So Service is a horror film about the late night going ons of a convenience store, how did it come about?
It came about when I entered a competition. Bath film festival where they do a thing backed by IMDB, the IMDB Scripted Screen Award. I’ve entered for five years running. So I knew what they liked a little bit. I knew they like dialogue driven stuff. So I won, finally, and that gave us a bit of funding from Col Needham. He’s the guy that invented IMDB and he lives in Bristol right near me, weirdly. And then they give you not much time. So there’s a 10 minute script or maybe a bit less than that. About 10 pages and they give you a few months to make it. So the production was quite a shrunken thing really.
It was a big rush, basically big, big old rush. The thing is you’ve got a premiere at the, at the festival, which is which is just a few months later, which is quite, so it was quite a bong cause blur, lots of things went wrong as they does in film making. Um, uh, yeah. Yeah. And then it came about originally the idea because I worked at a supermarket for a good five years, I think. So some of the interactions are kind of verbatim really, and then I wrapped it in this weird genre package. Which is kind of funny horror I suppose.
How did you find working with those kinds of limitations, such as the run-time requirement?
It was very, very stressful. And then there are still things about the film, which I think from a technical perspective are quite a bit rough around the edges. And when I finished it I was a bit down on it in a way because it had been this really rushed process and there had been a couple of issues, like the sound designer had just done a terrible job. So we have to redo it and we didn’t have any money left so I sort of did it myself pretty much and I did the music. I hated to do it so I was kind of sick of the sight of it. But then it started getting into festivals and good festivals and better festivals than I have done before and you remember that it’s often the idea or the stories that’s the big thing. People can forgive technical elements and a lot of that is probably just in my head anyway I suppose. So it was stressful but it was really good fun process. I never want to do it with such as short time span. I pretty much produced it mostly myself as well. It was always almost like there wasn’t enough time to get the crew together. So it just sort of happened. But we are, in many ways, so lucky because I put out the call and then the main actor, Paul Clayton, who is a great actor said he fancied it. Which was a surprise. I was like, “oh brilliant” and then you go on his Twitter, Paul Clayton’s Twitter, and he is basically the character. All his twitter is him complaining about customer service.
And then I contact Allison, who’s the other character and she was up for it as well. So in many ways we were quite lucky. And then there were some things like the location. We can only confirm the location and nailed it down…and you know this film is one location pretty much apart for the inside the till bit. And we only confirmed that a week before the shoot. So you can imagine how stressful that was. If we didn’t confirm that, if that location had fallen through which it looked like it might, then we wouldn’t have had Paul, and we wouldn’t have had Alison, probably. So it was stressful, but it was ultimately rewarding and taught me loads and loads of new skills. So I’m happy with it really.
In spite of all the troubles, it’s a very aesthetically striking film. How early in the process did you start planning the look of the film?
Yeah, straight away. You can never quite remember when you make decisions. You think back and you’re like “Oh my God, when did we decide on that?” So I think quite early on when I talked to the DP Jamie Harding I said “Oh, I wanna give it a kind of off kilter vibe and shoot everything with like opposite and negative space, which is quite, quite trendy in TV. Mr robot and The Handmaid’s Tale, I think I was watching The Handmaid’s Tale when I though “That might be good in some of the shots where it’s got loads of room.”
So I think quite early on I said “We should film it all like that. Pretty much all like that. I was very indecisive in the grade. I went to a talk with Roger Deakins and he said “I always know how it’s going to look at the end, at the beginning”. And I thought “I should probably be a bit more like that because I got in super late and I was said “Can we just experiment?” So that was very late. But then the actual idea of shooting it all a bit off kilter was quite an early thing. For some reason my, with my personal tastes, I don’t like clean images very much.
I don’t like get on with them much for some reason. Sometimes I do it with other people’s work. I watched First Reformed the other day. It really works. But then there are some films, especially a lot of horror. I like grimy horror. So we poured a load of grain on it. We actually pulled it back a little bit I think in the end cause I went a bit too far. It looked like it’s gone wrong. But when I saw it on the big screen for the first time at Frightfest I was for the first time comparing it to the other films and I though, “Oh God, we have made it pretty grainy haven’t we?” But I was pretty happy with it in the end. Because I think from an image perspective that’s what I get on with; is kind of grimy stuff.
So as a director do you generally prefer to explore and discover on the day, rather than plan every detail in advance?
Oh, a bit of both actually because I think originally I wanted to be like Nicolas Roeg and not even do shot lists and just get on set and see what happens. I think a bit of that is good, but also Nicholas Roeg would shoot for like 12 hours straight and without giving his cast a break because it was all about him. Which I love, I love his films so much. But I was like “that’s not really sustainable in the modern world”.
So I think I do have to do a certain amount of planning and since Service I do a lot more planning on my music videos and stuff. With Service, I didn’t storyboard it, we just did a shot list and then I did come up with some ideas on the day and we shot some of those ideas. We’re very pushed for time on the day when we shot it, very rushed. So I’ve come to a place now where I really want to plan it well. Not necessarily completely to where you’d have detailed storyboards and stuff like that but I have to, have to, have to leave some time and leave it open for creativity on the date. So I think that’s really important and some of the best stuff I’ve made has been late decisions.
I couldn’t be like Nicolas Roeg, which is like completely no shot lists and you can just completely show up on the day and see what happens. And then I couldn’t be like Alfred Hitchcock who didn’t do anything extra or less. So everything that you plan to shoot you shot and then he didn’t shoot any more or less. I couldn’t be like that because I liked to explore on the date, but I now know that I need to have a firm plan in place.
Do you feel your work on music videos has influenced your style as a director?
I’ve kind of learned my craft from music videos actually. Because films take so long to get off the ground and you can’t sustainable be making films all the time, especially with funding unless you’re just rich or something. So music videos are really good way because the offer is like “here’s two grand and you shoot it next week or something”. They’re often like that. So when you get some momentum, you’re often just working all the time to just on set. So I kind of learned how to properly direct. But then in terms of influencing my style; definitely. Nowadays especially, I like my music videos to be like mini movies, even if they don’t have like a completely strong narrative, I still want them to have a vibe of the film. I don’t usually watch other music videos for inspiration. I usually just think about old films and stuff that I like. So I think so. And then also with music videos, we started shooting on 16 mil. So most of my music videos are super grainy and they look old fashioned in that sort of USP and that has definitely carried over into my film work. So in many ways it has.
Service seems to imagine the inconvenience of the supermarket as a kind of revenge against the customer. Is there an element of wish fulfilment here?
Oh yes. I’m glad you wrote that in the written review. It’s a good observation. Definitely. Cause I hadn’t really thought of it that way, in a way. As a as kind of wish fulfilment and revenge and the inconvenience being the revenge. It’s funny how you don’t think of these things until someone afterwards says it. Yes, I think so. Definitely. It’s funny actually because even Sheila who introduced the FrightFest Films, she said, which is what everyone says, “if you’re annoyed by self service tills then this is the film for you”. It was never meant for that. It was meant new meant to be “If you’re annoyed with customers being dicks…”. So in my head when I was first working on it, it’s kind of like a black mirror episode. I know everyone compares everything to black mirror, but this is like a sort of twisted black mirror episode, like a black mirror episode written by an old person. So you think “What are they scared of?” Inconvenience isn’t it? They get so angry about it. So the stuff he says is stuff that customers have said to me all the time and looking down at the name badge. So I think there definitely is. I didn’t think of it like that, But I think there is and having him naked in the till, getting humiliated to the absolute last degree. I never wrote sat down angry and , “I want to write an anti-customer movie” but there’s definitely an element of that. It’s funny that because you think, “Oh, that’s quite petty”. But I think that’s what a lot of horror film is, isn’t it?
So what’s the next project? Are you considering a move into features if possible?
I’m working on a script at the moment and I want to try and apply for BFI Shorts funding, which would be really good. It’s another horror film, another kind of funny horror film, but less funny. More horror than comedy. I think of services kind of like a fun film with some very weird, weird imagery. I’m quite happy with how like it starts off as being quite a simple concept about being at a self service till and then from a formal perspective it goes pretty weird. In terms of the pacing it slows right down and we go right into the till, which I think a lot of people don’t get on with.
But that’s my taste. The balance of comedy and then the kind of almost patience testing horror. I think in horror that really works. I love David Lynch and I love the The Witch. The Witch is really slow creeping imagery that really burns in your retina because you have to sit with it for a while, you remember it so much more. And a lot of modern horror is very fast cut which, which isn’t really my taste. I think one of the biggest influences for the whole thing was like the third series of Twin Peaks.
So this one is more less of a silly, fun concept and it’s more of a serious fucked up concept. But with a very human element as well. I would say it’s not an out and out horror film. It’s different. I’d love to do features as well. I really want to get one or two more solid shorts under my belt really, because I’ve got lots of music videos. But then whenever you talk to someone, a funding person and you’re say “I’ve got these music videos”, it’s a different art. Even though they’re the same in many ways, people who control funding very much see them as different, different things. So I feel like I need to get some more solid narrative that I’ve written. One or two more good shorts and then I feel confident. I’ve written most of them feature. I’m always working on that, my little project. That’s my ultimate aim. But I don’t want to rush into it because I feel humble enough that I know that I don’t think I’m at that level yet.
And then also lots of music videos, working on music videos all the time. That’s kind of like my main trade and then I’m trying to make more narrative music videos. I’m trying to meld my music video work with my short work and just find my voice so that people can watch my music videos and watch my shorts and know that it was the same person. Because I think I used to think of music videos as a job that you do for someone else. But now I’m trying to make it so it’s a Theo Watkins product.
Will there be more chances for people to catch Service?
Yes, it’s on at encounters, which I’m very happy with. If someone said to me “what are the two top film festivals you wanted to get into out of the ones you applied for?” I would’ve said FrightFest and Encounters, and it got into both of them. So I’m pretty much completely happy with that. So it’s on at Encounters at the end of September. The 26th of September at encounters in Bristol. I don’t think it has any more festivals on the horizon at the moment, but I’ll probably chuck it online quite soon because in this day and age, it doesn’t matter too much, really if you chuck something online. I mean, there are some festivals that are funny about it but I think most are tolerant of that sort of thing, unless it’s Berlin or something. But my aim for it was to get into some good festivals and it’s kind of fulfilled that already, so I’m pretty happy from that perspective.