Dead Air (2019)
Director: Geoff Harmer
Writer: Peter Hearn
Starring: Stacy Hart, Charlie Bond, Kate Davies-Speak, Johanna Stanton, Dan Palmer, James Hamer-Morton
In a new interview in the series leading up to Horror-on-Sea Film Festival, I got a chance to ask Dead Air writer Peter Hearn a few questions about what we can expect from the film.
Q. The horror short Dead Air has been selected to play at Horror-on-Sea. Can you tell us what we can expect from the film?
Female Punks on a plane battling for survival against gremlin like creatures. An anarchic proof of concept short that hopefully people will have a lot of fun with.
Q. What were your influences when writing the script for Dead Air?
Dead Air started off as a zombies on a plane idea, but not being a huge zombie fan it soon evolved into a band in flight fighting monsters. I knew from the very start that I wanted a punk rock drummer who couldn’t play anymore after being bitten on the arm, the arm becoming infected and then using her now monstrous powerful arm to fend off the oncoming monsters. That’s how my brain works.
This was influenced very much by Deathgasm (2015), Dead Snow 2 (2014), Evil Dead (1983), stuff like that. This combined with the gremlins on a plane idea with influences including Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) – Nightmare at 20000 Feet segment, Critters (1986), Gremlins (1984) and Looney Tunes cartoons. As it grew and developed other influences came in, but this is where it started.
Q. How did you come up with the designs for the monsters?
The idea originally was that we only saw the glowing eyes, but then I pestered Geoff to turn those eyes into puppets so we went to find puppet designers with ideas that ranged from The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986) to real life creatures like the Loris. We wanted influences from Gremlins and Critters too, but we didn’t want them to be clones of any of those. The girls that made the puppets threw their own ideas and influences in too, it was a very collaborative approach, as the whole film was.
Q. The film uses mainly practical effects with puppets and prosthetics. Did you ever consider using more CGI with the effects?
No, it was always meant to be practical. We wanted it to hark back to those 80’s Creature features, but still be very ‘now’. We would have done everything practical, but money for glowing green eyes on set only stretched to the puppets having them. Its funny to me the amount of people that think that the film is filled CGI creations when literally the only CGI is touching up with glowing green eyes on the big monsters.
Q. What were some of your influences for the look and style of the film?
I wrote it as a live action cartoon, with Joe Dante and Looney Tunes both very much influencing my writing and approach, so that’s very evident, but we both wanted that look of Vamp (1986) / From Beyond (1986) in terms of the lighting style.
Q. Where there any elements of the original script which were adapted during filming?
To a certain extent. The original script had a different opening and ending which we amended before shooting to keep it very contained. We lost a scene midway through due to time constraints but it’s back in the feature script. In post production, the opening of the original script was adapted for the cartoon opening credits, but all scenes including that opening and ending are back in the feature – in slightly different forms.
Geoff was very much a collaborator, rather than taking the script and locking me out of the decision making process. As a writer I felt very included throughout.
Q. Did you experience any issues during filming?
As mentioned, lack of time and money meant some ideas had to be truncated or changed, realising that we couldn’t throw gallons of blood around etc, which initially I was upset about, but i think in hindsight having too much blood would have spoiled the feel of the film. The only other major issue came on the last day when we had to shoot the cockpit sequences in a totally different way due to a wedding taking place in the same location and the organisers not wanting a ‘dirty’ film crew to be seen.
Q. What is your favourite scene in the film?
Ooh, tricky. I think the film really kicks into gear when the creatures get loose – and the plan to get out of the predicament is hatched but Dan Palmer’s delivery of ‘I’m not hanging about’ is priceless and makes me chuckle every time.
I think however my favourite moment comes when Stacy Hart’s character of the drummer has her mini monologue and Dan Palmer’s Manager just yawns, which was never written that way. It’s a small moment but a brilliant bit of improvisation.
Q. What makes Dead Air out as something different in the horror genre?
Is it different? I’m just writing things that I would want to see. What Geoff has done with the final film is very retro but also very current and I’m just pleased to be a part of a fun little horror that throws the kitchen sink in with practical effects, puppets, miniatures, female led cast and a great location.
Q. What do you hope people take away after watching the film?
That they’ve had a good time and that they want to see more. Hopefully enough people see the merit in it to help us raise awareness and funding for the feature.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
The feature of Dead Air is a biggie, but Geoff and I would like to do something a bit smaller in the interim. Not sure what yet, as there are a number of ideas vying for attention, but I know he’s itching to shoot something again and I’m really excited to get something else out there.
Q. If someone was looking to write their own film what advice would you give them?
To just write. To not ‘write what you know’ because often what you know is very dull, but to ‘write what you like’. Writing something you’d want to pay money to see is the best way to get excited about writing. Also, find a collaborator, either a writing partner or someone like a director or producer, someone whose opinion you trust and start bouncing ideas off of them. Things will then ultimately come to life and make you want to pursue making them into actual films.
You can find out more about Dead Air on the following Social Media Twitter – Instagram – Facebook
You can read my original interview with director Geoff Harmer here
Dead Air will be playing at Horror-on-Sea on Sunday 12th January at 10:00am
You can find out more about Horror-on-Sea and purchase tickets for the festival here:
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
