|
Your new movie Réservée
- in a few words, what's it about?
Réservée is essentially a snapshot into a couple's relationship, and we
get glimpses into certain significant events when they happen to be in one
specific spot, in our case, when they are sat at table twelve at the
Rainbow Inn. After your
past films were mostly of the horror and thriller variety,
Réservée seems to be
quite a change of pace for you as a writer and director - so what prompted
this move towards romance, and how does the genre differ in approach to your
usual output?
I felt like having a break from horrors and thrillers, so I thought I’d give
a romantic drama a crack. When I mentioned this to my actual real life
wife she seemed to find the notion of me making a romance hysterical and
was quick to declare “but you’re not romantic!”
With making ultra micro budget horrors a common approach to keep the costs
down is to set all the action in one location, so I figured why not take a
similar approach to Réservée, which is why 90% of it happens in the pub
restaurant.
What were your sources of inspiration
when writing Réservée?
I think us humans can be quite territorial. Like if we go to the same pub
we’ll often sit in the same spot until it kinda becomes ‘our spot’.
I like the idea that everyone has a centre to their universe which their
life revolves around. Whether that could be the family home or a
favourite restaurant or the local beach.
I’d pinched a few things from real life. Evan and Rhian start off on a
double date with other people and my parents actually met in a pub while
they were seeing other people.
The ‘bird poo burger’ scene was something that happened to a friend of
mine in real life. The bit where a group of lads in the pub egg them on to
kiss was taken from a real life date I had with my now wife. There’s lots
of little bits and pieces taken from real life that I’ve sort of
elaborated on and moulded into the story.
Do talk about your directorial approach to your story at
hand!
Directing-wise I try to do the opposite of micro-managing and say as
little as possible to not overwhelm the cast with information. I think the
best approach is to create a safe space where the actors can be vulnerable
and not be afraid to try things that might not work.
You’ve cast your actors for a reason, right, so I trust them to do what they
do best and make the odd suggestion here and there.
What can you tell us about
Réservée's cast, and why
exactly these people?
With the exception of Nicola Wright (who plays Rhian’s mum Olivia) I’d
pretty much worked with all the main cast before. I had actually
edited a film for another director (Mundane by Ignacio Masio) which Nicola was
in. I’d worked with Sammy Attalah, Denise Wilton, Sophie Karl, Anna Tammela,
Sarah Maddocks and Neil James a few times before and they’re always great.
I’d used Nicholas Pople in a docu-drama mini series called
I Killed Solomon Reid, and although his character was certainly unethical and
could’ve come across very black and white and predatory in that project, he
still brought out a lot of empathy to that role so definitely wanted to
cast him again in something.
On the film I made before Réservée
called Good Neighbours
we’d hired the lead actress through an open casting call. She turned
out to be, ahem, a ‘bit of a headache.’
Caitlin Cameron was also hired through an open casting on that film.
Although her scene starts Good Neighbours it was last on the schedule to
be filmed, and I remember on the car ride to the location that day thinking
‘oh God, what’s this one gonna be like,’ but as it turned out she couldn’t
have been easier to work with, was on it every single take, and is just a
genuine nice person, so she somewhat restored my belief in humanity.
Then when it came to thinking who could play Rhian I thought Caitlin was
well worth a shot from thinking back to a previous audition tape, and she
went on to win best actress at the Romford Film Festival and the
BIFFA-qualifying Unrestricted View Film Festival, so I definitely felt vindicated
in all our casting choices.
 |
You of course also have to
talk about Réservée's main
location, the pub, and what was it like filming there? And did you write
the script with that exact place already in mind?
I wrote the script with an imaginary pub and then started hunting on
Google to try and find something in the local area that could work.
The owners of the Rainbow Inn were fantastic. The film was shot over six
days total and five of those were at the pub. They were closed to the
public 2 days a week anyway so we could shoot on those days without
disrupting their business.
Do talk about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere!
It was a lovely atmosphere. Our crew was essentially just a hair & makeup
artist, sound recordist, 1st AD and then myself. It was quite a lot to
shoot in six days with fast turnarounds for the actors, but everything went
pretty smoothly without it ever really feeling super rushed.
Everyone was there for the right reasons. It was an amazing group of
people and hopefully that translates on screen with the finished result
too. The $64-question of course, where can
Réservée be seen?
You can stream Réservée for free on both
Tubi and Fawesome. You don’t need
to sign up or anything to either of the platforms, just search it up and press play.
https://tubitv.com/movies/100047908/r-serv-e
https://fawesome.tv/movies/10734097/rserve
Anything you can tell us about audience and critical reception
of Réservée?
It’s had some really positive reviews. The film got a bunch of nominations
and a few wins at film festivals. I think people who’d only really known
me for doing horror and kinda dark material were all pleasantly surprised.
Even my wife liked the film, which is rare for my stuff as she’s not
really into horror.
Any future projects you'd like to share?
After Réservée I thought
I’d try something different again and have a go at making a comedy in
a mockumentary style. It’s called Ghoul Squad and
is basically about the world’s worst team of paranormal investigators.
That’s in film festivals at the moment and will, fingers crossed, get some
kind of streaming release at some point in 2026. I then went back to
horror and made a short film called Voodoo Party
which is also now going into film festivals. The ultimate plan is to next
turn the Voodoo Party concept into a feature film version.
Your/your movie's website, social media,
whatever else?
https://www.hypericumfilms.com
Social media:
https://www.facebook.com/hypericumfilms
https://www.instagram.com/hypericumfilms
https://www.x.com/HypericumFilms/
 |
Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned) |
The links below
will take you
just there!!!
|
|
 |
Anything else you're dying to
mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? I think music
is really important in film, so a big shout out to our composer Adam House
who came up with a beautiful score for the film. Also all the bands and
artists who let us use their songs in the film. Thanks
for the interview! Always a pleasure.
|
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
