"DEAD WOOD" IS NO PICNIC

How's this for a horror plot? Three ordinary dudes meet at film school, decide to make a supernatural thriller and are never heard of again! Crikey!

Actually, the trio are all still alive and breathing, although they were mired deep in the intricacies of their thriller for nearly four years and, at times, their senses are still a bit muddled. The experience of making your first feature can be that exhausting.

As producer David Bryant puts it: “I met Sebastian Smith and Richard Stiles while training at Newport Film School in South Wales and, a few years after graduating, we collaborated on a jolly short film called Dead Wood. Guy and girl are having a cosy time in a campervan; girl hears noise outside; guy gets out to explore; things go very wrong indeed. It was a great success on the festival circuit and the internet so we decided to make a feature.”

Obviously we expanded from the short – the original couple grew to two couples and the dangers in the great outdoors multiplied but we wrote the script to keep costs down, with victurally no supporting cast and mainly one location – the woods.

The biggest challenge was to bring something fresh to the classic slasher movie scenario of a group of teenagers camping out and coming to grief. We went beyond the “head” on gore for a creepier supernatural tale.

We were keen to get out and shoot but spent a lot of time in pre-production, working on the script and storyboarding, to be as prepared as possible. And we did alright during one really intense week of shooting and then several months of weekends for pick-ups and reshoots. But still we made a lot of mistakes, some of which we didn’t realize until we were editing. Then we had to re-write and reshoot again!

It was amazing how the structure and the pace changed despite all our planning. For instance, an unexpected amount of humour worked itself into the film but the suspense is still there and the audience doesn’t know if the stranger in the piece – a girl whose boyfriend has apparently disappeared - is victim or villain until the very end.”

Dead Wood is now making its way onto the Festival circuit and the boys can return their attention to their day jobs: David producing films for clients from corporates to schools; Sebastian editing for major TV channels; and Richard focusing on pop videos. Well, they can, at least, until they hear the cry from the woods again and venture once more in the darkness of feature making. Indeed, they have already begun looking for money for their next big idea. The woods beckon despite the terrors they hold.

Filed July 9, 2007