EX CATHEDRA/SUPER NOVA

Some trailers are so great, you wonder why they bother to show the feature. Ex Cathedra's makes you hope desperately that they show it lots!

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One reason for taking note is that Ex Cathedra is another daring film that has managed to get made outside the cold stone walls of the London media lock-up and it looks as sharp as a studio product to boot.

Not surprising really, when you learn that many of the young crew have been working in the North of England during the past 5 years.

Young crew? Yet five years experience? What is this?

Well, for starters, the producer, a girl no less – one Vicky Petela - is only 21 and the director, the memorably named Liam Andrew Wright, a startling 22, yet they have already made some 50 short films/music videos and two features.

Not that Liam has been at the helm for all of these. Instead, he cut his film teeth on the usual versatile fare, toiling from runner and sound recordist to cinematographer and producer.

Liam notes: When we were doing Human Residue, one of the most impressive films I worked on, I was inspired to do a big project myself, beyond anything we had imagined before. So, whilst I was still finishing off an English degree at the University of York, I started work on a feature film script.

The plan was to come up with an interesting and original screenplay, then shoot a concept trailer and hopefully find finance from there.

On Human Residue I saw how investors are much more attracted to something they can see on screen rather than on paper.

The University Filmmaking Society helped me to make the concept trailer but even so I soon realized I needed help and I brought in Vicky Petela to produce the film.

Shortly after, Katy Roberts, Dan Castles and Corrine Millson-Crane, three filmmakers who I had worked with previously, joined us to help co-produce the project and the company Firefly was born.

Somehow we all managed to complete our degrees and yet were ready to start principal photography a week after we handed in our final essays, having found the crew online and having traveled all over the UK for castings.

Once production started it was even tougher and we could not have done it without a lot of help from local businesses and we owe the biggest thanks to York St. John University in York, where none of the production team even studied.

This University loaned us most of our equipment on the simple proviso that York St. John filmmaking students were able to work on the film to gain experience. Oh, yeah!

The shoot, including a week of rehearsals and test runs, lasted from July 1st until August 28th with just one day in seven off for the core production team.

The goal was to make a film with high production values for a fraction of the usual cost.

To do this, we had to put together a proper professional crew and did so, starting with acclaimed cinematographer/director Mike Ritchie, all willing to work for free for two months on the basis of the script alone.

At times it was daunting directing these professionals, not only because of their generosity but because nearly everyone of them was older than myself.

And the lack of funds meant that when something went wrong, we had to come up with a solution there and then without throwing money at it.

All in all, I think that this only adds to your ability as a filmmaker. When you can’t solve a problem with money it forces you to be creative and think on your feet. There were times when it felt like it was all slipping away but we always believed in each other and at the end of the day we got what we wanted.

We now have a two hour high definition feature film with a great original story told in a way that is uncommon in the UK.