Film: VIPERS’ NEST
Directors: Molly Brown and Howard Gardner
Writers: Molly Brown and Howard Gardner
Actors: (in order of first appearance) Georgie Lee-Robinson, Pablo Raybould, Molly Brown, Cy Henty, Howard Gardner, Ben Manning, David Fisher, Michaela Hunt
Synopsis: As this week’s group of wannabe entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to the Vipers, one or two things go wrong. Will any of them get an offer? Or even survive?
With The Southend-on-Sea Film Festival will be returning once again from Thursday 8th June to Sunday 11th June, I got an opportunity to ask co-Writer/Director Molly Brown a few questions about the film ‘Vipers Nest‘ which has been selected to play at the festival on Saturday 10th June at 4pm
Q. What can we expect from the film VIPERS’ NEST?
A. It’s an animated parody of the television show, Dragons’ Den (in which wannabe entrepreneurs pitch business ideas to a panel of investors).
Q. How did the idea for the film come about?
A. I first met Howard Gardner (an animator, musician, and visual effects artist) at a screening in London back in 2012 or thereabouts, and we’ve been friends ever since.
In early 2019, Howard and I were both working as camera operators on the live streaming webcast of a corporate conference and during a break, Howard suggested that we should make a film together sometime.
Over the next couple of days we spent every tea break and lunch break scribbling down notes – using a pencil and pad of paper we’d grabbed off of a table – regarding ways the ideas pitched on a Dragons’ Den type of show might go disastrously wrong.
Not long after, Howard became very busy with visual effects work for various post-production houses, and the Dragons’ Den parody was put to one side. Then in early 2022, Howard got in touch to say he finally had a bit of free time, and would I still like to do something with the idea we’d come up with back in 2019.
Q. What were some of the influences for the look and style of the film?
A. The most obvious influence was that we tried to make it look as much like the Dragons’ Den television show as we could… while still making it very different.
When we first talked about it during those breaks in a conference back in early 2019, the first possibility we discussed was to approach the parody literally and make the investors be actual dragons, but… I had recently finished an animation called Snake Charmer in which a couple of the main characters were snakes, so I suggested we change the dragons to snakes. (I guess I have a fondness for snakes).
The way we eventually divided things up was that I made the non-human characters and the backgrounds, and Howard made the human characters.
Q. Were there any elements of the original script which were adapted during filming?
A. The way the script worked was that Howard wrote a first draft based on the notes we’d made a few years earlier, and then I did the second draft (mostly just expanding it by adding a couple of extra scenes and characters).
Then, because it was going to be an animation, we sent the lines out to the cast, and everyone recorded themselves remotely. Once we had the audio files back from everyone, the script was pretty much set in stone because the animation (especially the lip-syncing) was going to be based on the audio.
Q. What were some of your favourite moments whilst making the Film?
A. Editing is always my favourite part. The reason I started editing in the first place was that I had written the script for a short film to be directed by someone else, and when the film went to the editor, I stood behind him so I could watch what he was doing. In very little time I came to the realisation that where a film is made is in the edit. A year or so later, I bought a book on how to do video editing and completely fell in love with the process.
Another favourite moment was adding the wonderful original music written and performed by David Fisher (who was also the voice of one of the snakes). David is a wonderful composer who has worked on a number of my films, and I would recommend him unreservedly.
Q. Did you experience any issues whilst making the film?
A. No. The voice cast was wonderful and Howard Gardner was a pleasure to work with.
Q. What do you hope people will take away from the film?
A. Vipers’ Nest is meant to be silly and fun, so my hope is that people will enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are working on?
A. At the time I am typing this, I have within the last week finished the edit on a short film mixing live action and animation. Howard Gardner is currently working on visual effects for a number of commercial projects and also doing live performances of his own music.
Q. If someone is looking to direct their first film, what advice would you give them?
A. My advice is to just go for it (and don’t worry about making mistakes because you will learn from them).
You can follow Molly Brown on the following social media Twitter – Instagram
You can follow Harold Gardiner on Twitter
The Southend Film Festival will run from Thursday 8th June to Sunday 11th June
You can find out more about the films and purchase tickets for the Southend Film 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!
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