: It stars Michael Pare as man with a past gets trapped in a house and the house won’t let him leave.

Does the house act on him or does he project his feelings about his past onto the house?
I know what it means to me when I wrote it and it was purposefully done where who you are as a person and how you were raised spiritually would affect what it would mean to you so I don’t want to give to many answers. But for me he was led to that house for a purpose.

Who leads him?
Not the Devil.

What is your own religious background? I’m guessing it has a large impact on The Shelter.
I’m Catholic.

Practicing?
I was a practising Catholic and then I let go of that because I didn’t believe in what the Vatican was doing in all the child molestation stuff. I was seeing how Man was taking the Catholic religion and using it to his own advantage and tarnishing it in my own opinion. So then I let go and then in time I came back but I’m my own version of Catholic.

What age did you let go?
In my twenties.

Was the Vatican thing something you kept tabs on?
Yes, I always kept tabs on things and read the paper every morning.

Do you do Bible study yourself?
I went to Bible school when I was a child. That was just the kind of school I went to. You get into class, you do the sign of the cross before class begins and you do the sign of the cross when class ends. Today, I have my own version of it and I try to focus on what I believe is the purity of the religion as opposed to the man-imposed aspects of it.

What would you consider to be the purity of it?
In the simplest way, I could put it it’s all about love and acceptance. I know in the Old Testament, people will twist it to fit their own agendas and there are stories that are supposed to be acting as metaphors and people take it literally but at the end of the day Jesus Christ’s message wasn’t about material things so it always kind of hurts me when I’ve got to go in a church and pay £20 and where I see the Pope with jewellery. You’re totally negating what Christ’s message was, I mean, what the fuck, man? Me no comprende amigo! Researching The Shelter and the theology in general, I just became more fascinated by it.

How did your research impact on The Shelter?
I’ll tell you the ‘dum-dum-dum’ story as I call it. The Shelter had a lot of weird energy. I’ve written scripts before and it usually takes me about three months and then I’m done, but with The Shelter, I had the opening, I had the ending and it took me three years to find the middle act. I was researching obscure Christian sites on the internet and my flat had a flood. My pipes were broken and the landlord sent this thin, unassuming Asian guy and I’m surfing and I’m trying to crack the second act of the script and he came over and said ‘Oh, you’re Catholic, you’re Christian’ and started suggesting some sites I’d never heard of and he went and finished with the pipes and that was it. And the next morning I wake up to like a feet of water. I went and rang my landlord and said, ‘Your guy, he did a shitty job, I still have a flood and it’s mucking up my day’ and the landlord says ‘The guy’s coming tomorrow we never sent him’. So that was one of those…

In the film you’ve got a lot of images of the Virgin Mary, why?
I’m not going to answer that but as you’ve noticed, I will give you what my DP came up with. In almost every frame of the film there’s a cross, be it in the streets, on a bird’s eye.

So you have the idea of sacrifice versus the idea of the sacred heart. You have a lot of companionship within the film. Do you feel that the main character feels guided the whole way through or that he has got to go through his own purgatory?
I feel that he’s pushed because if you look at the first 20 minutes of the movie, this is who he is – he’s an aimless man who carries a lot of guilt on his shoulders and refuses to let go of it and refuses to ask forgiveness and refuses to forgive himself. Once he gets in the house he’s forced to confront himself.

Does it feel a very personal film to you?
Yes, it is very personal. I’d done other scripts, but when I did The Shelter it’s like, no, nobody else’s gonna direct this. My own deal, my own relationship with Christ is in there.

Do you want people to have their own interpretations or is there a hidden thing for them to find if they want to?
There’s one interpretation that’s very popular. There’s another layer to the film that people are not getting so far. I took that from one of my favourite directors, David Lynch, and got obsessed with his film Lost Highway. When I set out to make The Shelter I want to make something in that same spirit. People have to find it for themselves.

Keep up to date with John Fallon at his website.

Kate Shenton is known as the director of On Tender Hooks, a documentary about body suspension groups. She attended FrightFest this year to present her new short, Send in The Clowns, a mockumentary about a quiet and unassuming man whose life ambition is to dress as a clown in order to terrify onlookers.

STARBURST: Can you give us an overview of Send in the Clowns?
Kate Shenton: It’s a mockumentary about David, whose life ambition is to dress up as a scary clown and terrorise pedestrians. He considers this his art and he’s given everything up to fulfil his dream and the documentary follows the people in his life and it’s his views of the world. I consider it a tragic comedy. It’s a funny film but deep down it’s a very sad film because his life’s not great. 

How did you go about casting him?
I always cast people I’ve known on a personal level that I’ve worked with before or that I get to know and see their work and because of that I tend to write roles for people, so with Send in the Clowns all the roles were written for the cast. It’s just easier to write in my head when I know how they’re gonna perform it and how they’re going to say it with comic timing. I could write the dialogue to that. The casting was decided before the script was written.

How do you work with actors? You have a lot of tonal shifts in the piece.
I work very closely with my actors. I’m more of a performance director. I always write dialogue and I’m very into how much fun you can have with discussion and because of that I try and keep the cinematography simple and the camera focused on the actor. It always depends on what the actor needs. I will always with all actors have the character discussion. We’ll go into the history of the character where we go in to where they’ve gone to school, their penis size etc. because all of these little details create a person. A lot of work went into getting those performances nailed.

The central character is such a sweet little guy. How did you work on the section in which he swears for the first time?
There’s always going to be a little bit of me that seeps into everything and my work always has a lot of swearing. There is a dark side to David. His ambition is to be a scary clown and to scare people. Some people find him quite creepy, some people find him very loveable. Jack, the cinematographer, always made the eyes look a little bit dead like there was no glint or sparkle. Even though the comedy is quite light, it’s a dark film about being a creative. I kind of wrote the film because I nearly gave up on filmmaking and my way of handling negative emotion is to put it into something creative. And it was sort of addressing a frustration of constantly working in crap jobs and wondering is anyone even appreciating this, but completely pursuing this dream to the point it is completely irrational. The clown is basically in my head; me and how at that time I was feeling about my own creativity…

At one point David tries something new on a street and someone else comes into frame but doesn’t stay in the narrative. Was that on purpose?
It was filmed in the neighbourhood I used to live. I like that because I’d just gone from making a documentary and it felt like it was a stepping stone to get back into fiction. It’s like a dry, crappy documentary that’s on Channel 4 like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding that has that very bleak outlook. I think a lot of mockumentaries try and be too glossy.

Do you think it’s like a psychological condemnation of the depths he’s gone to?
I think it all links to the creative process and that once you get deep into it there is this irrational determination to keep doing it because there is a thrill to it. I think there’s a slight form of madness. Even though no one appreciates it, he thinks he’s an artist and is just going to keep going anyway.

And probably we all should.

You can find out more about Kate Shenton at her website.

STARBURST caught up with Doron and Yoav Paz, the directors and executive producer Shaked Berenson, the team behind Jeruzalem, amidst the seething mass of FrightFest. You can read the review here. Here, they discuss filming the apocalypse and the relationship between religion and folklore in zombie filmmaking.

STARBURST: What did you want to achieve by mixing science and religion in this film?
Paz brothers and Shaked Berenson (the Jeruzalem Team): We’re still working it out!

It’s a fantasy movie, it’s not a realistic movie. We wanted to deal with the city. The city’s Jerusalem. It’s such a mystical place. It’s so intense to be there, you know, with Jews and Arabs and everybody. You walk in the streets and the atmosphere is fascinating for us. We live in Tel Aviv. We don’t live in. Jerusalem. When we go to the old city we feel like tourists ourselves because it is so different from what we know and when you walk the streets of Jerusalem you just feel history all around you – it’s a city that stands for 3,000 years.

For so many years, we thought there are so many apocalyptic movies, but nobody ever thought the most perfect set up for the apocalypse. I’m not talking about World War Z, which is a very big Hollywood-style Jerusalem where you see the choppers go up above the city and you see the ocean and there’s no ocean. A lot of the Israelis saw this and laughed because it’s not really Jerusalem. We wanted to make the roughness of the city real realistic. It’s the underground city of Jerusalem.

As you said in the Q&A, this is filmed on location rather than in a studio. How did you feel about filming in religious places that people actually use for religious purposes?

It’s very intense. It’s a very delicate job. You know, low profile. We didn’t have any permits for these locations.

Stop saying that interviews.

It’s not the producer saying it.

The producer is telling us it’s okay.

We had permission to shoot a documentary actually, but not a drama.  For us it was amazing as we didn’t need to fake anything. We were shooting in the most holiest places there are. Everything was authentic. It was great production values all around us.

Did you have any ethical concerns about using their space for a horror film?
Obviously we tried to approach this movie with as much respect as we could for religious people. We are not religious people but we obviously respect whoever believes in it… whatever… and we tried to do it really delicate – we’re not mocking anyone. It’s not a movie about a religion, it’s a movie about a sacred place.

We do not think we offended anyone. The idea is global. It’s what happens if?

When the apocalypse starts it doesn‘t matter if you’re Jewish… 

It’s a human story. It uses folklore and mystical elements for our interpretation from Christianity, Judaism and Islam but it’s a story about people surviving.

Did you talk to the locals while you were there?

We felt we were the locals. In life you grow up with all kinds of types of people. You go on the army duty, 2 years for women, three years for men. You meet all religions, low class and high class. We know how they talk and how they think. We see ourselves as locals. As them.

So we’re all in it together, then?

Yes.

I came out of it thinking I probably didn’t understand it in the way other people would. Do you consider the ending to be positive or negative?

That’s a nice way of looking at it.

Obviously it’s not a happy ending..

Well, the apocalypse starts but what’s the next level of the apocalypse? Maybe a new level of something. Maybe a new change in the world. Maybe for the sequel we will have what happened the day after the apocalypse.

Well, we actually have a script about that, right?

About what happens on the second day as that’s an interesting thought, actually. Most movies deal with the first day, but it’s what happens on the second day. What happened a week later what happened a month after on.

That’s what I thought. The characters within the film have been proved right apparently against the odds.

We are still digesting it.

Yes, exactly. We were working on it for years.

Did you have to pick and choose which stands of the different faiths you’d use to show the apocalypse or was it a general vision of apocalypse?

We wanted the creatures to be more like demons. This is why they had the wings and if you look at the Bible and old scriptures you see the dark angels and it comes in all kind of shapes.

We wanted to find our own local interpretation of the creatures and the zombies. We say it in the movie actually, every religion has it but some people call it in a different language. It’s based on the scriptures. The prophesy of the dry bones is very famous and the funny thing is it happens in a very specific place in Jerusalem . The first time we screened the movie was for them. It was the place where the Bible says the valley and is where the apocalypse starts.

Hell. Hell has gone through different evolution as Hell is not like necessarily a bad red, demony kind of thing that is, maybe, now the image in today’s pop culture. In Judaism they bury the dead. They don’t cremate because the resurrection comes – it’s very Tim Burton – the bones are going to roll up the mountain and they’re going to resurrect over there. Jerusalem is basically one big cemetery because everyone wants to be the closest to the resurrection! That’s my Jewish education. I think Christianity, some branches of Christianity, also have beliefs in keeping with Jerusalem being the place of the resurrection and Jesus coming back and also with Islam they have the whole thing with the mount of the rock. All of the religions have some sort of resurrection ideas coming from that place. The vision was already there.

And zombies are resurrection – there is an interpretation of them.

You know, not just slow moving.

Shaun of the Dead.

That’s actually a really clever twist because everyone in the horror genre audience is rooting partly for the zombie and they’re going to buy into that.

For me, watching movies like Troll Hunter is interesting. The use of local folklore – not religion but folklore – for me personally is very interesting.

I agree. A film called Marianne came out in Sweden a few years ago that incorporated the idea of the folkloric Mare with sleep paralysis and that’s what made it so powerful. It integrates with the local culture and makes it seem more real.

The older the story, the better it does it.

Dave Cook is the creative force behind the critically acclaimed post-apocalyptic comic book BUST.  The next instalment is currently being funded via Kickstarter. We caught up with Dave to find out more. 

STARBURST: What is Bust?
Dave Cook: Bust is an apocalyptic comic series that draws influence from games like Fallout and The Last of Us, as well as the Mad Max movies series. It relegates standard tropes of the genre – such as zombies (or mutants in our case) to the background and puts the people first. It stars a crooked card dealer from Las Vegas called Jack, who flees his home on the strip with his wife and son as a deadly plague sweeps America.

As the unwritten laws of decent society collapse around them, Jack and his family find themselves in Austin, Texas, which has become a fortified dictatorship ruled by eccentric billionaire Eddie Scott. Needless to say, Eddie is a bad guy and has become drunk with power, so when Jack crosses him the wrong way, he ends up imprisoned in an arena where he must fight wave after wave of mutant freaks to pay off his debt.

It’s dark and violent with a high death count, but we still push all of that to the back and focus on the human stories in this dangerous new world. For example, Jack starts off as an out of shape, slimy con-man, but over time becomes a hardened warrior who is almost unrecognisable by the last pages. It’s a story of transformation and how the downfall of civilisation has changed people’s lives irreparably.

Our elevator pitch for Bust: Issue #1 is ‘Mad Max meets Fight Club,’ which I think gives an accurate idea of what readers can expect. Chris and I have been blown away by the strong critical response so far (and thanks again to STARBURST for such great praise!), so we wanted to up our game for Issue #2.

Why Wasteland Ronin?
Wasteland Ronin is the subtitle for Bust: Issue #2, and it was chosen by our Kickstarter backers after we polled them online. The name implies a few things about the issue, such as our move away from the grimy claustrophobia of Austin, to the rotten expanses of America’s wasteland. The issue opens ten years after we last saw Jack, and the world is almost unrecognisable now.

Jack is in a really dark place when we re-join him and is still racked with guilt over all the terrible things he’s done over the years. He finds it hard to let go and spends his days hunting raiders and thugs who make the lives of others a misery. I’m a big fan of samurai films and Asian cinema in general – particularly Zatoichi – which tells the story of an old wandering swordsman without a master (a ‘Ronin’) who helps resolve conflict wherever he goes, before moving on to the next place.

So that’s where the Ronin part of the name comes from, but what we’d like readers to consider – as they see Jack travel across the southern states (or ‘The Free South’) as they’re now called – is that it was Jack who opened the floodgates on Austin and ushered in the new age of anarchy and madness we see throughout the issue. He sparked a revolution, but it got out of hand, and now he spends his days trying to put it right.

 

Or is it that he’s now the obsolete one, trying to get things back to the way they were, when really it’s the world that’s outgrown him? This is something we’re really keen to get people thinking about throughout the issue. It’s dark, violent and far broader than before with a constant chase running throughout – more like Mad Max: Fury Road than Beyond Thunderdome, for example.

Why do we still find stories about Gladiators so interesting?
I think there’s something endearing and legendary about just how fearless real-life gladiators appeared. They didn’t seem to fear death – although it was only a matter of time before they’d lose their life in the Coliseum – and seeing someone fight for their freedom is a story trope we can easily get behind – especially if the character is someone we can relate to.

Jack’s not exactly a good person however, but I think anyone who has read the first issue will agree – he’s already been through enough, and doesn’t really need to prove anything else to anyone – but he just can’t let things go so easily. There’s a little bit of anxiety to his character, which is something I can relate to as a total worrier. Hopefully by the end of our second issue you will want Jack to earn peace, but we’re not going to go that easy on him just yet!

Are horror comics back?
I don’t think they necessarily went away, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC’s upcoming slate have definitely brought a new generation and demographics around to the idea of the classic ‘capes and tights’ image of superhero comics – which is great to see, because the more readers the better. But yeah, I think horror comics did take a back seat for a while.

There are a few comic creators I’ve met while selling Bust: Issue #1 at conventions who are making horror comics, such as Janine Van Moosel and James McCulloch who make the superb City of Lost Souls series, and I also contributed a short story to a great new horror anthology called The Grime, which also turned to Kickstarter for funding – to name a few projects. If horror’s your bag, you don’t have to look far to find some truly outstanding indie gems out there in comic-land.

How have the public responded to issue one?
Incredibly well, which just blows my mind. Bust: Issue #1 was my first independent comic release, so to get off to such a great start just feels insane. But we’ve quickly met and started speaking with a lot of great artists and writers from across the UK who all had very kind things to say about our work, and it’s opening up all kinds of new opportunities, such as conventions (we’re now booked up until April!), and new projects, such as my Dark Souls-inspired series Vessels, which will launch in 2016 with art from the incredibly talented Rafael Desquitado Jr in San Diego.

Chris and I don’t respond too well to praise – as we’re both beardy self-deprecating types, but we’re still getting people sending us photos of themselves reading our first issue, telling us how much they enjoyed it and that they can’t wait for the second issue. We simply can’t thank everyone enough for the feedback, but for the sake of balance, we did have a few people say that the ending of issue #1 felt rushed, which is an entirely fair comment.

I think at the time we didn’t know if we’d ever get a chance to make a second issue, so we ended the first one with a resolution that could be continued if there was demand. I’m currently writing issue #3, and there will be plenty of flashbacks throughout the arc that give more insight into the time period we skipped over, including some pretty telling throwbacks to issue #1 that I think fans will really dig.

So in short, the response has been nuts, and I guess this means we’re proper comic-makers now? Maybe? I don’t know, but it feels brilliant!

Do you have anything else planned?
I’ve got a few things in the pipeline yeah. Next on the slate is my short horror story Killer be Killed in James McCulloch’s Kickstarter anthology The Grime, which is a quick three-pager with a twist, and I’m also working with Rafael on Vessels #1 – which is currently in production. You can find us on Facebook for art and previews – we just revealed our work-in-progress cover for the issue and will unveil more towards the end of the year.

I’m also taking up a writer spot in a new sci-fi comic series that features a shared universe, set here in the UK. I’ll be writer of one series within that universe, but I can’t say any more on that just yet. Finally, I’m also writing a new book called The Faceless, which is set here in my native Edinburgh and is currently in the concept planning phase with a truly outstanding art team. It’s a near-future graphic novel that I hope to announce properly in 2016, so keep an eye out for that one too. Bust really has opened up so many doors, so I want to say a sincere thank you again to everyone who backed our first issue and made this all possible.

Why Kickstarter? Is it the future of indie comics?
I’m not sure if Kickstarter is the future or if it’s just one of those cyclical things that might phase out to make way or something bigger and better. Time will tell I suppose, but for indie creators it presents a viable route to market where the classic publisher model often feels walled-off. I don’t know many comic creators – in my very limited experience – who have a publisher deal, and in fact many creators I’ve spoken with would rather keep 100% creative control of their work, so I guess that’s another bonus of Kickstarter.

I love the format personally, but I think anyone considering it should be prepare to PR the hell out of yourself if you want to make it work. Set up previews with every comic site you know of, reach out to friends, call in favours, spam social networks and get the word out there as best as you can. For the few weeks your Kickstarter campaign is live – it’s pretty much a full time job on top of your full time job, so be prepared, speak with others who have done it (even me, I’m always happy to chat on Twitter or Facebook) and you’ll be fine.

You can support the Kickstarter campaign here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/bust/bust-2-wasteland-ronin

Sunday, September 13th saw a group of around forty Doctor Who fans congregating at the Pavilion on the pier in Penarth, (location for episodes of both The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood), just outside Cardiff, for an opportunity to get up close and fairly personal with actress Sophie Aldred in the venue’s cosy arts cinema. The event is the latest organised by South Wales Doctor Who fan group Timeless (who meet regularly at venues in Cardiff and nearby Pontypridd) – previous guests have included the late Elisabeth Sladen, Deborah Watling (who played Victoria alongside Patrick Troughton’s Doctor in the 1960s), Nicola Bryant (Peri in the 1980s), Jacqueline Pearce (best known as Servalan in Blake’s 7) and Louise Jameson (Leela).

In a relaxed and friendly environment Sophie, encouraged by event organiser Neil Goodman, spoke enthusiastically about her career, how she won the role of Ace, her life post-Doctor Who, working with tenth Doctor David Tennant and much more, in a lively, exuberant and refreshingly-unhurried  interview/Q&A session. The early part of the afternoon was given over to an informal autograph/photo opportunity session where everyone had the opportunity to share a few words with Sophie before posing for their inevitable selfies (STARBURST can’t possibly condone such activities and will hide any evidence if necessary) before the event wound down with the charity raffle draw. On display were a couple of costumes worn by Elisabeth Sladen in the Sarah Jane series, loaned by a private collector, and  battle-weary Dalek Bob re-enacted the famous ‘baseball bat’ sequence from 1988’s Remembrance of the Daleks before taking to the promenade to molest and terrify innocent passers-by. A fun, good-natured day and it’s unlikely that anyone who attended will have gone home feeling short-changed or disappointed. Here’s to the next timely Timeless event…

STARBURST managed to grab a few minutes with Sophie to find out more about her experiences meeting Doctor Who fans over the years, life as part of the Doctor Who family and her plans for the future…

STARBURST: Is it still fun meeting and greeting the fans after all this time and do you prefer the smaller events to the big functions such as 2013’s ExCel Anniversary convention?
Sophie Aldred: I don’t mind what I do. People say that events like ExCel are a massive bun-fight but we do try to make absolutely sure that people have time for an individual conversation so they do get a one-on-one but I think from a fan point of view it’s probably better to come to a more intimate event like this. They get more out of it because they get a proper talk, a proper Q&A, competitions and they get social time together as well, and they get to be a group rather than just like people in a queue.

You still seem to be extraordinarily enthusiastic about Doctor Who and your part in its heritage and legacy.
Somebody said to me a few weeks ago ‘Wow, you must be so grateful to Doctor Who’ and I realised that there’s nobody else who I know from any other show which they did so long ago who’s still getting work off the back of it. Sylvester and I have never left that show; we’ve been doing Big Finish audios, we travel round the world talking about it. It’s opened so many doors and I’m forever grateful to (1980s producer) John Nathan-Turner for taking a punt on me, a complete unknown, just as a result of a hunch where he put me in the show and here I am years later still talking about it. It’s absolutely amazing and it’s something I could never have foreseen.

Who was the first Doctor you were aware of growing-up?
Jon Pertwee was the first Doctor I remember. I have this image of that white hair, the frilly shirts, and the vehicles as well – he was a bit of a sort of James Bond-type character. I remember Jo Grant who I loved – Katy Manning – I always wanted to give her a cuddle because she seemed so tiny and vulnerable. I remember her wearing some very fluffy moonboots and being quite intrigued by her fashion and her sense of dress. Then I remember Lis Sladen really inhabiting that role so well. I thought she and Tom’s Doctor were a perfect match.

It’s become a bit of a tradition in the show, isn’t it, that each Doctor tends to have their ‘signature’ companion?
It was very lucky that Sylvester and I were a very good match for each other and we really understood each other, we got to know each other very well. Sometimes you hit upon those great partnerships.

Did that relationship allow you both to have input into your characters and the way they developed and behaved?
Andrew Cartmel was a very innovative script editor and I remember before my second season he got me together with the writers and they really got to see what kind of person I am so they could get bits of this and that in. Mind you, I always wanted to ride a motor bike in the show and they never got that in so it shows you what sort of attention they paid to what I thought! But there were instances; by the time we got to the studio after we’d had the rehearsal period, there was a lot of freedom, both from mine and Sylvester’s point of view, to say ‘hmmm, not very happy about that..’ Sylvester was very adamant that he would never hold the gun or wield the weapon, he would subtly get Ace to do it or mention ‘that can of Nito-9 you’re not carrying’ so he was always on the look-out for things that didn’t quite go with his version of the Doctor. He was asked for his input a lot which was great. I made lots of decisions with Andrew that Ace was never going to scream, she was always going to be a certain way; we looked for words she could say because in real life she’d be swearing like a trooper but we couldn’t do that on TV so we had to be more creative.

Your time on the show was cut short when the BBC effectively cancelled it in 1989. Did you have any plans to move on anyway, having been in the series for the better part of three years?
I was actually on an option for half of the next season so that was the plan; halfway through I would have been written out. I think that was probably a very good thing because if I had gone on I wouldn’t have known when to stop and I do think that it probably was a time of my life where I did need to move on soon. Of course I was really upset that it didn’t continue but both Sylvester and I were lucky enough to have other work to go on to. One of my sadnesses now, looking back, was that poor old John Nathan-Turner had such a rough deal. It was at that time when TV was changing as well, producer choice had just come in and people could farm things out to independent production companies which were all starting up. I think John’s type of TV had also had its day; it was the infancy of alternative comedy, light entertainment was really trailing off although John would have loved Strictly Come Dancing… can you imagine John producing Strictly, he’d have loved that, been in his element.

What do you think of Doctor Who 21st century style?
I love it. It’s ‘date TV# in my family. My husband and my kids and I sit together. My youngest son loves Clara, she’s the first assistant that he’s really watched. The first new Doctor Who that my eldest watched was Matt Smith’s first episode which was lovely because we were visiting my Dad and he, my stepmum, my husband, myself and Adam sat down and we all watched together so it really was a family affair.

Ten years on from its return, of course, and there are viewers watching now who can’t remember Christopher Eccleston…
Isn’t it funny because I remember going to a convention probably during my time filming and looking at Lis Sladen and Katy Manning and thinking ‘Wow, they’re doing these conventions and they were doing it about ten years ago’ and yet look at us all now, all these years on. We’re like a big family now and when we meet up it’s like a big party, especially when we go to other countries. I have been a few times this year to the States but the one in Baltimore really sticks in my mind because we were all in this hotel together, quite far away from civilisation – Colin (Baker), Sylvester, me, Nicola, Terry Malloy (Davros in 1980s episodes), Colin Spaull (Revelation of the Daleks, Rise of the Cybermen), Deborah Watling and a few others – and we just had a ball together. We ate together, we went out on a trip together – we all get on so well because we’ve got this common bond. We’ve known each other a long time, we really respect each other’s work and we love each other’s company and it’s such fun. We got a mini bus and went to a shopping centre together!

You’ve mentioned that you’ve now got a theatrical agent for the first time in over a decade. What would you like to do in the future?
I’d love to do anything really but I’m interested in doing small interesting parts in TV and film and just building up again really, doing stuff that interests me. I was offered a theatre show in the West End at the beginning of the summer but I couldn’t do it because I had so many commitments doing other stuff. So I’m open to anything and I’m kind of excited because it’s a bit like starting again. I’m lucky enough to have my voice-over career so I’ll be able to choose what I want to do but equally I’m going to take it slowly and see what happens and see what doors open.

Sophie Aldred can be heard in Strangeness in Space, a free sci-fi comedy also starring Trevor and Simon (from Going Live! fame).

Containment, the edgy and claustrophobic debut feature from director Neil Mcenery-West has just been released in the UK. The film tells the story of the residents of an anonymous tower block who find themselves sealed inside the building as mysterious figures in Hazmat suits prowl the grounds and the stairwells. The residents find themselves fighting for their lives and their freedom and before long they’re forced to make terrible decisions as their situation goes from bad to worse…  STARBURST caught up with Neil Mcenery-West to find out more about his striking and disturbing cinematic calling card…

STARBURST: Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into directing.
Neil Mcenery-West: I’ve been making short films for several years since my late teens in the late nineties. I went to university, worked in TV for a little while and it was actually in about 2003 that I started working on a short film which was made before Containment and that pretty much led to Containment. It was called Undertow and it took five or six years to make and then off the back of that we were able to get on board with the producer and our initial investor for Containment. Undertow was designed to hopefully be enough to convince someone to back a bigger project, but it was quite similar in style but much more art-house than Containment but it was a similar notion in that it was a slightly dystopian vision, very character based so it was natural lead-on in some respects. Containment was in development for some time, it took us quite a while to get it to a place where we were all really happy with it.

The idea for Containment was yours, but the script was written by David Lemon. How did you come to work with David and how much of the process which led to the script was collaborative?
I met David through Christine Harland, who was the first producer on board with the film. She knew David and she recommended him so we met up and hit it off straight away and it went from there really. He’d made Faintheart which was more of a comedy and I think he was looking to do something which was more in this genre because it was an area he was really interested in as well. The original premise of the story was very simple. David and I worked very closely in developing the story together. We’d just meet up a lot and spit-ball ideas and then he’d frame them into an outline and then we’d meet up again, take them all apart and say ‘Why don’t we do this here and this here’ so that part was very collaborative. David was the sole writer so once we’d locked the story down he’d go away and write the script and then we’d meet up and I’d have some notes to go through on things I thought were working well or not so well and we’d talk about it and then he’d go away again and rewrite. It was a really nice process, he’s such fun to work with and even though it took a few years it was an enjoyable experience.

Containment is the latest in a line of ‘tower block’ thrillers such as Comedown and Tower Block. Were you familiar with those films and did you make a conscious effort to try to do something different within that subgenre?
I was aware of them but I’ve not actually seen most of them. The only tower block film I’ve seen recently was Attack the Block, which I loved. I was aware of the other two but I’ve still not seen them actually so I’m not sure how similar or different they might be. In terms of the story probably the biggest influence for me was Lord of the Flies which I liked thematically because I think it’s terrifying because of the children; you have the notion of them being innocent but their violence is so bluntly and psychologically portrayed that that’s where the real horror comes from. I like the idea of doing that, not with a group of children obviously but with ordinary people who you can identify with, people who make horrible, abhorrent choices because of the situation they’re in. The tower block idea came about by accident because I’d wanted to make a film in a tower block for years because I think it’s such a bizarre life, living in a tower block, because you’re isolated and yet also part of a very big community, cut off from one another and yet completely on top of each other. JG Ballard’s High Rise was another influence although obviously that’s more about class struggle.

For a first-time director you’ve managed to land an impressive cast for the movie with the likes of Lee (Catherine Tate Show, EastEnders) Ross, Sheila (Benidorm, Doctor Who) Reid and Louise (Sherlock) Brearley in the main roles. How involved were you with the casting?
We had two really amazing casting directors – Lucy Jenkins and Sooki McShane – who made a lot of the recommendations of actors who ended up in the film and to be perfectly honest although I had some initial thoughts I was fairly blind going in, I wasn’t sure who we should have in this. We had a couple of ideas for the leading character but apart from that it was quite vague but Lucy and Sooki were great at guiding us. They put Lee’s name forward for the ‘leading man’ role of Mark and they really pushed for Andrew Leung (hot-head resident Sergei) and he’s great because when you meet him he’s the nicest person in the world, he’s so gentle and he came in and recorded a take for us and it was such a transformation. I wasn’t 100% sure at first but watching it again and talking to Lucy and Sooki I was totally convinced that he was the best choice for the part. It was much the same with a lot of the others. Gabriel Senor who plays the boy Nicu was actually a recommendation from our line producer Sarah Senior who’d worked with him before and again he was an amazing find, a complete natural. He’s a complete professional and the nicest, most patient kid you could imagine because he’s older than he looks on screen; he was fourteen when we shot the film so he was playing younger. We were lucky, it was great cast, they were all really good which was so important for this film because it’s such a character-driven piece.

How daunting did you find it directing your first feature film on such a fairly large scale?
Once we got into pre-production everything happened so fast I didn’t really have much time to think about it. The day before we started shooting when I got to Southampton and walked on set and everyone was milling around and dressing it and I saw the cast, that was quite daunting and that’s when it felt completely real. But for me the most daunting aspect wasn’t so much working with the big crew but working with such a big cast on such a big schedule for a first feature. The original story was carefully designed to have one main character and a couple of subsidiary characters and it was actually David who brilliantly decided to bring this whole group into it because it would add a lot more conflict. The original story was a little more abstract, more art-house and he said ‘No, let’s get a big group together because that’ll be much more interesting’ which was great but it moved it away from my original plan which was to make a debut feature with a couple of actors who I’d have a bit of time to spend really working with. Suddenly there were eight or nine people in every scene and that was pretty daunting. But it was a great cast and crew which made all the difference. Everyone felt very supportive even though we went a bit cabin fever-ish by the end of the shoot. Once you’re shooting you’re running on adrenalin and you don’t have much time to stop and think about it; almost from day one you’re running behind on something and you’re busy playing catch-up.

Presumably filming on location in Southampton must have brought its own very particular set of problems?
We shot it on location in an inhabited set of tower blocks which was a challenge but not as much as we thought it would be. The residents in the building were actually incredibly accommodating which was a huge relief because we didn’t really know what to expect. We actually shot the film on the first floor so the flat is actually on the first floor and not much higher up the building as it’s supposed to be. Bizarrely, of all the special effects in the movie the main one is when you’re looking out of the window because obviously it looks like you’re on the tenth or eleventh floor but that’s because the perspective was done completely in post-production. We were right by the courtyard and we had everyone above us and we thought it might be a nightmare for  sound with people wanting to interfere, but people were really amazing considering we took over their block for three weeks, especially when we took over their courtyard with the tents and the Hazmats – people were very helpful. The flat is actually smaller than it looks on film, it was pretty claustrophobic to be in there with a full crew and the cast but that helped add to the tension. It was a real challenge for our cinematographer Arthur Mulhern because it was such a confined space he didn’t want to have any lights on the floor. I told him I wanted to have 360-degree rotational possibilities with the camera so I could literally pan around the whole room if I wanted to. It was a nightmare for him because it’s such a small space so there was nowhere to hide the lights and he managed to light the room by a combination of lights outside the windows with really big strong 2Ks shining through the window and then utilising a really small source light and windows within the flat to create shadows and contrast which was amazing. We also wanted a really stylised look particularly as it turns to night and you get the sense of really high contrast shadows and the building almost becoming abstract in its colours and the way it looks. The building itself we were very lucky with because it adds a huge amount to the feel of the film; it’s a great set of flats.

The film pulls off the difficult feat of being horrific and troubling without resorting to extreme violence and buckets of gore. Was this an intentional creative choice?
Absolutely. The focus was always to make it psychological horror rather than graphic horror. For me the horror is really in the choice the characters have to make and the implications that those choices have more than specific moments of violence or anything like that. It’s kind of like an emotional and psychological violence which is the key to what’s going on and that was definitely the focus and that helped us steer it away from the dangerous potential of it becoming a zombie movie which we were always aware of and which we didn’t want it to become. Even when an angry mob breaks in we wanted to keep their humanity so it didn’t just feel like it was teetering into Dawn of the Dead territory.

Without giving too much away for those who have yet to see the film, the ending is extremely bleak. Was a downbeat ending something you were particularly keen on?
I quite like downbeat endings myself and it felt very apt for this story. The ending is an example of how David and I really complement each other quite well because I have a tendency towards the darker elements and he tends to pull back towards some of the lighter elements. We talked about the ending so much because he was determined to get some hope in there which I think is important but I didn’t want to compromise it by becoming too upbeat and I wanted to maintain that sense of where the story was going which is that this is not going to end well which is the mood that we have throughout. It ended up being a bit of a balancing act. 

How do you feel now the film, which has already been released in the USA, is about to meet its UK public?
Apprehensive! It’s been predominantly well-received which is lovely particularly because you work on a film  for so long your biggest hope is that people will enjoy it and embrace it and like it and when they do that’s tremendously rewarding. But we’re getting the reviews in – STARBURST was one of the first proper mainstream press reviews – and it was a relief to have the first few positives but it’s one of those things where you’re so focussed for so long that I genuinely have no idea how people will take it so I’m hoping they’ll take it well. It’s always great when people enjoy it and get what we were trying to do with it. But it’s still impossible not to be apprehensive!

Containment is on limited release now in the UK and arrives on DVD on October 5th.