Twisted Showcase: Part 2

I've already mentioned on Twitter that the 3rd episode of our first series is very personal to me, even calling it a Horcrux, to say it has a part of my soul in it. I'm only part joking.

  FEAR OF LIVING

 I've talked before about this film being written in order to film easily, one cast member, one location. And I've already discussed how the idea came about after a coffee binge. The original inspiration being what if you feared absolutely everything, even the prospect of being alive. Let's not hide this, Fear of Living definitely comes from a place of depression. There is nothing good in Ian Marksman's world, he is alone, scared and has nothing to live for. A comment on the Twisted Showcase website links the character to paranoid schizophrenia, I'll admit some of this probably seeps in to adhere to the horror conventions, but I was also writing from something far more personal which hopefully comes across in the second half of the film as it shifts from the horror genre to something far more heartbreaking and real.

 The shoot was very helpful for my writing, realising how much dialogue I could cut. Ziad El-Hady's performance made it instantly clear that I'd over written. He was saying sentences, paragraphs of dialogue I'd written with one facial expression. As we were shooting I'd sit next to the camera crossing out loads of dialogue and asking Ziad to try it without certain lines. In most cases they were the takes we used. When it came around to releasing the film was when it dawned on me, what the film was about to me personally, maybe  I was too close to it beforehand. But it has proved a helpful experience all around.

 Unfortunately, this episode has been seen a little less than some of the others. Maybe because we were promoting a new episode every week and people were still trying to find time to watch Episode 1 and 2, shooting starts on series 2 tomorrow and we're already discussing how we'll release the next episodes. But in the meantime, the great thing about films on the net is that they will always be there. Fear of Living will continue to be seen. So, go and watch it.