freds tuffa filmer redux italien asien snusk sverige annat intervjuer länkar index
En man och hans videokamera
- Thomas Lawes om Demagogue, filmindustrin och dataspelI min lokala videobutik har dom en avdelning med importfilm, och på nåt outgrundligt sätt hamnade lite Screen edge-filmer upp där. Vad är då Screen edge? Jo, ett engelsk bolag som ger ut filmer som oftast är filmade på direkt med videokamera och för en sanslöst låg budget. På vissa av dessa syns det väldigt väl, men andra har en högre klass. Som till exempel Demagogue. Jag har recenserat den på ett annat ställe på den här sidan, och givetvis kändes det helt rätt att då intervjua Thomas Lawes, regissören till denna bisarra film. Så nu är den här, ännu en intervju!
"Mostly we went for the funny side. We did want the first scene to have an impact though. We wanted to make it semi-realistic and found out about the
correct procedure for caesarean section. Then the doctor deliberately ignores it and just cuts her open without bothering with an anaesthetic. It makes the scene much more brutal"Ja, jag hade inte koll alls på om detta skulle vara en rolig film eller en "seriös" sak, men efter förtexterna så visade det sig att detta var en riktigt blodig splatterkomedi med inslag både av Hong Kong/Peter Jackson och klassisk brittisk humor. Liksom alla andra så började Thomas med att göra hemmgjorda filmer med den kamera som fanns till hands.
"I started making movies because some friends had been lent a video camera over the summer and when I went round to visit they were just filming each
other getting drunk and farting. I said 'Since there's a camera about why don't we make a proper movie?' They all agreed and we made a really shit 20 minute movie called Camping in Hell which was actually edited by stopping and starting the camera and filming everything in sequence! My mothers always up for a bit of gore. After we covered her in blood she went to the local pub for a drink. She looked like a hit-and-run victim!"En videokassett med Camping in hell syns faktiskt på ett ställe i filmen, men det får ni ta och leta reda på själv...det är för jobbigt att förklara...eller kanske inte. Thomas och hans kollegor är uppenbarligen väldigt inspirerade av Peter Jackson, men enligt dom själva så verkar deras beundran mest ligga hos mästaren George A. Romero och hans Day of the dead, en film som liksom denna utspelar sig mycket i en bunker. Men även en annan inspirationskälla kan man hitta. Ett visst dataspel verkar vara väldigt påträngande under vissa av actionscenerna.
"It is exactly based on Doom. We even refer to it as doing the 'Doom Shot'. Myself and Adam Trotman are big video game fans and I'm especially into Quake 2. I'm ranked 300ish in the world out of about 2 million people. You really have to waste lots of time being a geek to get that high up in the rankings. I hope to take that idea further in the next movie, maybe do a whole scene from first person perspective. Just keep
cutting from one persons POV to another. Not just guns either. Anything from chainsaws to a lead pipe to fists would be a laugh"Underligt nog så finns det faktiskt verklighetsanknytning bakom filmen och man kan ju undra om inte Adam Trotmans far har rätt, kanske är det utomjordningar inblandade på riktigt?
"Co-Director Adam Trotman's Dad is into a religious cult called The Brotherhood of Light. They believe that hundreds of species aliens are already resident on the planet and all we have to contact them and they will
'save' humanity in some way. It's all based on this hilarious pseudo science that's half way between reality and Star Trek. The best thing is that Adam's
dad now thinks that we have been 'channelled' by aliens to make the movie for the benefit of their cult! We just wanted to take the piss!"Men börja en karriär med splatterfilm? Ja, vissa har ju lyckats, till exempel Peter Jackson som nu arbetar med en gigantisk version av hela Sagan om ringen-trilogin. Vad säger Thomas om detta, att gå från splatter till seriösa filmer?
I think it's kind of inevitable if you want a decent career. Making low budget horrors is good fun at the time but it's hard to make any money and people in the industry don't take you seriously. Probably my favourite Peter Jackson film is Heavenly Creatures. I don't want sound arty and not into horror because that isn't true, it's just Heavenly Creatures has a great
script. I think after a while you decide that the 'secret' to a good movie is a believable and gripping story.Problemet med sådana här filmer är att det oftast ser ganska billigt ut om man filmar direkt på video. Men tekniken blir mer och mer avancerade och snart är det mer accepterat. Videobolag som Screen edge och Coldlunch ger ut videoproduktioner och Hollywood har hittat andra vägar att få fram filmkvalitet på den vita duken.
"That is one hell of a difficult question to answer at the moment. I know that we will be seeing a whole lot more in the very near future. It's interesting to note that with Lucas shooting on video plenty of other people will do as well. Like so many things, 99% of art is dictated to by money. People by music on CD because they think that the quality is the best that
technology allows. There are in fact many flaws in CD recording and really the best sounding technology is large format analogue tape. The cost of manufacturing albums on tape is prohibitively expensive so instead we have CDs. Not because they sound good but because CD is the cheapest way to mass produce music. Lucas wants direct to digital movies because he can bypass
the film scanning stage and stay digital right up and till the opening night. He also wants to start projecting film digitally so the studios can broadcast high resolution movies to the theatre by satellite instead of
distributing costly film prints. The great thing for the low budget movie maker is that the current state of the art technology he is using for Star Wars will soon be mass produced and affordable by anyone with a PC and a Video Camera"Screen edge ja, hur kom dom i kontakt med detta lilla bolag?
"I can't remember how we originally found them. I think that Adam had bought a film on their label and we sent them our previous movie Rhino Bitch on the
off chance that they might be interested. And guess what? They weren't. But they did say that if we made a movie that was feature length instead of Rhino Bitches 35 minutes then they would be interested. So basically that's why decided to write Demagogue"Nästa projekt då? Ja, det verkar ju inte bli nån skräck- eller Sci-fi film utan istället en riktigt smart gangsterkomedi med rapp dialog och en skön stämning. Kanske nåt som är perfekt i vågen av Lock stock and two smoking barrels?
"Family Fortunes is a slight change of tack for us because it's comedy crime thriller as opposed to out and out gore. My sister (Rachel Lawes) and I have
spent a lot time writing the script, trying to not just make it funny but also get the narrative, pacing and the sub-text all in place. Even when you tell people that you are doing a movie just for fun and entertainment people deconstruct and read more into it than you ever intended, so we really want to make Family Fortunes film student proof! I am trying to get backing at the moment because I suspect that when I do the budget it will cost more than a million pounds. And there´s one place to go: Cannes! Cannes is absolutely the best laugh I have all year. It's really hard work during the day if you have a lot of meetings and are trying to get stuff done, but you meet so many cool people and learn so much about the movie industry that you have to recommend it to anyone who wants a movie career. I have been three times now and hope to go back next year"FA