A New Hope: NG Magazine interview Steven Sheil

2007-04-29 16:47:29

Nottingham-based director Steven Sheil has just finished filming his first full-length feature film in various locations around the city. His fresh approach to horror flicks is starting to create a buzz in the UK film scene and the growing acclaim helped him win £100,000 to write and direct his new project Mum and Dad. Having trained at the same Intermedia centre where the award-winning Shane Meadows worked, Sheil is definitely a rising star and one to watch over the coming months. NG Magazine caught up with him on set at the former Carlton Television studios on Lenton Lane.
    
You’re based in Nottingham: How long have you lived here?
    
Steven Sheil: I came to Nottingham in 1992. I was born in London, near Heathrow Airport, where the film I set funnily enough! But I came here in 1992 and I’ve been here ever since. I wasn’t into film, I didn’t study film at university at all. I was on the dole for a few years and then did a training course at The Intermedia Centre in Nottingham.
    
NG: This all sounds a bit eerily similar to the Shane Meadows story…
    
Steven Sheil: Yeah well Shane was actually working at Intermedia around the time I first started coming and going. I finished my training there and by that time he was just starting to make waves. He was working on Small Time and TwentyFourSeven and was already on his way up and out.
    
NG: Did seeing Shane Meadows’ success inspire you?
    
Steven Sheil: It was really interesting at the time to see someone local actually making a feature film in the region, and subsequently you realise that it was very significant that somebody in the region was getting funding to make a feature film. It was also unique to see somebody who was making films in the region, rather than changing and going down to London and staying there to do shoots. So in that respect it was really inspirational, yes.
    
NG: How difficult is it to make a feature film for £100,000?
    
Steven Sheil: We had a certain set of criteria to meet with the film and the only flexibility we had was with the budget. We could have filmed it over six weeks or 12 weeks but we went for an 18-day schedule because we needed the best people we could get for the art department and special effects, so we could only have them for a limited time with our budget. We needed people who were professional and good at what they do. We’ve been really lucky to get a very good cast and crew working with us so we’ve been able to get it all done within the timeframe.
    
NG: Has it been manic filming to a tight 18-day schedule?
    
Steven Sheil: (Laughs) To be honest, it’s been really, really enjoyable and it’s been a really good atmosphere on set everyday. People have been asking me if I’m stressed and in a way I’m not stressed as such. It is tough because the schedule demands that we film a minimum of five pages and up to eight or nine pages a day which is a lot to get through. I have been exhausted but I can’t really moan about it. The production side of things has been brilliant I’ve got a fantastic producer and all of the art department have been flawless on set. They’ve actually made it quite easy and it has been stressful for them too, but all enjoyable. Everybody’s got on and we have good people. It has been difficult but it’s not been a nightmare.
    
NG: Mum and Dad is a horror flick. How will you create fear in the film?
    
Steven Sheil: We haven’t been able to afford to do a massive amount of effects for a low budget. I think most of the horror lies in the perversity of the family that the story is about. On the surface they’re quite a normal family but underneath they’re brutal perverts.
    
NG: Would you say the film is basically a twisted vision of domesticity?
    
Steven Sheil: Absolutely. There are cool effects but I like the idea of horrifying people without the film being about blood and guts. But there aren’t many gory bits, although there is a severed head actually, but not too much of it. For example, there’s a scene involving some teeth that the lead character finds and has to put in her mouth, but they aren’t her teeth, they’re somebody else’s.
    
NG: *grimace*
    
Steven Sheil: That’s it, you see! Everybody reacts like that! Even Olga Fedori (playing Lena) was repulsed by it because it is a really horrible thing to have to do. So we’ve tried to do things like that, to create horrible ideas. That’s not to say the film lacks full-on horror because there are also bits that will repulse the audience, but we’ve tried to create a mix of effects and ideas to scare them.
    
NG: You cite Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre as being an influence on this film.
    
Steven Sheil: When I came up with the idea, I thought that the archetypal American horror film seems to have some kind of twisted family, such as in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and even Psycho. But there aren’t any British horror films that have centred on this type of story. There’s a couple of British films made in the 70s about twisted families, one called Frightmare by Pete Walker, but they’re both pretty middle class. That was my initial pitch for the film.
    
NG: Are there any other horror influences on your work?
    
Steven Sheil: My favourite horror director is Dario Argento. Modern American horror is generally going more towards full-on gore and shock whereas Asian horror tends to be more perverse and they do actually go further in terms of what they deal with and what they show to the audience. It’s quite disturbing. It’s not all about the gore, it’s more about ideas. I’m also influenced by horror film makers who make things on a low budget. There are quite a few horror directors who have made films on a low budget or micro-budget, as we’re doing, like George Romero’s Night of the Evil Dead, so they’re inspirations too.
    
NG: Obviously the film won’t be released until late 2008. How would you like people to react when they see it?
    
Steven Sheil: I’d like people to be horrified, repulsed and disgusted (laughs). I’d like them to be gripped by it. I’d like them to be involved in the story because I tend to write scripts with quite deep characters and it centres on a family so I think people can identify with that basic premise. I believe that horror works well when it has an immediate effect and that’s one of the things I really like about the genre. I hope that my films get to the back of people’s minds and to the pit of their stomachs. I don’t want to permanently damage them though (laughing).
    
NG: It’s really rare to be interviewing a new British director who is determined to make horror films. Have you always wanted to work in the genre?
    
Steven Sheil: Ever since I started making films I’ve always been excited about the prospect of making horror. I think people can be really snobbish about horror audiences and think that they’re all lank-haired 17-year-old blokes wearing heavy metal t-shirts.
    
NG: *guffaws*
    
Steven Sheil: No, honestly, I’ve had journalists asking me questions that have that kind of perception about horror audiences. But there are a lot of women who are into the genre, there are a lot of Japanese people who are into it because of the films that are coming out of the far-east. It’s not unusual for women to like the horror genre. And also the perception that people who like horror are into the visceral blood and guts thing is often wrong. I think people who like horror like being affected by a film. It opens up your mind to ask the question: What was it about that film that affected me?
    
NG Magazine will bring you more information about Mum and Dad, including a future release date.
    
Interview: Michelle Dhillon
    
Images: Matt MacPake
    

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