This Mourning (2019)
Director: Molly Brown
Writer: Molly Brown
Starring: Molly Brown, Michael Fausti, Helen Frederick, Cy Henty, Michaela Hunt
When the television set in Ada Wilkie’s living room mysteriously switches itself on, Ada finds herself taking a part in a phone-in on the subject: Am I dead?
In a new interview in the series leading up to Horror-on-Sea Film Festival, I got a chance to ask This Mourning writer-director Molly Brown a few questions about what we can expect from the film.
Q. Your latest short This Mourning has been selected to play at Horror-on-Sea. What can we expect from the film?
It’s an animated parody of daytime television, only in this case it’s daytime television for the dead.
Q. This Mourning takes a surreal and comical look at the afterlife. What were some of your influences when writing the script for the film?
I’ve always been a “monster sympathiser.” By which I mean most of my horror-related films have been from the point of view of the so-called monster and have tended to present that monster as a sympathetic character. To give you just a few examples: one of my first shorts was the video diary of a zombie, in another the hero was a vampire who dreams of becoming a professional dancer, another was a mockumentary about the day to day life of a werewolf living in the London Borough of Croydon, and another (for which Mark Rathbone’s voice-over was recorded at the 2016 edition of Horror-on-Sea) featured Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs (1991) as a fashion/beauty/lifestyle guru with people who wanted to lose weight queuing up to spend time down the hole in his cellar.
So…. This Mourning is a ghost story from the point of view of the ghosts, in which the ghosts just happen to be daytime television presenters.
Q. Once again your latest short is a mixture of live action and animation which has become a trademark for your work, but what are some of your influences for the look and style of the film?
In the case of This Mourning, I was just trying to go for the look and style of the This Morning television programme, with the main difference being that the studio is in a converted crematorium in the middle of a cemetery wrapped in a kind of perpetual night.
Q. Did you experience any issues whist making the film?
The main issue was keeping the length down. The programme I was parodying is on for two hours every day, and it would have been very easy for me to do a full two hours. There are a lot of segments I left out – competitions, cookery items, many more ads, etc. – simply because I didn’t want the audience shifting uncomfortably in their chairs because they’d been sitting so long their bums were starting to hurt.
Q. Whilst some of the actors are shown in the film, others are only used in an animated form. What is the process of working with the actors when making an animated short?
Ah, I’m guessing that you’re referring to Pablo Raybould in the phone-in section because he’s probably the only person whose face is actually recognisable (in that one scene, anyway). But, though that is Pablo Raybould’s voice, that is not him appearing live on the screen, that is an animation based on a still photograph of Pablo (for which I cut out his head and attached it to another body).
Several of the characters – both male and female – are actually based on photographs of me. I’ve found that some people aren’t keen on being made to look weird or grotesque, but I quite enjoy it – the weirder and more grotesque I look, the better – so when it comes to making weird characters, it’s easier to just take a picture of my own face and do horrible things to it.
There are a few other characters based on still photographs of Pablo Raybould, Ben Manning and Cy Henty but they – like me – don’t mind having their faces messed around with so you wouldn’t recognise them.
But your question was about mixing live actors with animation, and though I didn’t actually do it in This Mourning (except for one very brief stock footage clip of a rocky beach, which I used in the scene where Frank drives into the lake), I do it all the time so I’ll try to give you an idea of how I usually go about it.
If at all possible, I try to make the animated character first, so that the actor I’m shooting live will have an idea of what the character they’re interacting with will look like. If the animated character has any lines and I’ve already got the voice-over recorded, I’ll play that recording in order to help the live actor time his or her responses, and if I don’t have the voice-over recorded yet, I’ll read the lines myself offscreen in order to give the actor the timing.
Most of the time I shoot live action scenes in front of a green screen in my living room, which means that backgrounds, furniture, objects, etc., will all be added later. So in order to play it safe, I’ll usually ask the poor actor to do everything several times facing in different directions: forward, sideways, at various angles… and then – fingers crossed! – I will have a take where the actor is actually in the virtual environment I’ve built and is looking in exactly the right place to make it seem like the animated character is in there with him (or her).
One of the films in which I mixed live action and animation was Sid and Samantha, for which which I shot the live action scenes at the 2017 edition of Horror-on-Sea. One of the first scenes involved the main character meeting a giant prawn in a bar, so we shot that in the hotel bar on the Sunday morning and it was so much easier than what I usually do because the background and furniture were actually there. All I had to do was tell Cy Henty (who played Sid) that the prawn would be next to him on the couch and he knew exactly where to look. Bliss!
Q. What were some of your favourite moments whilst making the film?
I enjoy the entire process, but if I had to choose one thing, I would say it was working with the great bunch of people who did the voices for This Mourning. It was – once again – a kind of Horror-on-Sea production in that most of the voice cast are people I either first met at Horror-on-Sea or have made and/or appeared in films screened at previous editions of Horror-on-Sea . I’ve already mentioned Cy Henty, Pablo Raybould and Ben Manning, but for the record I’d also like to thank Michaela Hunt, Susan Lowe, Georgie Lee-Robinson, Jamie H. Scrutton, Michael Fausti, and Helen Frederick. I should also mention Peter Lewington, who did the music. Though he’s never been to Horror-on-Sea before, he’s going to be there this year, so I am officially inducting him into the Horror-on-Sea gang. (Gooble gobble, gooble gobble, we accept him, one of us.)
Q. What makes This Mourning stand out as something different in the horror genre?
I have no idea if it stands out or not, I just hope people will enjoy it.
Q. What do you hope people will take away after watching the film?
I watch daytime TV so you don’t have to.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
I’ve just finished editing a parody of the 1990’s Japanese horror film, Ringu, which has music by Peter Lewington and includes a cameo onscreen appearance by the horror director Nina Romain, and is scheduled for its first screening in February. It’s my first film in Japanese – at least it’s partly in Japanese! – so I really should throw in my thanks to Mineko Arai and Lesley Downer for their greatly appreciated help with the English to Japanese translation.
I’ve also recently done a few seconds of animation and recorded a short voice over for a comedy horror feature called Seepers, co-written by Paul Huxley amd Melanie Gourlay (who also directs). Seepers is currently still in production but will be out later this year.
And I’m about to start work on the video for a multi-media installation by an artist and musician named Juliet Lawson. So that’ll be interesting.
This Mourning will be playing at Horror-on-Sea on Sunday 19th January at 15:00 hrs
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!
