Following on from my first article when I was introduced by Ian I forgot to mention that as well as having written two Science Fiction novels The Janus Effect and The Xandra Function I also make Science Fiction films.
I got a great boost from belonging to the Warsall Cine Society run (in my time) by the fantastic Helen and her husband. We used to meet in Walsall Museum and Library. I think it’s defunct now but Helen was very supportive.
So far I’ve made four films: The Ripples Beneath (alternate world Fantasy) The Door Home (time travel paradox) The Felgarn Strategy (alternate world Fantasy) – shot in large part at Eastnor Castle, which was quite a big production) and The Eyes of Heaven and Hell (SF ghost story). I am always on the lookout for plots involving minimal scenery a small number of actors. I’ve written several “The making of…” articles about these films for an American magazine and I attach one.
I’ll be at WH Smiths in Walsall (near the station) on Saturday, 25 May from 11 AM to 1 PM (Spring Bank Holiday) signing my book The Xandra Function. Do come! And tell your friends!
The Making of The Ripples Beneath.
It started to rain and the alien ran for it. Then he decided to come back and help dismantle the set. In those days I didn’t have any movie lights and so everything
had to be shot outside in the garden or other places at the mercy of
the unpredictable British weather.
We were filming a scene in the underground complex beneath
some sand dunes on Earth where the Felms, biologically engineered
huge microbes, had their lair – placed there by the evil Vordra.
Luckily the rain was coming down vertically so it didn’t damage the
cardboard and newspaper scenery painted a browny green too
much. It was hinged so we folded it up up and ran off with into the
side passage of the house.
The floor – two pieces of heavy large tennis table joined
together did not fare so well. Painted in a greeny brown water paint
it splattered revealing the underlying dark green surface.
After the rain had passed there was much mopping up and
repainting and then hanging about for the paint to dry. Happily the
day was warm and the sun came out so it didn’t take long.
The next pesky thing was the breeze. We were trying to film the
transformation scene where the “human” is transformed into a Felm.
We would start the smoke pellets to envelop him in smoke which
then blew sideways. Eventually we managed it, just – after nearly
burning holes in the tennis table.
There is a further scene in the underground complex in which a
horse- like alien comes to rescue an earthman from his cell. When the cell door slides up revealing a Felm, he melts it using mental waves.
This meant casting a model in wax of the Felm which was a multi-faceted diamond shape with a different coloured core. I then
melted it using a hairdryer filming it on stop motion.
I didn’t realise how high a temperature molten wax reaches. One
Sunday, having boiled up some wax candles and old saucepan I
added green powder paint and poured it into a mould on the sink
draining board in the kitchen.
The mould partially melted releasing a gush of molten wax which
flowed like lightning down the slope into the sink and before I could
put the plug in disappeared down the drainage pipe and solidified in
the U bend.
Various words of an Anglo-Saxon nature from me and murderous words from my mother ( luckily my father was in the bath) later I phoned someone.
I was in a drama group at the time and one of the members was
going out with a plumber.
“Bill? Can you come and unblock our sink?”
“What’s blocking it?”
“Can’t say at the moment.”
Bill arrived. He unscrewed the pipe and scraped out the most
revolting green sludge/wax which had wrapped itself around hair,
bits of food and general yuck.
“What on earth is that?” demanded my mother. Bill said
nothing. He’d been sworn to secrecy. Later on I confessed all.
The summer, for once, remained warm, even hot. This had the
drawback that alien actors sweated in their make up.
If anyone is familiar with Dan Dare Pilot of the Future in the
Eagle comic of the 1950s there is a wonderful two-part story in it
called “The Man from Nowhere” and “Rogue Planet”. The peace-
loving Crypts are bipeds with horse- like heads, blue skin, elfin ears,
yellow hair and projecting horse like faces – the horse like bit being
yellow. It was this yellow projecting bit that was be stuck onto the
actor’s face.
I had invented a parallel world where Vordra and Armoignia
were in constant conflict. The Armoignians looked a bit like
Hampson’s creation. In the deneoument the evil Cro-ach Vurn,
formerly a member of the Fellowship of Amvar, who had become a
servant of Vordra comes to take the Fearembril Stone from his
former Fellowship friend Lero Tem. The actor playing Vurn kept on
sticking a blue hand up to his prosthetic yellow horse bit and pushing it.
“What’s up?” I said.
A muffled voice replied “It keeps on sliding forward off my face”
and indeed white flesh kept on appearing. After much re-application
of blue make up between takes we got the scene shot.
Not before time. All through the shooting there were ominous
cracking and crackling sounds and then splitting of the scenery. The
black set was absorbing the heat from the sunshine causing the
wallpaper pasted newspaper covering the underlying cardboard to
stress and bend into a concave shape thus splitting and showing the
underlying colour.
Peter, playing Cro- Ach Vurn, peeled off his blue gloves revealing
very sweaty hands and handed me his horse face, gratefully
accepting a large glass of water.
We filmed the scene in the Waunfang Marshes in a small wood
at the bottom of someone’s garden. Because of the low levels of
light we shot it in black-and-white – and as we’d only got 50 foot of
this every shot was precious. We let off a lot of smoke pellets to
create the illusion of drifting mist.
“Whatever you do, don’t breathe in,” I said, “This is DDT Lindane
smoke for getting rid of greenhouse pests.”
Too late. Brian, playing Prof Langard, started to cough violently.
“Don’t worry,” I said “You’ll never suffer from greenfly!”
Then an ominous sound reached our ears. Someone in a
neighbouring house had called the fire brigade thinking that the
wood was on fire. We scarpered.
Why do I get myself into such scrapes? It doesn’t stop me doing
it all again with the next film.
