Daddy (2015)
Daddy was one of the first shorts I made during my MA, born from an interest in psychological horror, Jungian archetypes, and the idea of making the audience think they understand what they’re watching before turning it on its head.
It sits at an interesting point in my progression from amateur filmmaking into taking the craft much more seriously. There are plenty of things I would do differently now, but I still like what I did with the ending, and that final reveal is probably the part of the film I’m most pleased with.
It sits at an interesting point in my progression from amateur filmmaking into taking the craft much more seriously. There are plenty of things I would do differently now, but I still like what I did with the ending, and that final reveal is probably the part of the film I’m most pleased with.
Making Daddy
Daddy was supposed to be a two-day shoot. That plan lasted until I discovered I couldn’t get my actress for both days, so a fair bit of the production became an exercise in making whatever I had actually work.
Then the mask I’d ordered for Daddy arrived and turned out to be made of cardboard rather than latex. Brilliant. So I came up with another version of the character and spent a chunk of the second day making a dead Daddy instead. Naturally, the bit that took the most time to make (the legs) never even made the final cut.
We also had to change a few scenes because Emily had a train to catch, and it still wasn’t dark enough to shoot the exterior material I’d planned. Then, to finish the day properly, I got a £35 fine for dropping her at the station, which had apparently stopped being a drop-off point and become a bus stop.
The lighting was probably the biggest technical lesson from the shoot. Rather than pretend it wasn’t there, I eventually leaned into it and converted the film to black and white, which actually suited the story better anyway.
Then the mask I’d ordered for Daddy arrived and turned out to be made of cardboard rather than latex. Brilliant. So I came up with another version of the character and spent a chunk of the second day making a dead Daddy instead. Naturally, the bit that took the most time to make (the legs) never even made the final cut.
We also had to change a few scenes because Emily had a train to catch, and it still wasn’t dark enough to shoot the exterior material I’d planned. Then, to finish the day properly, I got a £35 fine for dropping her at the station, which had apparently stopped being a drop-off point and become a bus stop.
The lighting was probably the biggest technical lesson from the shoot. Rather than pretend it wasn’t there, I eventually leaned into it and converted the film to black and white, which actually suited the story better anyway.