From Subway Slasher to Time Loop Madness – Julie Baines on Cult Horror - Class Horror Cast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You can run, but you can guide from the class
hard cast Haunting You from the Emerald Isle, your host,
Aaron Doyle takes you on a journey to the depths
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Tickets Please you were about you under the theater of
the mad Enjoy the show.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
So, Julie, welcome to the show. A pleasure to have
you on. How are you.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'm very well, thank you. I've just come back from Berning,
which was always a good one. It's always a good
festival to go to.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, how is that. I've actually I've heard of a
few people in a similar line of work of view
that were like pretty excited to go to that and
always seem to.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Be Yeah, it's kind of they show really good films.
But to be honest, as a producer, I don't really
go to see films. I go to have meetings to
meet like my fellow co producers from other countries. It's
a really good sort of meeting point and it feels
like a it's quite a serious place in terms of

(01:02):
you can actually do some business there if you're lucky.
You know those parties too.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
But yeah, is that? I suppose when you go to
something like that, how much of it is maybe having
to go to parodies or having to like go for
meals and stuff just to I suppose expand your network.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Well, our business is entirely about networking and who you know, frankly,
and it always has been, and certainly when you're starting out,
it's you have to get your face out there. But
also it's quite interesting. Since the pandemic, I've noticed a
lot of people have moved out of the cities and
they kind of slightly isolated themselves a bit, and I

(01:42):
don't think that's very helpful for what I do. I
you know, I like working with people. I like seeing people,
and actually, you know, you just have to remind people
that you exist, and if you're hiding away, you can
get forgotten if you're not careful, you know. So that
kind of that kind of festival or I mean, along

(02:02):
and Bunin you have the European Film Market alongside it,
which is really what I go for. So I have
lots of meetings, but the meetings tend to be in
hotels and coffee bars, and then you bump into loads
of people, you know, which is always helpful. And that
happened to me. This year, I set up quite a
few meetings before I went, but then whilst I was there,
I kept bumping into people and then certain people said,

(02:25):
let's have a coffee, you know, and actually it turned
out to be super useful this year. It's great.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Is there? Is it more difficult when I suppose, you know,
with the pandemic and everything. I know, it's kind of
starting to come back to somewhat normality now. But you know,
the idea of everyone was going like onto zoom and
onto all this stuff, and then I feel like there
was a lot of people like you just said that,
I kind of were like, oh, I prefer this. I
would rather stick with this. Is it more difficult to
like have those conversations and you know, pitch and talk

(02:53):
about different projects when it's it's true something like zoom
versus being in person.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, I think it's a personal thing. But actually I
really don't like having zooms, particularly because especially if there's
more than you're just talking to more than one person,
because it's really hard to have a proper conversation when
there's several people and you end up talking over each other.
And also I just I'm a very much a people person.
I love meeting people in the room. I think that

(03:24):
you can show your energy much more when you're actually
with someone than you can on a screen. You know,
people are looking at the backdrop behind your head, whether
it's a desert island or when it is you know,
I mean, I don't know. I just I really really
like meeting people in person, and I find it's so
much more effective. But you know, I know a lot

(03:45):
of people that just love zoom because it saves some
time traveling and they don't mind that isolation or just
a different person to that.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
How did you first? And I feel like it's you know,
it's last one a lot of the audience, the role
of a producer, or how you even you know, how
you even get to that? Because I feel like it's
such a multifaceted job. It's not just one thing. It
can be everything all at once, or it can be
this and then five minutes later it's that. But how
does somebody like how did you for your journey? How

(04:14):
did you end up getting into that? Was it a
decision you made or it was something that you kind
of naturally progressed into.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Well, it's kind of a bit of both. Actually, do
you want do you want the history?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Sure? Sure?

Speaker 3 (04:28):
So I always wanted to do something in film, TV
or theater. I didn't know what, and so I literally
started out as a secretary. So I thought, I if
I can get some secretarial qualifications, and I thought that'd
be a bit boring. I'll do a bit of business
studies as well, and I'll talk a bit of friendship
as well. Why not, because if I get some qualifications,
I could get work as a secretary. And then what

(04:50):
I'll do is try and aim for a job in film,
TVR theater and see what I can do. And that,
in fact is exactly what I did, and I not
HA started working originally in a TV company and then
I worked for a large organization called Robert Stigwood Organization.
And Robert Stigwood was this amazing character who launched Tim

(05:12):
Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jesus Christ Superstar and Ivita,
and he produced Greece, The Films of Greece and Saturday
Night Fever. And he also had a record label called
RSO Records, and he managed the Beg's and Eric Clapton.
I mean, it was it was an incredible place and
I learned quite a lot there and I actually I
don't know if you know who the comedian Frankie Howard was,

(05:34):
but I used to thank you Howard. Oh wow, Ridge
was which was really really fun. And then I managed
to get a job at the very young Gold Crest,
which was a huge, hugely successful, brand new, rather glossy
film and television production company. And I went there and

(05:54):
it was only about six months old, and it was
it just produced Gandy, the film of Gandy, and it
was doing some amazing things. And I worked with two
brilliant producers there. I worked with Barry Hanson, who was
the producer of The Long Good Friday. And I worked
with Paul Knight, who was an amazing television producer who
did well. I worked with him on the first series

(06:15):
of Robin of Sherwood, for example, which has still got
like a massive cock following after all these years, and
launched the career of Ray Winston, for example. So you know,
all very interesting and every job you do you learn
new things. And I got a kind of brain that
soaks a lot of stuff up at once. And then
I decided I really wanted to get as a producer's assistant.
By that point I was working on set, and I

(06:37):
just observed what everyone did, and I decided I wanted
to get I was good at organizing, so I thought,
I'll go into the production department, and I went freelancers,
a production coordinator, then I became a production manager and
then a lime producer. I was line producing quite a
few things, television and film, and the kind of projects
I was working on, I never saw a producer hardly,

(07:01):
you know, they were. They tended to be execs in
companies who had much more important things to do. And
so as a line producer, I was ending up with
a lot more responsibility than a line producer should have,
like for casting and all sorts of things, basically running
the whole thing, but with extra responsibility. And I was

(07:22):
working with Michael Winterbottom and the writer than Frank cultrel
Boye on kids Television, kids television drama, and Michael was
a brand new director at that point, having been an
editor before. And one day Frank and Michael said let's
make a feature films and I said, okay, write a script.

(07:45):
Frank went away and wrote to script and came back
and then they showed it to me and said you
want to produce it? And I was like okay, and
I knew how to physically make the film. That wasn't
a problem for me because I was, you know, pretty
okay at that stuff. I had no idea how to
raise the money. And it was a film called Butterfly Kiss.

(08:06):
And I went off to Can because one of the
films I'd been a line producer on was in competition.
In one of the competitions in Can, I got invited
to go. Never been to a film festival in my life.
My first panic was what to wear. And I went
off there and I discovered that in New rather a
lot of people, which surprised me. And there were all

(08:27):
these people walking up and down the closette in those
days with their film cans under their arms, calling themselves producers.
And I was like, well, they know even less than it,
you know. So I got together with a couple of
friends and we set up my company which still exists now,
Dan Films, and I managed to go out and raise

(08:48):
the money for Butterfly Kiss, and that launched the career
of Michael Winterbosso the film career, sorry, the film career
of Michael Winterbottom, of Frank kotchre Boys, the writer and
people who don't know who Frank is. He's written many
films that both Michael Winterbottom and Danny Boyle and others
have have directed. But he also wrote the opening ceremony

(09:10):
to the twenty twelve Olympic Games in London that Danny
Boyle directed, and he's now Children's Laureate for the UK.
And it also launched the career of a very very
very young cinematographer called Chamus McCarthy, who then went on
to work with Joe Wright Oliver Stone and is like

(09:32):
massive now and also one of the nicest guys you
could meet. So it was quite an exciting time and
from that point on I just carried on. So I
never kind of had an aspiration to be a producer,
so it this is.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
A very long, no long that's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
I never had a I mean I honestly, I never
had I never had that kind of confidence that said, oh,
you can be a producer. I felt confident as a
life producer. But then once I'd done it once I thought, well, okay,
I think you're going to carry on with this because
I love I love working on scripts, I love working
with writers, I love casting. In fact, I love everything

(10:13):
about making films except for the thing that money because
it's so hard, but I have to do it because
I'm an all round producer. And to be honest, there's
so many different types of producers. Anyone can call themselves
a producer. You don't actually need any qualifications. You just
need the confidence to say I'm a producer basically. And

(10:33):
there are some people who are development producers. There are
creative producers. There are financing type producers. There are executive producers,
who could be people who either help with the money
raising or for the most part, they're employees of the
companies that put money into the films. There's associate producers.

(10:55):
There's co producers who could be from other countries or
might not be you know, I mean ei, look at
the credits down. It's a ridiculous number of producers.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah. Yeah, and I even see on a way lower level.
I've seen people who who are trying to make their
own movies on things like Kickstarter and places like that,
and they have those like parks where you can you'll
have like associate producer, executive producer, co producer, and it's
like producers all these different takes them. Yeah, basically, and

(11:24):
that's if you pay five grand, you can be like
this type of producer. If you've paid that much, you
can be that type for someone looking to get into producing,
I suppose in the current like climate, what's the best
way is it just to to get into a company
at whatever level and then just start to kind of
build friendships and network and get to know things and
maybe work your way up.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
I think. I mean, the current climate, by the way,
is horrendous. It's very very difficult to raise money at
the moment, and I don't need to tell you why
look at the state of everything. But you know, if
you really want to do it, you're gonna have to
do it. You know. That's why I feel about it.
It's actually a really hard job, but I love it
so much that I do it because I love it.

(12:07):
I think if you really really want to be a producer,
and you know you want to be a producer, then
the best plan is to actually work as an assistant
to a producer, and I think that's how you learn
the most. There are some very good film courses around
you know, that can be good too, But the problem

(12:27):
with some of the film courses people come out and
expect to be a producer immediately, and the same with
directing as well. They're like, oh, yes, I'm a director now,
and then it's very hard to get that first gig,
you know. So I really would recommend people try to
attach themselves to producers as assistants to start with. And

(12:47):
you know, honestly, you've got to, you know, put your
ego behind you and be an assistant, even if you've
been to film school, I think, just to get enough
information and knowledge about how it works, and then you
start meeting people, you start networking, and then it builds
from there. And to be honest, our recent our industry

(13:08):
is so weird because every project is individual, it's bespoke.
We have to create every project from the ground upwards.
There's no formula to it in film, particularly less than television,
but there's no formula, and so you know, it's on
every production, new things, new challenges arise. I mean, every

(13:33):
time I do something, something new happens. There are you know,
things that have to be dealt with or overcome. But
I have this kind of personal motto where it's okay
to make mistakes, just don't make the same mistake twice.
So that's sort of my personal thing to myself really,

(13:53):
you know, but it is absolutely the way to learn.
I mean I learned because I was a producer's assistant
and I just watched and listened and sort of soaped
it all up and then realized that actually I could
do that, you know, I could be a production coordinator
as at that moment, and then I just sort of
worked my way up through there.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Speaking of formula, when projects, you know, come come across
your desk, what is it? Are you looking for something specific?
And then is there a difficulty between Obviously, like you've
said a lot of times, and I've spoken to, you know,
lots of other people that said, don't go into this
expect and oh I'm going to be a millionaire and
I'm going to drive Lamborghinis every day and just do nothing,
because that's not the reality. You have to actually really

(14:36):
care and want to do it. But the difficulty, I
suppose between maybe a project comes in that you're really
passionate about, and then maybe others or somebody else involved
feels like, well maybe it's not it doesn't make as
much sense financially, or we have no way to push
this or how you know that do you have I
don't want to say a formula or guidelines, But what

(14:58):
is it that you're looking out for that kind of
you make sure that you're getting all your bases covered.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
I think that's a really interesting question. I mean, first
of all, on the Lamborghini front, the only way you're
going to get a Lamborghinis if you work for if
you've got a rich dad, or if you work as
a very senior executing one of the huge American studios. Basically,
but that's not why I work in the independent sector.
I make independent films. I don't make studio films. It's

(15:25):
a slightly different industry. Basically, go to your question about
you know, what I choose to do and what I
don't choose to do. I get a lot of projects
sent to me. Plus also sometimes we auction books and
I find a writer and a director or perhaps there's
a true story. You know. They can come in in
different different ways. I have an extremely eclectic taste. I

(15:48):
think I've probably made films across all genres except for
straight animation. And I'm really story led. I don't want
to do something that's a rehash of something that you
know everyone else is doing it, because I find that boring.
I have to be really interested in it myself. But

(16:09):
I also have to look at it and think, well,
is there an audience for it? Because you know, when
I first started out, some of the films I did
were a couple of the films I did were quite
art house, and whilst they were beautiful and I really
liked them, unless you get a distributor to get behind
them in a big way, the audience doesn't know they exist,

(16:31):
or otherwise the audience is so niche that they're never
going to make any money, and then that means the
distributor doesn't want to spend a load of money because
they know they're not going to make a lot of
money back. So I think it's very much for me
two things. First of all, story and idea and freshness
and something that surprises me can be any genre. But

(16:51):
then secondly, who is your audience? Can I pinpoint my audience?
I made a mistake at one point of working on
a project. It was my very first project that I
developed with Chris Smith, who I then went on to
launch with the film Creep, and then later we did Severance, Triangle, Detour,
and I've just done Video and Nasty the TV series
with him and I absolutely love working with him. But

(17:12):
originally when I first met him, he was working on
a script idea which was really really good, but we
never quite got it to the point where he needed
it to go. And the reason was, I think, is
that it covered too many genres, and in film, you
can't really do that unless you're a massive director and

(17:35):
it's the director that has the following. You can't really
do that because audiences are a bit confused. You know,
am I going to this or not? What is it?
Is it horror, is it thriller? Is it comedy? What
is it? You know? So I think it's about the
route to market, and then you have to kind of
work backwards. Okay, this is a brilliant project, this is

(17:57):
my potential audience for it. What kind of distributors would
pick this up? And then work backwards? How much is
can I raise to make this? And that's always the difficulty.
And now I think budgets are getting tighter and tighter.
Despite the pandemic when everything went up at least twenty

(18:17):
percent afterwards, what we're finding is we can't raise more
more in terms of budget because you can't show the
investors how they're going to get them more money back,
So there's a sort of finite Every project has a
kind of finite budget level, and then of course you've

(18:39):
got to balance everything out, and it's a bit like
a puzzle. So like, for example, if I'm going to
make a film for let's say five million pounds, I
need two actors probably in there that are really significant
with the audience that goes to see that kind of film,
so that when I put them on the poster, or

(19:00):
the distributor puts them on the poster, the audience will go, oh,
I'll go and see that concern says in it. But
then getting a big name at five million pounds on
an indie film is very challenging because then the studios
want to work with those actors and the Amazons and
Netflix of the work of this World to this episodic

(19:22):
series and tie them up for several series quite often,
So casting at that level is very, very challenging. On
the other hand, I'm trying to also a monk with
my slate at the moment, do some much much logit,
but it's properly horror genre. Really, I'm going to in
the current climate, I'm going to go for a very

(19:42):
low budget I'm going to try and raise private investment
for it because I think it's very commercial if I
can do it cheaply enough, because I think you can
make money out of it, and it's a great project.
It's not something I've seen before, which is what I
always love, and in that occasion, I don't need giant
names for it, because the subject and the thing should

(20:05):
set it.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
I spoke with a producers in the past, and one
of them said to me one time when I asked
about the indie space and like genre filmmaking, and they
mentioned I asked about all the streaming platforms and like
the difficulties with maybe potential of your movie being distributed,
but then ended up being dumped basically with fifty other

(20:28):
projects and it kind of loses its steam and the
I guess the nerves and trying to avoid that happening.
And then he mentioned that, you know, maybe theatrical isn't
always the way to go because a lot of the
mainstream audience don't have, you know, forty fifty pounds a
week to go see a movie a week, so a
lot of people are consuming you know, under TVs at

(20:50):
home on their phones, on their iPads and whatever. Where
do you stand on that whole thing, and do you
have when a project comes in instantly or you like, Okay,
well this is something that I need to go theatrical,
or this is something I need to go you know
this route definitely.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah. For example, I produced Creep, as I mentioned with
christ Smith, and that came out twenty years ago. I know,
is that insane. I can't believe it myself. We're rebooting
it now set now, different story, fresh story, but it's
still the Underground and it's still a Creep. And I'm
not going to say anymore no spoilers, but that has

(21:30):
to have a theatric release. Yeah, I mean, it's an
ip that exists now. It sold everywhere in the world
at that time, and it hits iconic London and at
least here it has to have a theatric release. On
the other hand, my very low low budget debut filmmaker

(21:52):
horror that I'm trying to put together at the moment,
I wouldn't expect that automatically at all to have to
have a theatric audience. However, it would still always be
in the back of my mind. If we make this
really good, then we can make a case once it's once,

(22:13):
people can see it, you know, distributors can see it.
There is a market that would go to the cinema
to see this film. But on the but I'm not
sort of proud about you know, Alwa's got to be
a theatrical film at all. The difficulty lies when you've got,
you know, a reasonably substantial independent budget and you don't

(22:35):
get the theatric release. That's when it's a problem because
if it goes, if it then sells once it's finished,
if it sells straight to platforms, unless the platform thinks
it's a massive hit and pays loads and loads of
money for it, which happens occasionally, but you know, in
the great scheme of things, not that often. They're going

(22:57):
to pay a finite amount of money and there are
no siduals afterwards. Now it is for a limited amount
of time, but it's going to be a closed amount
of money. So how do you then make profits and
get the money back to pay your investors back and

(23:17):
get a profit for them because you want them to
come back again for your other projects. So that's where
it becomes a tricky situation.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
That makes sense, Yeah, yeah, in those situations, just like
we don't have to get into like the specifics of
exactly how it works. But you know, when you when
you approach somebody for funding or you're trying to kind
of pitch what it is you want to do and
you're looking for people to kind of get get behind it,
like you are, how much weight is put on first
impressions and things like that.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
What first impressions of the script?

Speaker 2 (23:50):
Well, from from the point of view, like if you
if you bring a project to somebody and you're looking
for them to get behind it financially, like, how much
weight would you say there is in that initial you'll
I don't pitch your conversation or whatever you want to
call us.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Well, I think there's quite a bit because I think
you know, if someone comes in and they're a bit
depressed and do you're not really going to feel very
comfortable giving them your money necessarily. So I think it's
about the pitch. I mean, you know what. That's why
I like to meet people face to face, because I
would go and, as I did in Berlin last week,

(24:25):
I would pitch the idea and then they would say
that sounds great. Hopefully I would say that and love
to read it, and then you send on the script
and a pitch deck which will be images and information
and perhaps casting ideas and things like that. But you know,
I think, you know, I mean, I can only do

(24:49):
try to do projects that I feel really passionate about.
But that's me. Other people are different, you know. Some
people are very much more money producers, and it's much
more about the corporate side of well this is you know,
I'm not really thinking about the script here, but because
we've got this actor in it, it could make this money.

(25:11):
You know, it's a different thing. Now. That can be true,
but it can also not be true because quite often
we see, you know, really big films with really big
actors that tank sometimes, so it's not always just we
like that actor, so millions of people are going to
see it.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
You know.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
I definitely think there's a I don't want to say
like a massive shift right now, but there's definitely a
shift I think within horror, as in the Triple A
titles seem to be at least in the last eighteen
months not as well received, and then you have things
like Long Legs, the Subs and some of these like
more indie stuff. It's kind of started this way even
recently with The Monkey. I didn't realize that was originally

(25:51):
a studio film, and then os Good Parkins was like, yeah,
this is not going to work because you're trying to
take over the story we're telling, so we need to
go independent and do our own thing and then sell
it after the fact. Do you feel that, from a
professional standpoint, that there's maybe a slight shift.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
I think you're absolutely right. Actually I loved Long Legs.
I thought it was great and it was a surprise,
and I mean I could talk to you for hours
about substance, but we won't do that now. And overall
I really really liked it. A few reservations, but yeah, yeah, absolutely,
But I think it's because people want something fresh, and
that's what I love, to find, something a little bit different,

(26:31):
you know. It's like the Creep rebook that we're doing
is really fresh. Although it's a Creep and it's the
London Underground, it's totally new stories, totally new characters, and
it's really a good script. It's really fun. In my view,
it's very very good, and in quite a few other
people's view as well. So fingers cross we can pull
all that together. We're casting it at the moment and
financing it and it was being sold in Berlin, so

(26:51):
fingers crossed. But yeah, I mean the trouble with That's
why I'm saying the studio industry and the independent industry
are really quite separate because as if you're working with
the studio, you'll completely be okay. They finance everything, and
it's much simpler from that point of view, and technically
it would be a lot quicker because you haven't got
the pain of having to do this sort of patchwork

(27:13):
of financing from lots of places and you can't start
till you get all of it and you've done all
your legal contracts and it's very very complicated. With a studio,
they just finance it. However, you'll then beholden to probably
I don't know, a committee of fifteen sex who or
won't put their stamp on it, you know, And that's
obviously what was Perkins was talking about. You know, that

(27:35):
is a it's a different thing, it's a different mindset,
and I think that you know, generally studios are trying
to be more formulaic with what they're trying to do
because it's it fits their algorithms and their you know
who they think their audiences and this is what audience
is like that. Actually, I think you're completely right. People
are like, oh, this is really fresh, I really like this,

(27:56):
and the word gets wrap. Well, I'm noticing now is
where is getting round. There was a moment where if
you didn't like get amazing numbers in your box office
numbers in your first weekend, you're like, that was a disaster.
But word is getting around. I mean, look at the
Robbie Williams film at the moment. I mean people looked

(28:18):
at that poster and thought what the hell? And it's
still it's actually hanging on in there quite a few
weeks now and it's doing that quite get steady business
in a good way. And to be honest, when I
saw it, I heard it was actually really worth watching,
and I watched it and I thought it was really
really good and not at all what I thought. But then,

(28:40):
you know, personally, I think that marketing didn't quite go
in the right direction. Who knows who these things, but.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, like you've mentioned Creep, and I definitely feel like
that a reboot of it within that universe definitely fits
into this current trend. Raceme with this new fresher reach
and that's what people want. And it's it's strange because
we're you know, we're talking about independent filmmaking. But then

(29:09):
at the same time, something like Creep feels like this
huge ip within horror. Like we spoke before and I
told you, like the amount of people that I've recommended
that film too, and and I feel like in two
thousand and four when it came out, it had this
perfect blend of you know, is it a triller movie,
is it a slasher movie. There's a little bit of

(29:30):
psychological stuff in there. That it had all these different
kind of elements and in a good way. It wasn't
like it didn't know what it was, but it kind
of gave you all these different feelings. Like when it
starts off, you're not really sure what's going on, and
you know, we don't really see anything for a good while,
and it gives this good detentions just rising and rising.
You know there's something but you're not sure exactly what

(29:50):
it is. What was it back then that when you
read the script or read the treatment or whatever it was,
that was like, yes, this is something that we need
to get behind.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well, that follows on from what I was saying just
now about I was working. I met Chris Smith and
he was working. He I gave him some money to
develop a different script originally which covered too many genres.
I said about that just now. Anyway, we got a
little bit stuck with it, and I work very I'm
not a writer, but I love working with writers. And

(30:27):
they came to a point where he was starting to
get a little a little bit worried about whether he
could pull it through. And he came into an office
one day and I don't know if you ever met Chris,
but he's like a massive bundle of energy, and he said,
I am really fancy making a horror film. So okay, right,

(30:48):
have you got a story? He said, yeah, well yeah,
what is it? He has Saturday night girls, gone to
a party, had a few drinks, She's going on to
another late night party. She goes down on to the
London Underground. She sits on the seat, falls asleep, misses
the lost train, gets locked in. There's something down there.

(31:11):
And I was like, surely that's been made. Yeah, I know, all right,
And we researched them and it really hadn't. And I
was like, okay, write it. And I was like, well,
I can't pay my rent this month, so we sorry
that out.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
And those are the things on that to cut you off.
Those are the things I think that is last on
people where they assume that everybody's living these big, glamorous
lives and they're just saying an office all day, you know,
drinking cocktails, writing stories or whatever and just messing her.
And it's like, I've talked to so many different people
that are like, it's just not reality. You really have
to love it.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
I've got a twenty four year old BMW. It's very
beaten up, but I like it. See this is the thing. Yeah,
I mean it's it's it's very hard in the indie
sector and you know, directors that break through can do

(32:13):
very very well. But then you have to be careful
what you write on social media in this day is
how do you get cancel? Yeah? So anyway, just going
back to back to Creep and Chris wrote this amazing
script really fast and honestly, it's the quickest financing I've
ever achieved. And from the point where he said I
really fancy making horror film to getting shooting it was

(32:37):
it was less than two years, which is really fast,
to be honest. Maybe it was even eighteen months. It
was really really quick, and and think about it, that
was his first film. It's brilliant, He's brilliant. It was
it was amazing, you know, and you know it was
it really launched him, which was brilliant, and he's done

(32:57):
some great stuff since. Forgotten what your question?

Speaker 2 (33:00):
No, No, it's fine. I've actually been trying to pin Chris
down for a while now, but it's proven harder to
get in touch with him that I.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Thought, Oh, well, he's just about to go to shoot
a new film in Mauritius. Is absolutely up to his
eyeballs at the moment.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
To go back to, then, why do you think it was?
Was it like because all of you guys, the passion
and like the energy that you had behind the project.
You know, you mentioned it's the fastest fun and you've
got it's kind of like the quickest turnaround. Everything kind
of came together perfectly. Do you think that's just because
people on the outside looking in could see these guys

(33:36):
are really behind this and really believe in this.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
Well, I think that was part of it. But it
was also a time when there wasn't really any horror around.
I mean to be honest that for many many years
in the you know, the traditional film industry, horror had
a bit of a bad smell about it, you know,
it was kind of a bit be moothy and people's psyche.
And then just before our I think the only one

(34:01):
before us made out of here was was The Dog Soldiers,
And so I think we were at the vanguard of,
you know, a whole new audience, a whole new time.
And then it hasn't stopped since then, It's got bigger
and bigger and bigger. But you know, I tell you
how many people have used our poster for Crete is

(34:22):
unbelievable of you know, a version of our poster and
sort of stolen ideas from Crete, so so many, and
I know very many films. You know, you still ideas
from other films, but you know, and I got a
lot of scripts afterwards, and they were just sort of
regurgitations of the same thing. I was like, no, I
don't want to do that. I want to do something fresh.
I give me something really surprising, really new. You know.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
You know, it's crazy to me because obviously, as you know,
you were, you were on a but there I think
it was Umbrella releasing or whatever they're called in Australia
done like a collector's edition or whatever, want to call
it Blue Ray of Creep, and like I I this
is one of my what I would call conference movies.
And sometimes people take that up as a slight of

(35:08):
being like, oh, what does that mean. I don't mean
it as in like it being a bad movie that
I like. I mean it as in, that's one of
my goal to movie. I've definitely watched this movie in
excess of one hundred times.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
I would say, oh my god, yeah, that's it's like
that much, and you know I would I would often
come back to the Internet and train researchency could I
find any more things about it?

Speaker 2 (35:29):
But even that new release, I mean I always check
on like eBay in different places and right now I'm
literally looking at it right now. A copy of that
from the UK at a minute is one hundred and
fifty pounds for that new blue wret. So I think
it kind of shows.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
That Australian one. Yeah, wow, that's incredible. So that was
a very nice company in Australia who are distributors called
Umbrella Entertainment, and Chris and I did new interviews for
that last last June, and also I'm bird have done
an amazing job of them.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Do you like that? I think that kind of shows
the stay in power of what the original movie done
and then the kind of I guess existent ip. So
for you guys, now, when when did the idea of
obviously we're not going to get into details running, but
when did the idea start to float around for a
potential rebook? Because I don't know if you guys have seen,
but over the years on Reddit and all these different

(36:28):
forums and message boards, people would discover this movie and
be like, oh, there's definitely a sequel to this, or
there's definitely a prequel to this, or there's definitely more,
and you know, it never came. And I see a
lot of the audience we're always wondering why why aren't
we getting more? I want more of this interesting?

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yeah, Well, I was about eighteen months ago and I
was with Chris and we were talking about doing something else,
and he said, let's rebook Creek. Yeah, that's good idea,
let's do it. And that's how it started. And I'm
wearing good site. We're hoping to shoot in the fourth
quarter of this year. He's just about to prep and

(37:05):
shoot another film right now, as I just mentioned, And
so that's how planned fourth quarter and touch with It's
it's going really well and he's written a brilliant script,
really really brilliant script. So that's very exciting. And also
there's things that such fun to me.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
I would imagine I would imagine it's it's one of
those movies I was always like, I would look at
and go I would have loved to have been on
set to see this, because I don't It's just such
a unique movie to me. I don't know, I don't
know what exactly it is about it. I can't quite
put my finger on it. There's just something it has
this feeling about us, the story, the setting, the characters, everything,

(37:42):
it's just I don't know. It's really onset.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
I'm going to invite you to the set.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
I would love that. That would literally be a dream
come true. Before we move off of Creep, before before
we move off of Creep then, and I know we're
not you know, we can't say anything about it, but
this is an all new story. This isn't just like
a twenty twenty five version of just the exact same characters,
the exact same rule at all people can.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
Expect yet creep. Yes, there is creep, and there is
the lum. It's set on the underground, of course. It's
the story is now, it's a completely new story with
new characters.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
What is it about? Are you a horror fan? Like
outside of I guess of your work, because, like you said,
you've done pretty much nearly every genre subgenre you could
think of. But you know you've you've been the driving
force behind some pretty big like cult following horror movies
over the last twenty years.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
I know, I don't really like horror fender, what does
a horror fand? Look? I know, I I love films.
I watch masses of films of all genres. But I
like making horrors if they're if I think they're good
and they're fresh and there's an audience for them, because

(39:04):
I also think the audience is great. The audience is
so excited and passionate about horror films. I mean, I
was at Fright First for three different days last last year,
and they're just a wonderful audience and they just absolutely
adore what they're watching. You know, So that's always good
because you know, there's no point in making something and

(39:25):
there's like very flat feedback because you know, you spend
years of your life, spend years of my life on
a project usually, and then yeah, you know, I think
that's if I go and see a film and I
come out and go, yeah, then that's a complete waste
of time, or if I've immediately forgotten it. But quite
often with the horror film, if it's a good horror film,

(39:46):
then you remember it, you remember stuff from it, and
it keeps coming back to you, and I think that's
quite exciting, you know. So you know, am I a
horror fan. I'm a fan of particular horror films, frankly,
not any ol horror, and in the way that I
wouldn't be a fan of any old thriller, you know.

(40:07):
For me, they've got to be really good stories, things
that surprise me. Unfortunately for me, I am very good
at guessing what's going to happen next in a film
I'd imagine, and I love it when I can't guess
or I guess it wrong. It's the best film for
me is when I guess it wrong, you know. So, yeah,

(40:28):
is it.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Difficult then to separate maybe what you like from a
fan point of view? And then the professional side of it,
or does it kind of all come together.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
I have to be very disciplined about that, you know.
I mean, I'm not making films, you know, I'm not
producing films for me. I'm producing films for an audience.
But I also have to feel very excited about them
and want to make them as good as we can,
you know. And also, you know, I love working with directors.
I love supporting directors as much as I can for

(41:02):
them to see to realize their vision, you know, and
when you're working with someone like Chris it's an absolute joy.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
What was it like post Creep then, you know, because
I always assume because I loved the movie so much
that it was like this fantastic thing and everyone sat
back and went, oh wow, this is great, this is amazing.
Was it an all brainer that you guys would work
together again?

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah? Yeah. Well, also the next one was Severance. Now
Severance had already been written by somebody else and was
owned by another production company and they were looking for
a director. So that's where that one came about. Because
I happened very close on the heels of Creepe as
a result of Creede basically, so Chris came in to

(41:42):
direct that, but then did a rewrite on the script
as well, and then we went on to do Triangle
after that, which I also love. I think Triangle's amazing.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
That's a really good succession of movies there. If you
think about it, it's for anyone who hasn't maybe seen these,
or if you have, you'll already know this, Like they
go from Creep to then Say, which is within the
horror thing, but it had other elements that was like
a different movie, and then to go to Triangle, which
obviously you know it's horror, but it's a different type
of horror again, Like, was that just one of those

(42:13):
ones that when you read it or when you sat
down with Chris, it was like, oh, yeah, we have
to make this.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
No, well, we developed we developed a Triangle with him,
but the way he has a very clever brain and
he loves playing with the timelines. But I'm not kidding
how many times we sort of unraveled that script because
it's anyone who hasn't seen it, it's a kind of
a groundhog day. We unraveled the script and rolled it

(42:39):
back up again so many times just to make sure
that all those beats were there all the way through,
and I believe they are because that's what makes I
get very angry when I'm watching a film if something
happens that isn't properly seeded. Now, that happened to me
recently with The Brutalist, and it spoiled my appreciation for

(43:01):
the film. I won't say anymore. If anyone see the
British List, they'll know what I'm talking about. And I
kept looking back, what did I miss? What did I miss?
But I didn't miss anything because it wasn't actually there,
and that really frustrated me. Whereas with Triangle, we just
made sure that I think we made sure and anyone
can correctly honest, but I think we made sure that

(43:22):
every beat was there for the logic of the piece.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
You know, it's funny as well, because that goes back
to two thousand and nine twenty ten, I think it is,
and it was like you guys were using and you know,
you had plot devices in it that you were doing
I don't know, fifteen years before they were like cool.
And you know, then we've seen a string of movies

(43:48):
that attempted to do that, like messing with timelines and
kind of that ground hoggy day of feeling again, and
I'm like thinking in my head, I'm like, yeah, but
I've seen a better version of this sixteen years ago.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, is it?

Speaker 2 (44:02):
Is it a.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
That's Chris's brain. I mean, that's all down to the
way his brain works, and he's very clever in that way.
I mean we sort of used a similar kind of
device in Detour, which we developed with him as well.
It's a completely different story and it's not horror, it's thriller,
but it still plays very much with the time. I

(44:24):
don't know if you've seen that one, but it's it
still plays with time in a very particular kind of way,
and I find that very My brain finds that very
interesting as well. You know, it's quite I love to
be challenged, and it's quite challenging. But then you get
to the end and you talk about it for ages.
That's the best thing. When you come out with a
film and everyone wants to talk about it. I love that.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, and I feel like you get that a lot more.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen in other genres, but
it definitely happens a lot more within like the horror
slash kind of thriller genre more than more.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
I think it happens in certain indie films, And I
remember I saw spring Breakers in LA when it first
came out in the cinema, and I came out and
went to a bar afterwards, and there's like loads and
loads of people who've come from the same cinema and
they just kind of stopped talking about it.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
You know.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
It's like, and I was listening. It was wonderful to
listen to it. And that's very exciting for me when
people react in that way, you know, and it's not
like you've got to love it or like it, but
you've just got to keep talking about it and you
can have massive arguments, and that's such fun.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
I think you did you know at the time of
making some of these projects that they would end up,
you know, we'd be sitting here twenty odd years later
and they have these like huge could followings. Because it seems,
it seems and maybe this is just me kind of
skewing it towards horror, but I feel like when the
horror audience or community get behind a project, even if

(45:47):
it is twenty years old, and it gets that could following,
it's skyrockets like way more than a lot of other
genres where you know, there's there's not a lot of
there is some, but if you look at you know,
can't many and different things. You don't have conventions, you
don't have constant re releases.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
You know.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
We can look at some of these movies and they
end up having these like ten collectors editions and like
all the fans have to have all ten versions of
all ten different covers and all the T shirts and
all this and all that. Is that something you were
ever conscious of at the time? And then I suppose
now looking at it, like, how does that feel to
know that you know, you created things that are I

(46:25):
guess timeless in a way.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Well, of course we had no clue at the time.
I had no clue at the time. And also, you know,
as I mentioned, we were really at the vanguard of
horror as it is now, I feel because that just
hadn't been anything for ages really, so you know, no,
I had no idea. We were, you know, starting a movement.
And it's great. I think it's fantastic, but it's it

(46:52):
still doesn't mean that we can easily finance the next film.
You know, it's still just as hard in fact, it's
actually harder now with the state of the industry and
the fact that the streamers have sort of come in
and changed the infrastructure quite substantially, and that's quite negative
for us in certain ways. And also they're cutting back now,

(47:15):
so they're making less materials as well. But I mean,
the thing about horror is it has its own community,
whereas you know, I can't say Comedy's got a community
or Srida's got a community as far as I know,
you know, they It's just a very different thing, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah, it's up my always bring up. Not that I
would be apposed to that, but I just don't think
you see it as much. You know, you mentioned things
like freight fests and stuff, and just how diehard. Everybody
who's there wants to enjoy everything. They want to see everything,
they want to talk about everything.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
And they're all dressed up. It's very funny.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
They're really committed. I was going to ask, I guess
you've kind of answered the question in a way, as in,
you know, if you're behind some of these bigger pride
or more well received projects, does it give you any
I guess good graces when you go back to look
for funding or to look for anything.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
You think it would, but I don't realistically, Yeah, I
mean it gets you know, I've been making films for
quite a long time now, so I know a lot
of people, and for the most part, they will read
projects that I pitch and send to them. It doesn't
mean they're going to finance them. I also, I mean

(48:29):
it's you know, how many projects are they doing at
any particular moment, how much money have they got to spend?
Have they already got horror? Do they want something different?

Speaker 1 (48:40):
You know?

Speaker 3 (48:40):
I mean everyone's different, Every distributor is different, every sales
agent is different. And you know, public funding doesn't generally
support horror so much, so you just have to think
outside the box in how you're going to try and
finance things these days.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Is there a lot of like private financing where you'll
have someone come in and just be like, I just
want to get like I have money, I just want
to get involved in a horror movie or this or that.
Does that happen?

Speaker 3 (49:08):
It happens occasionally in a smallish way. Unfortunately, I've seen
a number of a number of occasions where people have
put private money in and they haven't been treated in
the way they should have been treated by the producers.
And that's no use because if you you know, for me,

(49:29):
if someone wants to invest in a project, I want
them to get the most out of it. I want
them to get their money back. I want them to
make a profit because then hopefully they'll come back and investigain.
So it seems very shortsighted of me not to look
after them. Occasionally people have a son or daughter who
wants to get into the industry, and sometimes they might

(49:50):
give you a little bit of money and then you
take their son or daughter on as a trainee or
something like that. That's happened a few times. But you know,
it's the Filmmaking is a risky business. Whatever you're making,
it's a risky business.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
So you know, that's why it works where that moved,
you know, if we moved to more recent times, I guess,
how did you become involved with or in what capacity
reinvolved with Something in the Water?

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (50:18):
I produced Something in the Water. Yeah, that was a
project that Studio Canal had put money into the development
of with another production company that went down and they
found themselves with this project and I was shown it
and I actually really like this, and so they said

(50:41):
would you produce it? And I said yes, Lise So
and also it was water again. I seemed to do
a lot of films on water. I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
It just.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
The go to water person, it seems. But so, I,
you know, did a tiny little bit of work on
the script, not very much. The script was already very good,
I think, and then I found the director and we
cast it and we put it all together and we
shot it in the Dominican Republic and a couple of
days in London. Have you seen it?

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah, And it's one of those things right where I guess,
you know, over the last fe years there's been a
lot of like shark movies, water based movies, see Ocean,
all that kind of thing, And I'm just curious as
to what exactly it was about it that made it
stand out for you, because I felt the same. I
went to see it and I really didn't know what

(51:30):
to expect, and I came out of a going that
has again like a vibe that I can't put my
finger on it, but it feels like the type of
movie that I like and I enjoy, And while it
deals with some of the same elements that other movies
have done. I just feel like it's that bit above.
It doesn't just feel you know, you see people do that,
like a shark movie gets popular and then everyone wants

(51:51):
to make a shark movie and they're all, to be
honest with you, are just sub power. They're just not
very good. And this felt like it had that edge.
I don't know you can exactly say what it was
from my point of view, but I suppose you know,
you probably know better than me. What with your key
eye out? What was it that was like? Add that
has something more than just another movie.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
I really liked the relationship between the girls. It was
a friendship movie basically with sharks, and that was I
think that was what made it stand out to me,
because I think the problem with a lot of horror films,
particularly and sometimes thrillers as well, is so much attention

(52:35):
is put on the creatures and the action, and not
enough attention is put on the character development, and you
end up with a lot of thin, rather uninteresting characters
if you're not careful. So for me, what was really
important was to sort of bring some life to these characters,

(52:56):
and literally each one goes on their journey and I
think that worked for me, that works in that project,
that they have a particular path to go down. I'd
always say it's great for actors because actors want to
go on a journey. They don't want to play cardboor
cut out characters. They want to pay you know, people

(53:16):
with a heart, people with a life, people with something
stirring in them. You know. So I think that that's
definitely why I really like that project, and I think
we did a good job with the Sharks as well.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Yeah, like was that something that was already gonna be
a theatrical because like I seen this in the in
the cinema and I was intrigued because I was like, Okay,
somebody has seen something in this. There's a reason that
I'm able to go see this in like my small
town in Ireland at the cinema. It can't just be

(53:50):
another movie because you know, we've had shark movies, we've
had water based movies, We've had that kind of triller
or horror thing. So there's obviously got to be something
different that someone believed in this that I can actually
go to the cinema to see it.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
I think you've got to be interested in the characters
as well as the shark action or whatever it is.
You don't have to like the characters necessary. It's good
to one or two characters, isn't when it's not about
even liking them, it's about being interested in them and
understanding their motivation, I think. But that goes for any film,

(54:26):
but unfortunately, with horror, a lot of the time I
find that missing. And those are the horror films I
don't like, I don't enjoy because of the characters boring.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Yeah, and I don't.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
I don't care. You to care, you don't care, I
need to care. I don't want the I didn't want
the shark to eat any of those girls.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
Yeah, And sometimes they're a bit, you know, annoying. They
can be a bit annoying asat whatever. They're actually basically
annoy as girls. And I like them and I understand them,
and I know who they are in life, and I
don't in the shock to eat any of them.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Yeah, because I feel like outside of that, it's literally
just a case of let's just pick a handful of people,
throw them in the water, and then the shark's going
to eat them all and we're not really gonna care, unfortunately.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
Is what a lot.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Yeah, yeah, that is true. I have a couple more
questions and I wanted to ask about because I came
across this and I just I done a complete deep
dive into this project once I came across and I
was like, wait a second. I and somebody you kind
of know of as well, a friend of mine ended
up playing the skinhead in this show. I remember. I

(55:32):
remember he told me about it and I was kind
of like, I kind of brushed it off. I was like, oh, yeah,
that sounds good, it sounds cool. But I was like afterwards,
I was like, Nah, there's no way anyone's like doing
this or like making this. And then when I seen it,
I was like, wow, this is like exactly what I
feel like the audience and like fans want. But I

(55:54):
was kind of shocked that somebody actually, you know, stood
up and said, well, this is what we're going to make.
This is what we're going to do video nasty. What
what about us for you made you want to get involved?

Speaker 3 (56:11):
I really liked the idea of it. It was very fresh.
I keep using this word, but yeah, I hadn't seen
that before, and I really liked the idea of it.
And then I'm you know, I brought Chris to the
table basically on it, and it was I love working
with him, so it was a great opportunity to do that,
and we just had a lot of fun with it,

(56:32):
and I think we're you know, we're quite pleased with
how it hits turned out. But that's a good example
of that wouldn't work in a film because it crosses
too many genres. So basically it's I would call it
a family drama, a thriller, a horror, and accomedy.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Yeah, would you agree pretty much?

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Yeah, So, you know, and I wouldn't be able to
finance that as a film because everyone would be desperately
confused as to who the audience is. And on television
it's a bit different because it's also set in ninety
nineteen eighty five at the time when Mary Whitehouse banned
got the Public Director of Public Prosecutions to ban seventy

(57:14):
two particular films on VHS, so it was early VHS years,
and they were banned on the basis of being violent, pornographic,
or blasphemous. So she've been had to go a couple
of monty pythons, and what was really funny, I think
in the archive materials you learn that actually most people
didn't even nobody actually watched these films. They just banned them.

(57:37):
There's a lovely moment where Mary Whitehouse is being interviewed
and someone says, you have you have you watched any
of these films? Oh my goodness, no, I'll have too
much respect from my mind. It make me laugh so much.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
It's you know, in the panel stage, is that is there?
It feels like a big undertaken to set something in
nineteen eighty five like that, because there's so many things,
little things that maybe a lot of your general audience
might notice, but you know, like the hardcore fans of
horror or or that kind of stuff of that era
of nostalgia, even maybe it's not even horror specifically, just

(58:13):
like they have this nostalgia for that time period. There's
a lot of things that you have to consider there,
like everything has to be exactly. Is there ever, like
a nervousness or whatever about that, Like we can't just
kind of I've seen projects before. People will do it
and they kind of have to. And like you said,
you'll notice all these glaring issues. But it seemed to

(58:34):
be I'm looking at it going. Oh, I completely believe
that I'm in nineteen eighties.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
We try to make it as authentic as possible. I
don't really really love budget, and I think there's a
couple of things here, Just going back to the question
about you know who it's for, really, I think it's
a TV series. It's BBC in the UK and Northern Ireland,
It's Urge in Media in Ireland and various other countries.

(59:01):
I think there's a nostalgic audience. There's an audience of
older people who remember the eighties and would find it
fun and would enjoy the family aspect of it. And
then I think, completely separate to that, there's a much
younger audience that liked the the horror element of it

(59:22):
and the fact that it's about three seventeen year olds
and their journey at this time. But the reason we
were also able to make it very very inexpensively for
how it looks, is because everyone loved the project who
worked on it, and that went for cast and crew,
and everyone gave two hundred percent. They were amazing, absolutely amazing,

(59:46):
because you know, everyone could see that there was something
special about it because it was just different and it
was felt good. And you know the fact that we
were able to we had an amazing art department who
and student department who are able to and here a
makeup department who are able to create you know these

(01:00:06):
this this really effective authentic authenticity was amazing. Really it
was great.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Is it the project itself or is it a skill
as well, like that you and others have to acquire.
I spoke to another producer and Irish producer a while
back and he said, you know, he kind of over
time had to try and develop the skill to you know,
maybe get people to work extra or you know, get
favors from people and get this and get that to

(01:00:36):
bring some of these projects together. And he said, not
in not in a scammer this way, but in like
like I'm really behind this and I you know, if
if we get stuck in the medio this like, I'm
going to support you guys all the way and we're gonna,
you know, we're going to do this. Is that part
of it or does the project just kind of have
to speak for itself.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
I think it. I think it's also about how you
talk to people and how you communicate with people, and
that goes for everybody, you know, people adore working with
Chris and then though it be brought in another director
for two of the episodes, Megan Kay Fox, who was
brilliant as well, who was a much newer producer. But
you know, I think, you know, it's about how you

(01:01:15):
how treat people. But that should be live, shouldn't it.
It's not just about making films. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Could we potentially see more from that series? Or is
that something? Is it just going to be limited series
and kind of done or because I feel like there's
just from the audience perception and talking different people, everyone's like,
you know what, I'd like to see more seasons of this,
whether it's the same characters or just in the same universe.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Hopefully yes. And I must give a shout out here
to the Irish production company who created it and produced it,
who are called Deadpan Pictures. They are currently working on
the next a new series. They're currently developing storylines, so
fingers crossed that will move forward after that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
That's the intention you mentioned a few times, you know
about you love working with scripts and ideas and kind
of going back and forth and different things. Have you
ever considered or have you ever sat down and like
maybe written out ideas or treatments and things that are
specifically just from you or mind nobody else involved. Or
have you ever toyed with the idea of, you know
what I want to I want to make my own

(01:02:23):
film from the ground up, where the story is online,
everything is mine.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
No, I haven't, actually, I mean I have some you know,
at various points in my life thought should I have
a go at writing script? But to be honest, I
actually it's not like a massive, massive burning desire for me.
I love working with writers, you know. I think I'm
quite a good sounding board and I'm probably better suited

(01:02:50):
to that whether there's someone who's a better writer than me.
I mean, I have written treatments, but they've usually been
treatments based on ideas, because sometimes sometimes writers are really
good at writing scripts and the absolute rubbish at writing
treatments because it's a completely different skill. So I have
written treatments, but they've been based on on the writer's
ideas in the past. So no, I'm not. You know,

(01:03:11):
I don't have a burning desire to be a famous
writer myself.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
I have a handful of questions for that, of course.
Quick fire once, do you have any comfort movies movies
that you find your severy watch and doesn't even have
to be within horror in any genre that like you
would stick on in the background or have watched way
more times than others.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Do you know what one of my favorite films not
many people have seen over here is a Christopher Guest
film called Waiting for Guffman. Have you ever seen it?

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
I don't sound in bood. I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
It's brilliant. Yeah, it's about this a small small town
in America, mid America, and it's about all the characters
who live in this little town. You know, there's Parker
Posi who works in the Hamburger joint, and there's that
whole host of actors, you know who the guys from
Ship's Creek, the parents in Ship's Creek, Catherine Catherine o'horror

(01:04:04):
and oh and Eugene. I mean, just brilliant. They all
play different characters. A couple of them are travel agents
wearing There are a couple, married couple, and they're travel
agents and they wear a match in Chelse suits. I
have seen all these holidays and but I've never been

(01:04:25):
outside America themselves, you know, And basically they're all in
the am dram group and this big agent called government
is going to come and see them perform from New York.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
I have seen this. Wow, I need to rewatch that.
I haven't seen that. That's some mid nineties, right, yeah, yeah,
I haven't seen it in a long long time. What
does like an average day look like?

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
For you?

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
You know, I was going to get into all the
little nitty gritty things, but you know, I think a
lot of times people are fascinated by what's the actual
everyday look like? Is it a is it a work
from home to thing? Is that like having to sit
at a desk? Is a constant phone calls? Meetings? What
does an average day of a producer, a working producer
look like?

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
Every day is different. To be honest, I do a
bit of working from home these days because I had
to give my office up of the pandemic unfortunately. But
I like, as I said, I like being with people,
and so I go into town a lot. I live.
I'm based in London, and I have meetings, face to
face meetings with people, and I sometimes sit in a
couple of different places in town, like at BAFTA or

(01:05:30):
somewhere else, just to sit and work for a bit.
To be away from home. It can be zooms, it
can be working on a script. It could be breaking
a script down and doing a schedule, looking at budgets,
looking at finance plans, talking to financiers, all those things.
And then when you get something going, then I'm on

(01:05:51):
my own projects. I'll be the set producer, and I'm
on the set. I mean not necessarily sitting on the
set all the time, although I did do that on
Video Nasty, but close to the set and available, and
I find that works really well because I can have,
you know, a good sort of two way conversation with

(01:06:11):
the director. Sometimes the director needs a bit of help
with something or whatever, you know, or somebody does. So
then i'm you know, I'm very tied up with the
prep and the shoot. And then in post production it'll
be you know, going to look at cuts, going to
the sound mix, going to the ADR for the actors.
That's when they do their a voicing and things like that.

(01:06:34):
So it's it's I never have two days the same,
to be quite honest. I'm also I also personally sit
on a number of industry committees, so I do quite
a lot of that kind of stuff as well.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
I kind of love that. I love the idea that
no two days are the same when you're on set,
you know, and you say like things like if anybody
needs any hanger, if there is an issue or whatever,
what exactly? I've heard that a lot, But what does
that actually look like? What could you take end up
doing an sets?

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
Let me think of an example.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
I know the answer is probably anything and everything. Is
there any specific?

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
Well, it could be perhaps an issue with an actor,
It could be someone with a personal issue and it's
stopping them working or something. It could be that the
director might be worried about a particular aspect and that
I can talk with them and we can talk it

(01:07:33):
through and see how we can solve something.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
We've had quite a few of those. Yeah, a sounding
board perhaps, Yeah, Honestly, it can be anything. It's a
lot of problem to give specific specific of course, I
don't know, yeah, of course, but it sounds like a
lot of private not for me a by other people people.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
It sounds like a lot of problems solve them. So
I assume you've got to be I do.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
A lot of problem solving for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, And I would imagine then that comes
with having to be pretty organized right yourself, to have
everything kind of I have sort of one thing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Actually, if, for example, you've got your schedule for the day,
and your schedule overall is very tight, you have to
achieve that day and you're not going to what do
you do? That's a good example. So then I will
chat with the director about how we're going to play this.
What's the most important, you know, how about concentrating on

(01:08:31):
this aspect of the sequence, and then whatever time left
we can do these other bits. Kind of that kind
of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
If you could collaborate with a filmmaker living or dead,
is there anybody that sticks out in your mind as
one that like, oh yeah, I would have loved to
have worked with them, or even a current person that
doesn't have to be somebody who's passed away or anything.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
Oh yeah, that's a really really hard question. I don't know,
it's I mean it, it's difficult because even the you
don't know how what kind of relationship you would have
with a director who might be an amazing director, but
you might not actually like them. I've heard, so I
think I don't I can't really answer that question, you know,

(01:09:17):
I know, I've working with Chris. There are some other
filmmakers I'm really enjoying working with. No, I don't. I
can't really answer that. Qus too hard that one.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
This is probably going to be like asking somebody to
pick like their favorite child. But do you have any
personal favorite films from your own filmography or maybe a
project that holds a special place in your heart like
that sticks out. Not I'm saying that it was better
than the others, or worse than the other or anything,
but just a moment maybe in time where you're like,
that moment was really I think back to that family, Yeah,

(01:09:51):
I think.

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
I mean, certainly Triangle Triangle. I think he is a
really amazing film. And when I think back about how
we mernaged that, it was pretty crazy. We shot that
born in Australia on the Queensland on the Gold Coast,
and that was there were some quite funny stories from that.

(01:10:16):
I remember we had to we needed a ship from
I think it was nineteen twenty six and it was
meant to be the ghost ship that arrives through the
mist in the middle of the ocean, and we couldn't
find a real ship, and so we said we're going
to have to build the ship. And then we said, okay, well,
how are we going to do this? So we worked

(01:10:36):
out that we could build some of the exterior of it,
and then we found this long bit of land that
stuck out into the ocean, and somebody said, oh, you
need to build the ship in the car park of
the studio, and I was like, no, the studio car
park is surrounded by trees and buildings. Can you imagine

(01:10:59):
the cost of the visual effects. We're supposed to be
in the middle of the ocean with nothing around. So
they said, okay, let's what we could do is build
half this boat, this liner ocean going liner on the
end of this long spit of land sticking out into
the sea, which would give us a scope all around us,

(01:11:22):
like one hundred and eighty degrees of clear open ocean,
which will save enormously on what was then at that
period a very very expensive plan for visual effects. If
you did it now would be cheaper. Visual effects are
a bit cheaper because there's different ways of pulling them now,
but then it was very very expensive to do that
sea stuff and the completion guaranteur. So a lot of

(01:11:45):
films have a completion bond or a completion guarantee, which
is basically people who come in and supervise the way
you run the production, not on a creative level, but
on a budget level, to make sure that you deliver
the film as perscript to the financiers that are giving
the money for it. And so it's about achieving that

(01:12:06):
only from their point of view. And the Australian Completion
Bond Company absolutely had heart failure at the idea of
building this boat on the end of this long spit
of land we build the gales and the wind and everything,
and we thought it and in the end we did
it and it worked superbly and honestly we wouldn't have

(01:12:30):
been able to afford it in the car park literally.
So we only had one accident and that was when
we were building it and there was something called a
king tide, which is a freak a freak wave or
a king wave or something. It was a freak wave
that came really high up in the air, just one

(01:12:52):
and landed and killed our generator. That was for the
construction team as they built the boat. But apart from that,
it was it went superbly well and it worked very well.
So what we did was we built half the liner
and then when we finished shooting that, we picked it
up and turned it round and shot the other Wow,

(01:13:13):
they're giving you eight secrets now. And then the corridors
were bf ectset extensions. All the long corridors on the
outside were the effectset extension EXCEET extensions. So yeah, so
there's lots of tricks that you Yeah, I'll never ever
forget that because the fighting that went on on that
production because everyone was just so terrified of what But

(01:13:37):
then also when we were filming out on this boat
on the end of this log's bit of land and
we were quite high up over the sea, suddenly whales
would appear. And was always dolphins and turtles, but then
whales suddenly came and they came right up to us
because they recognized they were on their journey south to
Breed and they recognized that this wasn't normal, what was

(01:14:00):
this thing here? And they literally would come up and
have a littles and never on and see what we
were domming. And it was incredible, But unfortunately we kept
all whales and everyone would rush to the edge to
guys supposed to be filming it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
Is that you know, you mentioned about somebody kind of
stepping in and kind of overseeing the budget and how
it's been spent to make sure and everything is like
a one. I guess in their perspective, can you actually
lose battles in that sense as well? Can they come
in and go, no, there's no way you guys are
building half of an ocean liner.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
Oh yeah, absolutely, because they're representing the financiers and it's
the financiers money. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, because.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
It seems like quite an ambitious, like amazing to hear,
but that seems like crazily ambitious to be like, yeah,
we're just going to build half the ship off of
a piece of land and then we're going to flip
it and going to do a thing. And it worked perfect.
You could never tell, I don't think at all.

Speaker 3 (01:14:54):
I know you can't, can you. I know I'm very
pleased with it, but yeah, I mean it could have
gone horribly wrong, but we we were very fortunate. And
apart from the one King Tidith, the other film that
I'm very proud of actually is the very first one
I actually produced raising the money, which was the Michael
Winterbottom Frank Watchraal Voice Butterfly Kiss, and that was really

(01:15:16):
We made that at a time when there was much
going on in the industry, so a lot of people
out of work, and it was literally everyone do six
jobs each, you know, kind of job on the production team,
I mean. And literally a friend lent me a caravanet
and we drove the country, literally drove it outsiders around
the country, and that was our office, a little mobile

(01:15:39):
office with funny little curtains and stuff. So and you
think back on all that stuff and actually it's really
quite cute, and but you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
Know, that was really well received as well, wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
It was very well received, And that's a cult movie.
When I came back from Ireland from shooting Video Nasty,
there was a deal on my table to re release
it in a special addition in the States. And that's
thirty years old now, you know, so as wow, this
is amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
That's going to be exciting, right that you can kind
of be your projects have been considered good enough. And
then also like they can kind of live on. They
get these new versions and like collectors editions and special editions,
and you know, you get to do new interviews thirty
years on and people actually want to pay good money
to see that.

Speaker 3 (01:16:26):
I think that's increasing. I mean, that's happening to us
with quite a few of their titles at the moment.
I think it's absolutely fantastic. I love it. It's great,
and you know, and I managed on Butterfly Kiss to
get Michael Winterbottom to do a new interview and Frank
Culture Boys to do in Your interview and James mccarvey
to do a new interview as well, so they all
went onto the as extras as well. On that one,

(01:16:47):
I think I think it was a it was a
box set of films about psychotic women. Well, really great.
I mean, I think it's absolutely fantastic that people people
you know, really like the stuff and I still want
to see it after all this time. And it just
also makes me laugh that I have a happier memory

(01:17:10):
of driving a funny little camp of van with funny
curtains around the country than the desire to have a Lamborghini.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
Yeah, it's true. Actually, do you think that that's something
that or professionally, do you ever think about that, like
the idea of your movies getting these special editions and things,
Because I definitely feel like that it's having a kind
of a Vinyl take now as well with these kind
of bootique labels that are releasing these really like intricate

(01:17:42):
and like jam packed with special features and new commentary
tracks and things like that. Is that something you think
about or you just kind of wait for those ideas
to be kind of flowed across.

Speaker 3 (01:17:52):
I mean, it just happens. I can't really think about
it because I'm not in control of that. It's the
distributors that decide. We know who that audience is and
we want to do it, you know, and then we
will always help them, so we do a lot of
I mean, I've done a lot of work with Umbrella
Entertainment in Australia at the moment because they've actually done
limited editions of Greek Severance and Triangle, so you know,

(01:18:14):
we've been working with them quite extensively on those. And
then also I met up with them in Berlin, which
was lovely because their headphone was over such you know,
but I don't and you know, it's not like you go, oh,
let's make a cult version of that, because it's yeah,
it's not my control to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
Yeah, I guess going forward, then what can people expect next?
And for you you know, as a producer, What's is
there like a dream project? Is there something that really
sticks out that you feel like, you know, I have
to do this before I call it a day.

Speaker 3 (01:18:49):
I've got a number of projects I am trying to
finance at the moment, and they're all completely different from
each other. There is Creep reboot, which is a reimagining.
There is a very low budget horror film with a
debut female filmmaker I really want to do. And then
I've got a teen comedy. And then I've got an

(01:19:09):
adaptation of a book which Adrian Lester, the actor, has
adapted and is going to direct, which I rarely really
which is a thriller. It's a different audience again and
it's but it's also a very human thriller with a
subtle political message beneath it. And then separate to that,

(01:19:31):
I've got a really out and out thriller that's rehab
on a boat called Seahba. So you know that I'm
working on all those projects at the moment because you
just don't know what's gonna go next, and you can't
have one project. I mean, you'd start after death if

(01:19:52):
you had want, you know, And obviously if something comes
forward and gets financed, that will get the priority and
then I'll carry on work. I mean, none of them
have a sort of shelf life. They're all projects that
won't run out, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's the best place that people can
kind of keep up today? Is it danfilms dot com
or is there anywhere else you'd like to direct people
where they can kind of I guess keep an eye
on what may be common.

Speaker 3 (01:20:20):
Do you know what I need to get better at
this stuff? Danfilms dot com has has information on it,
but I need to start properly posting information and I'm
planning on doing that very soon, so you know, obviously Instagram.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
And yeah, the links will be down below in the
description for anybody who wants to check that out. Because
I definitely feel like people are becoming more and more interested,
not just with the projects coming out, but a lot
of times now, like the people behind the projects, the stories,
the lore, if you want to call it, that, people
are becoming increasingly more fascinated they think with that. This

(01:20:55):
has been a pleasure, Julie. I would love to do
this again sometime in the future, obviously, when things go
along the line with Creep, I would definitely love to
talk more about that and find out more.

Speaker 3 (01:21:07):
Well, I've invited you to the set and I mean it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
Well, I will definitely take you up on that. That's
something that I won't pass up. Final question in this,
I know it's not necessarily all you're interested in or
all you're about.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
There's many different aspects of a film I think that
you were involved in and enjoy. But if we could
just specifically talk about horror and it can be from
a fan perspective or I guess a professional perspective, But
why horror and what does it mean to you?

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
I think people love to be scared. We all love
to be scared, don't we. I mean we say we don't,
but we do actually, and it gets all the juice
is going. But as I said earlier, it's for me,
it's got to be a clever story. It's got to
be it's about the story and the characters, not thin
boring and interesting characters. Interesting characters in a dangerous situation

(01:22:00):
is basically what it is, and enough told in a
fresh way. That's what I really love about it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
Yeah, I love that, Julie. Like I said, it's been
a pleasure. I wish you all the best. I'm for
everyone listening. Check the linkstay belong the description and you'll
be able to find ever you can keep up today's great.

Speaker 3 (01:22:16):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
Thanks for listening to another episode of Class Harrorcast. Stop
the CHC podcast at classharror Cast dot com at first
Class Horror, on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, or on Twitter
at Class Underscore Horror. The CCHC podcast is hosted and
produced by Aaron Doyle and is an FCH production

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From Subway Slasher to Time Loop Madness – Julie Baines on Cult Horror

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Subway Slasher to Time Loop Madness – Julie Baines on Cult Horror