THE BOUNTY KILLERS plays as part of the online London Independent Film Festival 2021.
Tickets available at: www.liff.org
Film-maker Mark P. Simmons takes us back to the future with his concept project THE BOUNTY KILLERS.
Film And TV Now spoke with the film-maker about the project and the potential for the future.
FILM AND TV NOW: The film seems to be a taster concept for a potential sci-fi series. What are your immediate plans?
MARK P. SIMMONS: The plans are to do a six part series, the actually story is done and created. Presently we are going through the scripts of episode 3 and 4 and are filming episode 2 and 3 in late May and early June depending on lock down
FTVN: The film was shot at various places around Middlesex, UK. Tell us about more of the location specifics.
MPS: The location were relevant to where the actors live, I used rooms with green screen at my studios in Isleworth and Hounslow, We also had access to a spare room in a pub in west Drayton. Also filmed in a sports hall.
FTVN: Tell us about your cast.
MPS: Ravinder Gill – Lieutenant Colonel, is a stage actor who did most of his acting career on stage during 1980 to the late 1990s. Also fully trained actor
Myself – Zon
I have done acting on and off, my acting is more for the fun and enjoyment in pretending to be someone else. Also trained by my colleague Ravinder on how improve my acting skills
Lisa Tubb – Strawberry flower
Done a lot of acting when she was a child, stage and TV, also has been a trained actor, she is a lead singer in a band called Mixed Company
Nigel Tubb – Les
Retired truck deliver driver, loves doing the small roles and has lot of time free since retiring from work. Also professional drummer in the band Mixed Company.
Lesley McCormack – Daisy chain
This is Lesley’s first time in acting and done really well in my opinion for someone new to film to have done acting at school.
Jade Bettles – Trellain
Jade has done acting at school and college and is natural, she was not in the first pilot but will be the main actor in the rest of the series, she has natural acting ability.
FTVN: Tell us about your production team.
MPS: The Key Production team:
CS Shalbroeck – Director of Photography,
All the camera angles and footage was done by Catherin who is very versatile in filming and makes her own equipment for her camera, dolly holding systems for her camera. She helps me story board the Bounty killers. Also a very keen eye for filming
Dimitris Makridis – Composer
He is the man behind the rest of music, designing the theme for retro news and background music in the short. Also he assisted post production making sure everything was perfect.
Jeffrey Sahlked – 1st A/D
Our continuity man, Jeff is really good at things that can be missed on set without him, It would of been really difficulty. I have worked with him on other projects.
Lee Viesnik – Sound recordist
Lee is a very good friend and is won of the professional when it comes to sound recording. I always work with him on any project as we have a good working connection he know what I want, and vica versa.
FTVN: How did you raise finance for the short?
MPS: My father of 97 yrs old assisted with finances for the film and the rest is self funded by myself. we also had help from locations and resources who gave up their free time to help create this project.
FTVN: Tell us about some of the other visual effects used and your working relationship with your effects team.
MPS: The SFX team is mainly myself and Yonathan Moreno, we have pooled our resources to create the special effects, some SFX were very complicated to match in so we used the odd external resources for help. Mostly watching YouTube videos really helps on how to utilise SFX in after effects.
FTVN: The film uses footage from Elite Dangerous, a video game. How challenging was it to secure the rights to use this footage from the game?
MPS: The film is piece of fan fiction and a non-profit. We have used the footage under fair use and parody rights. Frontier the developers really concentrate on the gaming side of things, our aim is to move away from Elite and create our own sfx spaceships and stations. Though I have been in contact with frontier and have not heard anything from them as of yet.
FTVN: You use some songs in the film. Tell us about your relationship with the musicians behind these.
MPS: Gary Pearce is really good friend I know from work and is an artist who has hot some songs in the chart, and luckily he had two song that fit perfectly for the webisodes. Which he remastered for the sci-fi, he will release a Music video and EP to go with the Bounty Killers webisodes.
FTVN: The film has been playing at the London Independent Film Festival 2021. What have been your immediate objectives for the short?
MPS: Mainly to have people enjoy the short sci-fi, and know about our project, the hope is to get extra funding so we can do more sfx and not use elite dangerous game in the future as for now it is fan based.
FTVN: What were your key influences when writing the script?
MPS: The story is based from an old cult sci-fi called BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS. In the 1980s we did basic SFX using very low budget equipment/ light and used every day materials with no sfx software, was mainly to have a bit of fun with the video camera. through the latest technology we have been able to create this project further.
FTVN: What issues and themes would you like to explore in this series if it is commissioned and what other projects do you have in the works?
MPS: Well the story is to concentrate on the individual characters in the story, their motivations, right and wrong and how far someone will go to get their way.
Currently we have another project lined up which is a Vampire Comedy about Dracula who runs a pub, done in (1930s B/W) style short sketches.
FTVN: How has the pandemic affected your development and evolution as a film-maker?
MPS: It did stop finishing episode 2 and filming of episode 3 but allowed us to spend more time on the pilot to make it look professional quality. Also more footage of Elite dangerous gaming such as space battles have been recorded through lock down.
FTVN: Finally, what are you most proud of about this short?
MPS: The amount work everyone who was involved to make this project start off the ground. I started the idea in 2016 and it has been great creating the story from then to now.
All the people involved have been very enthusiastic about the project. I am so grateful for their time.
Check out more from THE BOUNTY KILLERS on the Official Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/thebountykillers
