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“I feel you can tell a linear story, allow people to watch it,
and around that you can build other bits of information, other crimes that have been associated with the story that won’t have been seen.”
S omething new and, for many people, rather scary is lurk-
ing out there. The old prin- ciples of film production and distribution are being overtaken by the opportuni- ties thrown up by new tech-
nology. And one company, Extreme Motion, is making the most of it.
As their name suggests this is a com- pany on the move. In existence for only the last nine months, its three founders have enjoyed a meteoric success.
In that time, they’ve produced Urban Chillers, three short films which have formed the pilot to Universal Studios Network for a fur- ther 20 under the banner Urban Myth Chillers. The completed trio have already aired on the sci-fi channel in the UK, and on 13th Street channels across the rest of Europe and Latin America.
THE
WITS
“But,” Stillwell adds with a note of caution, “I’m at great pains to tell peo- ple that I’m not a horror director. Horror is what you see, like the spe- cial effects and the gore, but chillers and thrillers like ours are more about what you don’t see. It’s the fear of the dark, or the bogeyman hiding under your bed. I loved those stories as a kid, and always thought they were great fun to tell.”
If a fear of the unknown is a com- mon one linked to the classic urban myth, it is clearly one trait not shared by the folks behind Urban Chillers. ■ ANWAR BRETT
Urban Chillers and Urban Myth Chillers are originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture negative
Director Nick Stillwell and his col- leagues realise they stand on the threshold of something that is potentially very big. “We feel as though we’re rid- ing on the crest of a wave at the moment,” he says. “We have no idea quite where it’s all going to end, and we find that genuinely exciting.”
The difference between this particular production company and so many others to be found in and around Soho is in the genre spe- cific nature of its output - psychological horror - and the means of pre- senting it.
For while Stillwell
and his producer Ean
Thorley have back-
ground at MTV, an equal-
ly important figure is fellow founder David Court, the man also responsible for the internet content of the compa- ny’s website - urbanchillers.com. His involvement is crucial, as it enables the filmmakers to make immediate contact with their audiences, fans and potential collaborators in one fell swoop.
“What it’s given us is the opportu- nity to distribute and exhibit our pro- gramming ourselves,” says Stillwell. “That’s kind of fun. We’re also able to build a whole load of extra material around the film. So if you come to the
was just a piece of paper in the film. “People can take or leave whatev- er they want, and that’s great. If they
want to have a wire break, instead of a coffee break, they’ll download a five minute film and watch it over lunchtime. If they want to get into the whole ethos of urban myths then they can come to the website and there’s material on that as well.”
Extreme Motion is currently in pro- duction on Skin, co-scripted by Stillwell and writer David Reilly, who co-founded the website.
website you’ll see we’ve got three short urban myth chillers on there. “But we also have a whole lot of sup- port material, like case files, things that kind of surround these stories. So while the film is downloading you can go off and explore these extra things. To me this is what interactive filmmak- ing is all about, not giving the audi- ence a chance to change the ending.
“I feel you can tell a linear story, allow people to watch that, and around that you can build other bits of information, other crimes that have been associated with the story that won’t have been seen. So people get the opportunity to expand the realms of the film, they can enjoy the story but they can also go off and see where the first murder happened, or read the crime report from the third murder. Or they can read the autopsy report that
As with their other stories, Skin is a macabre tale that focuses on a par- ticular collective fear, an urban myth or legend given an original spin by these ambitious young filmmakers.
“Skin is about an artist who becomes a piece of art himself. He gets skinned, because he’s got a tat- too on his back and he doesn’t realise it was so valuable to under- ground collectors.
SCARING
Photos main inset: Director Nick Stillwell; from top: Naoko Mori in Rear View Mirror; web images for Urban Chillers and other product; Richard Cambridge in The Dorm Ean Thorley (executive producer), David Reilly (writer), Nick Stillwell (director) and David Court (Internet Content Producer); shooting The Apartment
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