2014 is the year of the Silent Hill fan films and here on Silent Hill Historical Society I’m trying to get the scoop on each exciting new production! My first interview is with Alex Slevin of FoG films about his upcoming project, From the Lost Days – Silent Hill 15th Anniversary Film, a live action feature film adapting Silent Hill & Silent Hill 3 video games that’s currently on Kickstarter with a little more than 2 weeks left in its campaign. Fans may remember Alex’s first foray in the Silent Hill fan film territory with his adaption of Silent Hill 2, Broken Notes, back in 2008. Like Broken Notes, From the Lost Days will be shot in Spanish but will be subtitled in English with more language subtitles options hopefully in the future.
Silent Hill Historical Society: Hi Alex! I first just want top say I’m a big fan of your Silent Hill 2 adaptation Broken Notes. It was the first Silent Hill fan film I ever watched and I was so impressed on how well you guys adapted the game! For those fans unaware of your Kickstarter can you tell us a bit of what your film, From the Lost Days, is about and what you hope to raise?
Alex: FROM THE LOST DAYS is an independent and non-profit feature film that we are creating as a honest tribute to the Silent Hill saga on its 15th anniversary. This is to pay a homage to the original games and the work of that amazing group of artists that was the Silent Team. We are making this for the love of art and because we consider it to be a huge challenge in terms of portraying the story and characters of the games, and that motivates us as filmmakers.
SHHS: You’ve mentioned that this adaptation of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3 has been 2 years in the making, that’s really amazing! Did you write the script by yourself or was this a collaboration effort?
Alex: I had ideas for the script since we finished our previous Silent Hill movie
BROKEN NOTES six years ago, but I really started the writing in 2009 after finishing the filming of our second feature film,
a silent version of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. At the beginning I developed it as an adaptation of
Silent Hill 3, starting from the point of Heather finding herself lost in the commercial district of her town and having the first encounter with Claudia. But as the story progressed I found that the plot will feel lame without the previous events of the original
Silent Hill.
I decided that the scene with Heather talking about those events with Douglas in their way to Silent Hill won’t be enough (I consider that Silent Hill 3 was created specifically for the players that knew the first game) and that I was going to lose the opportunity to focus on the character of Alessa. So I decided to take both stories and tell them together in an intertwined way to make the most of its depth and complexity. I started the script again from the scratch and finished the first complete draft a year ago. It had about 130 pages (for a movie of more than two hours long) but I’m still working on it, now changing opinions with other people to polish it up as much as possible before the shooting starts.
SHHS: Can you tell us a little bit about how you put together your cast and production crew? It’s really awesome that they are doing this film for free. How did you guys meet? Did you guys work on a previous project together?
Alex: Well, for our first feature
BROKEN NOTES it happened to be a happy coincidence. I started studying audiovisuals in a technical institute for filmmakers and photographers and I met an incredible group of people (five people actually) that wanted to create something besides our student projects, so I proposed them filming a feature film about
Silent Hill 2. They mainly knew about the Christophe Gans movie released a year before that and, after playing the game, they supported the idea without hesitation. We had a little free time and savings, so we improvised a lot with the script and the locations, but in the end we managed to finish the project and release it on the internet.
After that a lot of people saw our work and offered to join us in our next projects: photographers, make-up artists, 3d artists, writers… But we always try to work only with people we know closely, so if somebody wants to join the cast or the crew of our projects first he/she has to become our friend. After all we do this because we share common tastes and we do things trying to always have a good time, only to test our boundaries while improving our skills and having some fun, not for the credit. In the past we had to deal with some egocentric people that only joined us to show off, so we try always to work with people that do have illusion and passion as main motivations.
SHHS: On the Kickstarter page you mentioned that this film will be shot in 33 locations and 68 different sets using exteriors in Berkshire, UK and interiors built in Spain. What would you say is the biggest challenge in recreating this infamous town? (I would think it would be to recreating the Otherworld myself!)
Alex: The locations for a film are always a really big headache for the cast and crew. We had many problems back in 2008 because we needed cloudy days for the exterior sets of Silent Hill and Spain is such a sunny country!! I really hate that, so I decided to move part of the production to UK, where I’m living now, and I ended up finding a really good bunch of locations for Silent Hill in my town. They will need some atrezzo elements and add some more fog, but I think it will work pretty well. But I need to agree with you: the Otherworld will be the biggest challenge in terms of location. It was a little bit easy in BROKEN NOTES because Silent Hill 2 Otherworld is mainly a wet, dirty and gloomy place, but now we will have to deal with all those rusty fences, blood dripping walls, big fans, rotting corpses… I admit it will be hard to recreate all those elements, but we already have a lot of practical ideas to do it. And maybe we have to cut the traffic again in some points of the streets…
SHHS: Speaking of recreating the town I have to say I think it’s super cool you are incorporating matte paintings to help set the scenes. Will one artist be responsible for all the paintings?
Alex: At this moment I’m working on the concepts of the matte paints by myself in order to decide how they will look on the screen and what is the best way to create them. I’m now developing the demolished streets of Silent Hill, trying to see the possibilities we have to implement the painting with the real environment. I would like to depict them with practical miniatures but I simply have no room to build them, so we will go for a combination of a CGI painting and the real footage. For the final version of the paintings I will have the support of a group of 3D artists and photographers.
SHHS: You’ve stated that the monsters in the film will be made using make up and practical effects. How many creatures from the games can we expect to see?
Alex: The number of monsters is varying from one draft of the script to another. At this moment I have a total of nine different types in the film, but this will surely change by the time we have the final version of the script. I try to only include the monsters that I consider are necessary for the story, we are not trying to make fan service with this, and we want to use them in a more logical way not having the characters facing them directly like in a video game. For example, in the first draft I had a sequence where Heather was confronting an Insane Cancer in the metro station, but I deleted it when I realized that it had no sense at all. Others like Leonard are being discussed at this moment.
SHHS: I’m really digging the film concept artwork on the Kickstarter page! Any chance backers could see an art book of some kind in the future?
Alex: Of course it will be a free pdf concept art book with all the sketches, designs and production materials from the movie. It will be a nice way to recognize the work of all the team and a opportunity for the people to dig into the creation process of the film.
SHHS: As a film maker yourself what’s your opinion on the Silent Hill movies? Did they help inspire you in any way when putting together this film’s concept?
Alex: Despite its defects, I really enjoyed the first movie by Christophe Gans (I guess Akira Yamaoka’s music helped). Notwithstanding it is a very personal approach to the games, I felt it was made with respect and love for the original material. I read the first draft of the script and found it to be better than the final result, much more daring and less audience pleasing, but I understand that after all it was a Hollywood movie and that means a lot of creative limitations and impositions made by the studio and the producer. I think it lacked of the subtlety and complexity of the games but I really enjoyed the cast (they’re not guilty of the plot holes) and the amazing staging by Carol Spier. Regarding the second film, I think it had a couple of interesting ideas, but it lacked of courage and for me it is clear that they decided to simply make a gimmicky and meaningless horror movie for teens. It’s a shame because they had an interesting cast and enough money to make a better movie.
I found better inspiration in other movies that are not directly linked with the games, like the films of Park Chan Wook and Terry Gilliam, series like American Horror Story, Twin Peaks or Paranoia Agent and of course in others that served as inspiration for the creators of the games like Jacob’s Ladder, Lost Highway or Carrie.
SHHS: Do you have any tips or advice for anyone who is interested in starting and creating their own film project?
Alex: I would say to anyone that has a project, no matter how big or small, that keep believing on it and don’t loose the illusion. As long as you believe on the project it will end up coming to life, no matter the difficulties. I saw people working with passion in their projects for many years with nothing but passion and effort and they achieved to bring them to life. After all I think that the creation process and the things you can learn from it are far more important than the final result.
SHHS: If everything goes to plan what is the tentative release date for the film and what formats will it be available in?
Alex: Our intention is to release it by the end of 2015 at the latest. It all depends on how much we’re need to struggle to gather the resources. If we can’t do this via crowdfunding we’ll have to try another way, but we think it will get easier as long as more people gets awareness of the project. Our intention it’s to shoot it on 2K definition so 1080p and 720p versions will be available from the beginning and other versions are also possible on demand.
Thanks Alex! I really hope the film gets fully funded, I’m really looking forward to seeing your adaptation. 🙂
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