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Your movie Pareidolia
- in a few words, what is it about?
It’s about a single woman alone in her house can't be sure if the changing pictures and
shapes around her are real, or whether something is watching her.
How did the project fall together in the first
place?
Diane Franklin is a great friend of mine, and she came to
Misty Moon 10 years ago, where we celebrated her career over 5 special
film nights. I was always to make a film with Diane and I suggested it
to her at the beginning of last year, and she said that she doesn’t do
shorts but the script was good and because was with me and Misty Moon
she would consider it. What were the challenges of making
Pareidolia from a producer's point of view? To be honest there weren’t any real challenges for me as a
producer, I was also casting director on the film. I think the only
challenge was just to make sure everything was in place and everyone was
happy, so they all worked very well on the shoot. Do talk
about the Pareidolia' director
Aaron Truss [Aaron Truss interview - click here], and what was
your collaboration like? I met Aaron for the first time in 2012 when he came to
the Misty Moon Gallery for our A Nightmare On Elm Street 2 gig with Mark
Patton and Kim Myers. We hit it off straight away and then we sort of
lost contact with each other, until 2021, when he submitted his short
film The Understudy into The Misty Moon International Film Festival and
it won the Dudley Sutton Award. After I had suggested to Diane about
doing a short film with me, my wife Mrs Moon suggested speaking to Aaron
Truss, to see if he would be interested in coming onboard, and the rest
is history… I would like to say that Aaron is full of energy,
enthusiasm and ideas, he has an infectious personality that doesn’t
let anything pass him by or stand in his way. Pareidolia
features quite an impressive cast - so do talk about
all these people for a bit, why them exactly, and how did you get them even?
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The cast is brilliant, it is made up of British and American iconic
actors… as I said earlier, I was also the casting director on the film
and I know all the cast personally. After I first read the script, I
knew exactly who I wanted in all the roles except for the part of Jonty
who was played by the excellent Joe Acres. He is a lifelong friend of
Aaron and that role was written for him. Carolyn Pickles [Carolyn
Pickles interview - click here], fantastic
actress, she hadn’t met Diane before until the morning of the shoot
and the chemistry between them was fantastic… Sandy Johnson [Sandy
Johnson interview - click here] aka Judith
Myers in John Carpenter’s Halloween
- was a must for me -, just to record a voiceover was a dream come true, and of course my old pal of 20
years the legend that is Graham Cole [Graham
Cole interview - click here] from The Bill… and my dear friend
Dawn Perllman who I had already worked with on Ready For My Close Up…
they were all wonderful.
You also appear in front of the camera yourself in Pareidolia
- so do talk about Stuart Morriss, the actor, for a bit! Well as you know I always try to be in all my films whether in
the background or on a poster etc. as a nod to Hitchcock, but this time
Aaron and our writer Aiden Truss wrote some lines for me and gave my
character a name, DI Sutton, which is nod to my friend and Misty Moon
alumni Dudley Sutton. It was great working in front of the camera with
Graham and also in front of many people from my village who all turned
out to be background artists on a very chilly night in October… it
was like performing live theatre. A
few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? The shoot was over a six month period and was very intense…
when we
shot Diane and Carolyn’s scenes and the scenes in the cottage (which
is where I live), we had had intense storms for a couple of days and
nights before and there was extensive flooding in the village… so all
the shots of the flood water was real… The $64-question of
course, where can Pareidolia
be seen? There is a cast and crew screening in October which is
invitation only, and then it is being screened at the Cinema Museum in
November during Misty Moon’s The Bill Reunion 9 and then at
Darkfest 6 at the Genesis Cinema in November… it will be doing the festival
circuit and also it will be available as a Blu-ray soon. Anything you can tell
us about audience and critical reception of Pareidolia
yet? It has just started to be seen by test audiences and sent to critics,
and the feedback has been brilliant, with the most common theme coming
from it that they wanted more and when is the feature coming out. Any future projects
you'd like to share?
At the moment I am just concentrating on promoting Pareidolia
and trying to see if we can get a feature from it… there could certainly be
a prequel. Also all of our live Misty Moon gigs at the Phoenix Arts Club
and the Cinema Museum… we are also doing a mini tour of the UK with
our Robin Askwith show in the autumn. What got you into producing in the
first place, and what can you tell us about your filmwork prior to Pareidolia? I am the curator of
Misty Moon and Adrienne King is our
co-founder… the tagline at The Misty Moon Gallery was “Where art and
film collide…” so it was inevitable that we would start to produce
films… I have worked with yourself [Michael
Haberfelner interview - click here] on Ready For My Close Up with Jason
Read who directed it, along with Ripper
Tour, Frankula,
After Hours, Lost Soul and A Hymn For Her, which has won 18 awards globally…
I am proud of all the films I have produced and casts, but nothing compares to
working on Pareidolia
with such a fantastic cast, team and director. We
have learnt from each other and I look forward to the next chapter and
working with them all again… we have got something really special with
this film. Now your main claim to fame within
the horror community is of course as the founder/curator of the Misty
Moon Film Society - so do talk about Misty Moon for a bit, what
is its philosophy, how did it come into being, and what are some future
plans and events for the society?
Misty Moon started as an art and craft fair 15 years ago at our local
church hall, and after a year or so we found a space behind a pub in
South East London where we created The Misty Moon Gallery. Myself and Jen curated a multitude of dark arts-themed exhibitions which
featured items and props from classic horror films. During this time at
the gallery, I contacted Adrienne King from Friday the
13th, which led to Adrienne showcasing her work at the gallery and becoming the
co-founder of The Misty Moon Film Society. In later years, Misty Moon
has changed venues to accommodate its larger following and currently
holds events at the Phoenix Artist Club in London's West End and the
Cinema Museum in Kennington, where we hold nostalgic film and television
events, including producing over 100 performances of Robin Askwith's one-man show. Guests we have had at Misty Moon include Lynn Lowry, Michael
Berryman, Fenella Fielding, Danielle Harris, Deborah Voorhees, Ken
Foree, Debra Lamb [Debra Lamb
interview - click here], Rutanya Alda, Madeline Smith, Caroline Munro
[Caroline Munro bio - click
here] - to name
just a very few. Filmmakers, actors, whoever else
who inspire you?
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Alfred Hitchcock, John Carpenter, Stanley Kubrick… Jamie Lee Curtis,
Adrienne King, Linda Marlowe, Diane Franklin, Kevin Bacon, to name a few. Your favourite movies? Halloween,
Friday the 13th,
A Nightmare On Elm
Street, The Amityville Horror… basically any 1980s US slasher films, and away from
horror… Some Like It Hot. ...
and of course, films you really deplore?
The Saw-franchise and anything that is torture porn. Your/your
movie's website, social media, whatever else? Pareidolia
has its own Facebook page and myself, Aaron and Mrs
Moon promote it all over our socials as well as Misty Moon Exhibitions
and Events Facebook group. Thanks for the interview!
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