Industrial Nightmare in New Short Film

Liam Fay-Fright is a man of many talents. Co-founder of content and PR agency, Semaphore, writer for publications, including shots, and film director. 

Fay-Fright has recently released a new short film, his second, which is a strange and compelling glimpse at how an automated future might look. Called Gloria, the film [below] is an 18-minute long production that was financed via Kickstarter.

Here, Fay-Fright talks to shots.net about the idea behind the film, how using Kickstarter is a no-brainer and why premature wrap-parties can be a bad idea.

Tell us about the origins of Gloria; where did the inspiration for the story come from?

Like all good stories, I met a guy in a bar. He told me about his real life job, in which he spent 12 hours a day driving around a windowless factory with his every move monitored by a robot with a sultry female voice.

It sounded like a vision of the future, so Gloria was hatched from the desire to take the idea of human automation to its extreme.

You financed the production of the film on Kickstarter; had you used that platform before and how was the experience?

It was my first time – I’d been waiting with baited breath for the UK launch of Kickstarter, I think we were one of the first things on there. I’ve subsequently used it on a couple of other projects, not least a campaign to save London’s Kemistry Graphic Design Gallery that was really successful.

I’ve been a backer on the platform too, so have seen it from both sides. Well-designed sites with good videos stand out; if you get a sense that a project has been created by dedicated, professional people it makes a big difference to how much you trust it will be delivered and your subsequent desire to back it.

Perhaps it’s obvious. But Kickstarter gives creators two invaluable resources: capital to realise your project up front, which is like manna from heaven for your cashflow, and an audience who are all rooting for you to succeed. It’s incredible.

You’ve directed a short film before called Drone; what lessons did you learn from that which you brought to Gloria?

Through no real plan, both Drone and Gloria follow a similar theme of a dystopian near-future based on working a job that would have unimaginable a few years ago. Drone was about a guy who pilots predator drones from his suburban US office.

I can’t claim any kind of prescience but that’s subsequently/inevitably become a rich territory for filmmakers: the conflict between the inhuman nature of the job and its very human consequences creates compulsive drama.

We shot Drone it in 2010 in Canada. Toronto is my favourite city in the world to shoot in – enough production cash percolates up from the States to ensure that the standard of the crews is superb, but there’s not quite enough work to keep them busy all the time – which means if you’re blagging together a team for an indy the quality of the people you can muster is excellent.

The camera team on Gloria was the same as Drone. The DP, Henry Sansom, is just incredible, and we lucked out with second unit director Matt Fisher, who is the best Steadicam opp I’ve ever seen. Luck and a plane ticket can get you a long way.

The location for Gloria seems perfect; where is that and how did you find it?

We were sworn to secrecy in exchange for the use of the space. Needless to say, the workers there are treated really well and don’t actually drop dead every five seconds.

What was the most difficult part of the production process?

Co-producing and directing is always tough. On the one shoulder, you have a conservative angel telling you to curb the budget and take out the explosions; on the other is a creative devil soaking everything in nitroglycerine, setting fire to it and screaming for the cameras to keep rolling.

Surrounding yourself with a production team, cast and crew whose judgement you trust is the only way through, or you go mental.

For health and safety, a lot of Gloria was shot at night, so the other major challenge is keeping the crew going in difficult circumstances. The trick is to keep their bellies full. An army will march on steak and ale, but will mutiny on bags of crisps. (We also had a premature wrap party the night before an 18 hour night shoot. That was a bloody terrible idea.)

You recently co-founded a communications agency; how did directing Gloria fit in with that?

Semaphore is a content and PR agency, we make and distribute film all the time, so I’m surrounded by talented creative people I can draw upon. That helps enormously when you’re pulling together a film project, as you’re only a phone call away from someone who knows the answer to your crazy ‘how do I do that and not kill people?’ question.

What are you working on next?

Gloria was an utter beast so I promised my co-producer the next one would be a two hander in the coffee shop. I don’t seem to be able to do things by halves though, so expect some sort of battle epic. In space.