Film Name: She-Bear
Director: Madeleine Mehlum
Writer: Madeleine Mehlum and Jasmine La-Rocque
Starring: Jasmine La-Rocque, Harry Groves and Tom Johnson
A woman is left for dead after an attack in the woods.
In a new exclusive interview on Blazing Minds, I got a chance to ask Writer-Director Madeleine Mehlum a few questions about the film ‘She-Bear ‘, which will have its World Premiere at Horror-on-Sea on Saturday, 24th January at 20:00hrs.
Q. Your film She-Bear has been selected to play at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival. Can you tell us what we can expect?
A. It’s a short silent horror-comedy, just a bit of silly fun really. A super low-budget project made by a small team of good friends.
Q. What were your inspirations when writing the script?
A. I’m a big fan of Horror-on-Sea so I purposely wanted to make something in time for this year’s festival, and we only had two months to get it done by the deadline. So we tried to come up with an idea that we could knock out quickly that wouldn’t require too much of a budget. I chose to make it a silent film because I thought messing around with audio might slow down the process of getting it ready in time. And since it’s a silent film we didn’t actually write a proper script, just a story board.
Q. Did you have any of the cast in mind for the characters when writing the script?
A. Yes, my writing partner Jasmine La-Rocque is the lead actor in the film. We’ve written a few sketches and things like that together before, and since we were on a tight schedule we knew that one of us would have to play the main character. But she’s got a better face for the camera than I do so it ended up being her. Tom Johnson is another good friend of mine and I knew I wanted him to be involved. He’s an actor and comedian who recently did a run in Edinburgh with a successful reboot of John Otway’s play Verbal Diary. We also wanted to work with up-and-coming actor Harry Groves because his sense of humour is similar to ours, and he also ended up bringing in a lot of good ideas that really shaped the finished product.
Q. What were some of your influences for the look and style of the film?
A. I love Hitchcock and Welles, black-and-white films and classic silent films, and I also love daft horror-comedy with intentionally bad effects like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004). And we figured that since we didn’t have a budget for special effects we’d have to focus more on camera angles and suspense. The original idea was to make it black-and-white but because it was actually shot in colour, I made a colour version of it as well. I couldn’t decide which one I liked better so I submitted both versions, and the festival committee chose the black-and-white one. After the premiere I might end up putting both versions online.
Q. Did you make any changes from the original script during filming?
A. Yes, we made quite a few changes as we went, mainly due to time limitations and the low budget. I don’t like working with a tight script anyway so we kept it pretty loose and improvised a lot.
Q. What were some of your favourite moments during filming?
A. The whole experience was great. We only spent about four days in total shooting so it was pretty fast-paced and a lot of fun. We made almost all the props ourselves which was also really fun, especially messing about with fake blood.
Q. Did you experience any issues during filming?
A. Yeah, the final scene was supposed to be shot at twilight but because of delays, we had to shoot it
quite late at night which turned out to be a bit challenging in terms of getting enough light.
Q. What makes She-Bear stand out as something different in the horror genre?
A. Well I mean, it’s a silent horror-comedy and there aren’t too many of those being made at the moment. My partner Lance Baldock is a musician and he provided the soundtrack, which also sounds a bit odd and unhinged. So hopefully the combination of these elements will make it seem a bit unusual.
Q. What do you hope people take away after watching the film?
A. That you don’t need a big budget or a lot of time – or a great idea – to make something happen, and I hope it comes across that we had a lot of fun making it.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
A. Yes, Jasmine and I are working on scripts for a couple of new shorts. Proper scripts this time with dialogue and everything. The plan is to have at least two new films ready for next year’s festival. I’m also working on an idea for a music video, a horror-themed podcast with Jasmine, and a local comedy night with Tom Johnson. I’ve recently taken a break from social media but I will promote these new projects once they start to take shape.
Q. If someone was looking to write and direct their own film what advice would you give them?
A. Do it! It’s so much fun. But don’t overthink it because then you might end up scrapping it before you’ve even started.
She-Bear will have its World Premiere at Horror-on-Sea on Saturday 24th January at 20:00hrs.
You can find out more about She-Bear and purchase tickets for the film 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!
