Cell
Synopsis
At the height of WW2, a cowardly deserter awakens in a Nazi prison cell alongside a mysterious female prisoner. Unwitting test subjects in a cruel psychological experiment the pair must follow a set of rules if they're ever to escape, but all is not what it seems.
Film details
- Year
- 2017
- Runtime
- 00:09:55
- Genre
- Sci-Fi, Horror, Action
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Subtitles
- English, Español, Português, Français, العربية, 中文（简体）
Filmmaker's Note
‘Cell’ is a collaborative project that was born from my friendship with pro screenwriter Alex Hollister and my nostalgic love for the VHS era growing up. At the start of 2017 I was offered the chance to shoot a short film in a cool, underground location in Birmingham (war-time prison cells) and most importantly the location was on offer..for free! I had often thought about making a high concept horror/sci-fi short film that nodded to the films I stayed up late to watch as a kid, or videotaped in the early hours of the morning but never really had an idea that fit the genre or that grabbed hold of my imagination or encouraged me to develop all the way through to the shoot stage (or indeed one that took place in dusty underground holding cells), instead I’d been concentrating on slice-of-life, character-based dramas that had something I wanted to say to the world or a theme I wanted to explore on a selfish level. I have also only ever directed films from scripts I had written myself, but knew that in Alex I had a spec screenwriter with history when it comes to writing colourful, high-concept screenplays so I approached him with the slightest of briefs: “The story has to take place in an underground Cell.” With ‘Cell’ I wanted to make a film that was pure nostalgic fun, to watch and to shoot and with such a limited budget, I decided to use that inevitability to push Alex into B-movie territory when writing his script and between us we developed a sci-fi/horror story that ticked all the genre boxes and enabled us to shoot something self-contained...and cheap. I took lots of inspiration from the B-movies of the mid 80’s that were influenced by high concept, standalone stories told so well by The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and even the short stories of Stephen King – dark stories that are delivered with an almost child-like fascination. During development, I was very lucky that my co-producer on the project Sascha May (Sascha May Productions) shared my passion for the genre, my confidence in Alex’s script and most importantly backed up my insistence that we would indeed be able to pull off a high-concept story on a non-existent budget – I knew we’d always have the get-out clause of “B-movies are supposed to be cheap!” Despite our lack of money (the film was entirely self-funded) we still managed to secure a great lead cast (Livvie May, Laurence Saunders, Will Teller) and a professional crew headed up by imaginative, Birmingham-based Director of Photography Jon O’Neill who from the outset understood and most importantly was on-board with the B-movie aesthetic we were aiming for. One thing I had insisted on from the start was that we were going to use practical make-up effects for the big reveal in the film and I knew we needed somebody special to help us achieve what I wanted, so I approached make-up artist Joanna Strange (who I’d worked with before) who set about creating something that not only nodded to the film-making period we were trying to emulate but was achievable on such a low-budget and Joanna really pulled it off for us, ensuring that at the very least we ticked that essential box for fans of the genre – our lead actress was in make-up for over 3 hours!! With the film in the can, shot over three days in the cold depths of underground Birmingham, we locked ourselves away in post-production, editing the film ourselves we often struggled with the fine line between B-movie schlocky, and accomplished film-making and as a result we lost our way a little bit and needed to realign and remind ourselves that our original vision for the film was to have fun with it and not necessarily to make a world-beating short film and that realisation helped us through to the end. We were also very lucky to bring Matt Harris-Freeth (Robot Dinosaur) on to the project as post producer; Matt was somebody who I knew shared my love for the genre and understood the intended audience and that was important to me. Matt’s involvement helped solidify the approach to post and indeed the overall look and feel of the film as a whole. I hope that with ‘Cell’ audiences will be transported to a time where film was a lot more fantastical and imaginative; judged on fun before politics, concept before theme, story before ‘the message’. The film isn’t aimed at awards, critical acclaim or the big festivals; it is aimed at those adults that want a dollop of nostalgia and escapism, at those wide-eyed kids that need high-concept fuel for their imaginations. If nothing else ‘Cell’ was a gratifying departure from ‘serious film-making’ which helped remind me why I fell in love with films in the first place and why I will continue to seek out colourful projects across various genres. ‘Cell’ will also serve as a proof-of-concept short film to accompany development of a feature-length version of the film that is currently in development with Alex, titled ‘Cells’.
Credits
Director
- Paul Holbrook
Writers
- Alex Hollister
Producers
- Paul Holbrook
- Sascha May
- Matthew Harris-Freeth
About the filmmaker
I am a screenwriter and director based in the wonderful, creative city of Bristol, UK. I write both feature-length and short films in the unforgiving world of the 'spec script' as well as (to date) self-producing and directing low budget projects of my own. My chosen industry is ever-changing and forever competitive but my passion for scriptwriting/filmmaking and commitment to engaging, provocative and colourful storytelling continues to thrive. I have made encouraging progress thus far in my career, making several quarter and semi-finals in prestigious screenwriting competitions including Page and Shore and screened all over the world, winning numerous awards with my short films, as well as industry-backed mentoring through Creative England. If we're gonna talk genres; my work usually falls into narrative drama, thriller and action but I have also dipped my toe into the world of comedy too. I aim for my scripts/films to be rich, vivid and unforgettable whilst always retaining a 'real-world' feel. Although a huge fan of high concept 'genre' films, I like my stories to be grounded in reality, with colourful yet relatable characters. I grew up in the 80's and was inspired by arguably the greatest era in colourful movie-making - although in my opinion the greatest film ever made is Scorcese's Taxi Driver.
