Director: Ben V. Ngondo-Cooke
Writer: Ben V. Ngondo-Cooke
Starring: Sonja Doubleday, Ginger from Kew Little Pigs Farm, Ben V. Ngondo- Cooke
Synopsis: Private Investigator Gregory looks into the disappearance of Robin Ings, an employee of Naphtha Corporation.
Robin’s wife, Mrs Mildred Ings, seems to be involved in his absence and has taken over his correspondence.
The found footage captured by the doomed private investigator reveals the piggish horror within the Ings household.
In a new exclusive interview for Blazing Minds, ahead of this year’s Dead and Sudburied Horror Festival, I had the opportunity to ask writer-director Ben V. Ngondo-Cooke about his latest film, Hope This Finds You Well, which will screen at the festival on Saturday 24 October at 12:35pm.
Q. Your film Hope This Finds You Well has been selected for Dead and Sudburied. Can you tell us a bit about what audiences can expect from the film?
A. They can expect to see my morbidly absurd take on the scenario of calling in sick to work. Most of the film is a found footage horror shot on VHS, with Mildred’s eerie message serving as a voiceover.
Q. For anyone who doesn’t know your work yet, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you first got into filmmaking?
A. I’m a self-funded filmmaker. I don’t come from money, so budgets tend to be pretty low. I like to tackle different themes and genres depending on what story I’m drawn to, but horror/thriller offers the most excitement for me at the moment.
Some of my first memories are of watching 1930s films like Dracula, Frankenstein and King Kong. I’ve taken influence from cinema of all ages and cultures for as long as I can remember. I started taking filmmaking seriously when I was in my late teens and chose to study it at university.
Q. How did the idea for the film come about?
A. I was sat on the overground with my girlfriend, being all depressed about not having shot a film for ages. She recommended I write some ideas that I could just make immediately instead of waiting for the green light of a funding application. This was the third idea I wrote on the train journey.
Q. What inspired you when writing the script?
A. I was inspired by the impersonal and formal tone of professional emails. This was combined with influences of the macabre and morbid poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. Pale Fire by Nabokov is another inspiration that comes to mind. I love an unreliable narrator and I also enjoy writing poetry. I’d never combined poetry and film before so it was a real pleasure.
Q. What are the biggest advantages and challenges of being both the writer and the director on the same project?
A. The biggest advantage is being able to write it for the way I’m going to shoot it. Due to the found footage style I was more conscious than ever of tracking, zooming and panning during the writing process. This is also a challenge because it can disrupt the flow of writing when the director in me starts wondering what kind of lens I’ll use midway through a sentence.
Q. What were some of your influences for the look and style of the film?
A. I’ve been caught up with the VHS look for a while now. There’s something deeply nostalgic in it for me, being born in the late 90s. We also styled Mildred’s aesthetic as someone stuck in her prime years in the 60s, but even then she would have been a decade behind. So the production design and score drew influences from the 50s.
Q. Did the script structure of the film change from the original concept during filming?
A. The prologue and epilogue, i.e. everything not on VHS, was added later on in preproduction. Aside from that, everything remained pretty much the same.
Q. How did you go about casting the film, and did they bring anything different to how you envisaged the characters in the original script?
A. I wanted to cast someone for Mildred who could portray a split character. She needed to be sentimental and brutal at the same time. There’s an element of a performance within a performance that is very difficult for an actor to pull off. Sonja nailed the role and brought more to it with her ad libs and characterisations.
Q. What are some of your favourite memories from making the film?
A. There was a moment when I was making a whole roast dinner, which was both a prop and catering, while setting up the next scene. It’s nice to feel busy.
Q. What were the biggest challenges you faced during the shoot, and how did you overcome them?
A. The biggest challenge was the timing of the exteriors. We shot it all in one morning from the early hours. There were some shots, like you’ll see at the end of the film which we only had one chance to get right. Luckily I have prior experience being a 1st AD and Isaac, the cinematographer, was clinical with the camera.
Q. What makes Hope This Finds You Well stand out from other films in the horror genre?
A. The most unique feature is that the majority of the film is narrated by a voiceover of Mildred’s rhythmic message to her husband’s boss. We were often told at film school to avoid voiceover so it was somewhat liberating to make a film which is
pretty much all voiceover.
Q. What do you hope people take away after watching the film?
A. There is some deep melancholic grief at the heart of the film for people to resonate with, but ultimately an emotional release at the end. It shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The meaning of the film is up to the audience to decide. Most importantly, I hope it finds them well!
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
A. I do. I have written a couple of short films and wrote a feature which are in need of funding. I’m always in need of funding.
Q. If someone was looking to get into filmmaking, what advice would you give them?
A. I would just say have fun with it and be nice to people. Most of us aren’t going to be movie stars hitting record box office numbers. However, we all have unique perspectives to tell our cinematic stories. If there’s a story you want to tell, there’ll be
someone who wants to hear it.
Q. Where can people follow you and keep up to date with the film?
A. My instagram is @benvnc and my website is bvnc.co.uk
Hope This Finds You Well will screen at the festival on Saturday 24th October at 5:40pm. You can find out more about the festival 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!
