Bristol’s micro-budget sci-fi blockbuster

It’s got a budget of just £43,000, bristles with special effects produced using software that costs £50 a month to use, and its 22-year-old director recruited a cast led not by actors but YouTube stars.

If you’ve a yen for terrible clickbait-style headlines, you might be tempted to ask: is Bristol-made alien invasion thriller The Darkest Dawn the future of film? Probably not. But it’s certainly an important part of the future, thanks to St. Pauls-based Wildseed Studios’ pioneering of new ways of making and distributing movies by fresh talent.

In a nutshell, their pitch to young filmmakers goes something like this: come to us with a great idea and we’ll invest £10,000 in getting it onto the screen, mentoring you every step of the way.

Wildseed was launched three-and-a-half years ago by two business partners with extensive experience in what might be termed the traditional film industry: Aardman’s former head of broadcast Miles Bullough and BBC Films veteran Jesse Cleverly. They were both seeking fresh challenges and inspired by a new generation of filmmakers who by-pass the usual routes into the industry.

“What we wanted to do was set up a company that was able to engage with this incredible new generation of talent that could make a film on an iPhone, edit it on their laptop and plug themselves into YouTube,” explains Miles. “They’re production company, post-production facility and broadcaster all in one. They’ve got incredible skills, but no mentorship and no obvious path to taking what they do to the next level.”

Hence the establishment of Wildseed as a – ghastly term alert! – ‘content incubator’. Miles makes no bones about their nakedly commercial approach. It’s not for aspiring Ken Loaches, but people who want to make genre films for the widest possible audience: “We’re trying to create global entertainment franchises on micro-budgets.”

If that sounds far-fetched, consider this: just six years ago, Gareth Edwards, who used to work for Clifton-based graphics company 422, was conjuring up the effects for his ultra-low-budget debut feature Monsters on a home computer in his bedroom. He’s just directed Rogue One: A Star Wars Movie for George Lucas.

Wildseed has enjoyed considerable success with its children’s shows, recently bagging a Kids’ TV BAFTA for Lottie Bearshout. But Hungerford, the studio’s first foray into feature filmmaking, almost proved to be its undoing.

“We had no idea what we were doing, so we made every mistake imaginable,” groans Miles as he lists the litany of errors, chief among which was their failure to actually release the film once those positive reviews came rolling in. Consequently, it is only just about to break even on its £23,000 budget.

Nonetheless, Hungerford proved quite a calling card. Not only was it selected for the prestigious Sci-Fi-London film festival, but 19-year-old Drew Casson became the youngest director ever to have a film premiered at the BFI.

“When we told him, there was a silence at the end of the phone and he went: ‘Where’s that?’” laughs Miles. “It’s so refreshing because so much of the British film industry is part of the establishment, but he’s just a movie fan and he wants to make movies that kids love.”

With the budget nearly doubled and Drew back on board as writer, director, actor, editor and VFX supremo (using cheapo but highly effective Adobe Creative Cloud software), The Darkest Dawn takes another step away from convention with the casting of its female leads.

Bethan Mary Leadley and Cherry Wallis have never acted before. But they do have enormous followings on their YouTube channels, providing a ready-made audience for the film.

Even with an acting coach on board this seems quite a gamble. Was Miles not concerned that they might turn out to be rubbish?  “Yes. But then you get that with proper actors as well. We auditioned them and talked to them and coached them, and by the time we got to shooting we were confident that they could do it. To be honest, I think Bethan, the lead, is really, really good at it. I think she’s got a career in acting if she wants one. It could have been awful if she got it wrong. It was a risk, but we think it paid off.”

Crucially, Wildseed also spent a year developing the script. “The problem with British films is that people shoot them when they’ve got the money, not when the script is ready. And I think it shows. We get a lot of that here. People send us a script and say, ‘Right, it’s ready to shoot now’.  And we go, ‘Oh, really? We think there’s another year’s work to do on it.’ The good ones roll up their sleeves and get stuck into it. The bad ones walk away.”

Filming took place over nine days – six in Oxford and three in Bristol (mostly in the tunnels under The Island, doubling for London) – but there’s been no hanging around or pleading with distributors and exhibitors to get the film shown in multiplexes. Indeed, the cinema is no longer seen as the main platform for these productions, which are released digitally. “Soho is full of filmmakers walking round with finished films that will never see the light of day,” observes Miles. “Our point of view is that there’s no point in just raising money to make a film. You have to raise money to make a film and release it.”

Except, of course, that regardless of what they may say about revolutionising distribution, all filmmakers secretly yearn to see their work on the big screen. Fortunately, The Darkest Dawn has a champion in the form of the Watershed’s cinema curator Mark Cosgrove, who was so impressed that he’s booked it for a week-long run from January 1.

“I love what Miles and Wildseed are doing – making low budget genre feature films and going straight to audiences online,” Mark tells us. “But I think they have potential for audiences in the cinema. And this is an attempt to prove that! The Darkest Dawn has that edgy 28 Days Later quality – plus I want to showcase new British talent. This film has that in spades, both in front of and behind the camera.”

Inspired? Prepare your pitch and get in touch with Wildseed. Under a new deal with Pinewood Studios, they’re gearing up to make two movies a year from 2017 onwards.

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