A-V making
Join us on Facebook
|
|
The world of non-commercial film and A-V making |
Events Diary | Search | ||
| The Film and Video Institute |
Join us on Facebook
| ||||
At BIAFF 2010 Peter Owden and Gusano Productions won a 4-Star Award with Can You Survive?
DARK SCARS |
- the making of - | Can You Survive? |
Can You Survive? is a dark, uncomfortable film. Its lead character, Darren, has a fatal illness and is obsessed by internet porn. Through interactive computer links he forms a connection with a young woman whose life has been ruined after a drug-rape. And there is - or may be - a quasi-religious and political cult involved. It is presented with many distorted visuals and pounding pieces of music to suggest drugged and mentally disturbed states. |
Can You Survive? started as a concept for a song whilst I was lead singer and lyricist of alternative metal band "Cold Monkey" in late 1998. The theme was how many abhorrent influences there are in the world and how it appears that "everyone is out to mess you up or rip you off" so it is a wonder how we survive at all.
The image of newly born turtles making that treacherous crawl for the sea, which in itself is infested with lurking dangers, always sprung to mind when I worked on this concept. In many ways I found myself almost overwhelmed, or even paranoid that I was only a few steps away from a trap that I would never be able to get out of.
Somehow I did survive the following decade and the concept appeared again as an idea for a feature length film. It would be the third and final part of my Obsession trilogy.
|
The concept was reshaped into the first approximation of its current
form. In my short films The Id Girl and Never Saw Wall
of Voodoo the protagonists represented the loner and also the loser
in society, individuals that have chosen to succumb to their obsessions rather
than to face the daily struggle in the outside world.
They are characters that have simply slipped off the edge of an overloaded cereal bowl. But they have fallen into a space where obsessions take complete control. |
|
The internet dominates
our lives more each year as it expands. That unhealthy but safe world in
one's own obsessions has become a fruitful hunting ground for those that
make the real world so unappealing. It's no longer safe to hide away from
it all; unless of course you don't use the internet. However, the web has
become the obsessive's favourite playground and almost too much for some
to resist.
Being a fan of horror exploitation films since I was a young teenager I wanted to make sure my first feature fell into that genre, but it was imperative to appear to have climbed the intellectual ladder since those days. Having watched endless hours of sexy horror flicks I found that once the naked female form appeared, my attention was dragged quite happily away from the plot. Therefore, it was important to make sex appear as the dominant theme and utilise its trickery. But eventually it had to become uninviting and repugnant as the protagonist enters a state far darker than most. This allows the audience an uncomfortable insight into how his obsession infects his mind. We witness him become aroused rather than seducing the audience into becoming aroused. This, I felt, would be more exploitative than those films I had seen in my teenage years.
  I
approached a gang of writers, the Pasha Dogs -in particular Steve
Jones - with whom I had worked on Never Saw Wall of Voodoo. He
is someone I knew and trusted to build up the flesh of the story and finally
write the screenplay. After thousands of emails to and fro, Steve embarked
on the unenviable task of putting the script together. He did it with lightning
speed. What he produced took the film to a level that even disturbed me!
It inspired me to look deeper into the project and explore areas that I had not originally planned, especially in the make-up of the Church of the Fallen Seraphim. Personally I have always had a Kafkaesque view of religious organisations. I felt that paranoia and fear generally rode in tandem with the promise of love and resolution. It was with glee that I realised that Steve had documented this so poetically within the script. |
 Searching for our female
lead (Karina) proved difficult at first. The film was hard to pigeonhole.
I had advertised that we were making an exploitation horror film, which conjures
up visions of big-breasted, naked victims like those in the Grindhouse movies
of the seventies. I then re-titled the ad as "artsploitation" hoping to attract
a discerning actress, and using the tagline "Be My Horror Queen".
I was delighted by an overwhelming response. But it was a reply titled "I AM your horror queen!" that caught my eye more than the rest, from Polish actress Lena Mascara. There was no question of audition, this girl had decided for me! When I met her in a bar in East London, the moment she walked through the door, I knew I had found our girl. |
|
Christmas 2008 became the
most difficult period of the film's production for me as I had filmed at
least 70% of the footage and constantly staring down a dark abyss finally
took its toll on me. It was a colleague who pointed out the obvious: if you
spend enough time with people who have colds you will eventually be infected.
By analogy that was happening to me. It seemed that I could see no light
at the end of the tunnel at all. There seemed little chance of completing
the film and its subject matter was not helping the situation. Thankfully
I am surrounded by a supportive wife and friends. As the evenings got lighter,
so did my outlook.
One area of the film which I believe is important is the use of soundtrack. We all agree that the music score defines the mood of movies and Tom Janssen's atmospheric composition "is" Can You Survive? To portray a feeling of a repetitive existence required the use of a continual tinnitus sound. I am told that suicide is common in those with this affliction, so I figured that this is how I wanted to symbolise Darren's dismay at his own life. The mechanical and haunting piano themes that appear within the film represent the sorrowful repetitive lives that the two main characters endure: one from paranoia, the other from physical trauma.
I am reminded of how there have been some very difficult and trying times in the process of piecing it all together, but I seem to have forgotten this. Now the prospect of a new project starts to rise over the horizon, and I start to get that feeling trembling through my mind which proves to me, that film making is what I live for. I am broody for further work and when you watch Can You Survive? I hope you will wish for me to continue.
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
- Peter Owden, Gusano Productions, Sussex, England 2010
|
|
Page updated on
02 October 2011
Join us on Facebook 
UNICA member
|
| Company Limited by Guarantee No. 00269085. Registered Charity No. 260467. Authors' views are not necessarily those of the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers. Website hosted by Merula. JavaScripts by JavaScript Source. Menu by Live Web Institute. Art work by Miss Jo Black. |
