Blackwood: Adam Wimpenny Interview

15th July 2014

We spoke to Adam Wimpenny, director of Blackwood.

How did we get to Blackwood?

I’ve worked as a TV director for the past 13 years ever since leaving university, but always wanted to make a film and thought I’d better stop talking about it and do something about it. I teamed up with a writer (Joe Hill) and a producer (Adam Morane-Griffiths) and we started developing scripts together. We felt we had to be smart about what sort of film we should make for our first feature and we kept on coming back to a ghost story. We knew we’d only have a modest budget to work with so keeping a story mostly contained to an atmospheric country house meant we could put our energy into telling a good story rather than worrying about logistics. It also gave me lots of opportunities as a director to play as it’s very satisfying building moments of suspense. Besides, I’ve always loved supernatural thrillers, I think it’s a direct response to growing up in a creaky old farm house in Yorkshire. I spent half my childhood thinking something was living in the attic.

Was it tough to put together?

Having lived through the experience I’m frankly amazed films ever get made. It’s like trying to climb a mountain whilst people at the top are throwing rocks at you. Making a film has been the most rewarding thing i’ve ever done but it really does take a lot of perseverance. Firstly, It takes a great deal of time to get the script into a shape that your happy with, after that begins the mysterious process of raising finance, that’s also a minefield. Having worked in TV I’ve been spoilt. As a director I usually get a phone call with someone offering me the chance to direct something and all I have to do is say yes or no. With film it’s a very different story. It takes a great deal of time and diplomacy getting the money together and it’s such a fragile thing. It’s like building a house of cards, If just one piece falls away you can find yourself starting over. Seeing Adam the producer putting it all together has given me a new found respect for film producers.

Before we made Blackwood we’d made a short film called ROAR which starred Russell Tovey. It was a twisted little thriller about a key cutter and it performed well on the festival circuit. In turn, that short film helped us enormously in getting the momentum we needed to make the feature film. It gave the financiers the confidence in us as film makers and showed that we understood the genre. Off ROAR’s success I was also lucky enough to be signed to WME, the American talent agency. I’d really advise any film makers struggling to get their fist feature up and running to make a short film in the same genre as their feature script to use as a calling card.

What was your first day on set like?

I felt surprisingly relaxed. I’d been waiting so long to make a film and finally it was actually happening, so I was excited more than anything. The big difference I noticed was that everyone knew who I was and I kept on hearing my name used a lot! TV is a bit more relaxed and as a director I’ve found myself increasingly playing second fiddle to the producers, but that day I felt like I’d arrived on the set as a director with a capital ‘D’. I quickly learnt that from the moment you step out of your car in the morning to leaving last thing at night you have to be on your game as theirs a 1001 questions that need answering, so preperation is key. I was also really helped by the fact that i’d worked with quite a few of the cast and crew before on different projects, so having friendly faces around the set did make me feel more at ease.

What do you want people to take from the film?

I hope the audience enjoy the ride. We’ve tried to play with the audience expectations of the genre. There’s certain rules to the game when writing a ghost story, and hopefully we’ve played with some of the conventions enough to give the audience some surprises along the way. I also want the audience to be challenged by the characters. Sometimes their moral compasses as quite misguided and I want to have the viewer question their allegiance to Ed Stoppard’s character who is the hero of the film.
Any ghost stories you come back to/take inspiration from?

When I was a student we made a documentary about an old 13th century pub in the Cotswolds called The Ancient Ram Inn. We’d heard it was supposed to be one of the most haunted properties in the country and figured it would make a good subject for our student film. Four of us drove down there for the weekend and stayed the night to film our experience, bearing in before the days of the found footage genre! When we arrived the Inn was terrifying: All stuffed goat heads hanging on the walls and Scooby-Doo style oil paintings with eyes that seemed to follow you around the room. I don’t believe in ghosts but we did experience some very unusual things. The cameras kept on breaking down, the electrics were constantly playing up, the temperature in the ‘haunted’ rooms were always colder than the rest of the house and in the middle of the night we saw little glowing orbs floating around the room. We did a pretty good job of scaring ourselves half to death and we all ended up sleeping in the car. Making Blackwood brought back some of those memories and i’m sure that experience has fed through to creating the ambience in the film.

Did you know from a young age that you wanted to be a director?

Ever since I was little I was fascinated by films. I saw E.T. when I was about 6 years old and it always stayed with me. They used to sell programs for the movies back then and I remember seeing all these amazing black and white photos of Spielberg directing Henry Thomas. I had no idea how films were made but I thought it must have been one of the coolest jobs on the planet. Through my teens I’d often make short films with my friends. There wasn’t much to do where I lived so you’d make your own entertainment. Quite often my films involved killing off my long suffering sister or setting fire to something very dangerous and filming it. Looking back I’m actually terrified for myself, I can’t believe how many times I put myself in mortal danger to get a killer shot!

What are your thoughts on the future for filmmakers in your shoes?

I think film making is becoming more of a democracy. We now have all the tools to make a quality film at a much lower cost. However, it still requires a good script, talented performers and a sizeable crew. So making any film is never a small undertaking. I think some of the most interesting films are now being made at the low end of the budget spectrum. Because you can make a quality film for under half a million pounds it means that there’s lots of exciting new voices coming through. The problem I’m often seeing is that new film makers who have a break-out low budget film are getting propelled into the studio systems to head up these huge tent pole movies whilst they’re still growing as film makers. It’s very exciting for those involved but once those film makers are in the system they are no longer making their own authored pieces so the audiences may be missing out. Hey, it’s a high class problem to have though.

So what are you working on at the moment?

We’re just getting ready to release the film on August 1st and we’re in the process of setting up our next film with the same team. It’s a conspiracy thriller called The Mandrake Experiment and we’re looking to shoot it in Singapore early next year.

Are British films in a good place right now?

I think we have a huge talent pool. We’ve got all the resources right on our do step to make world class films, look at all the talent that is coming here from the US to make their studio pictures. I just hope that in the future we get to make more of our own home-grown genre movies that can compete with the output from America.

Check out some moody stills here.

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