Your source for everything Silent Hill

 Silent Hill Requiem is an upcoming short film directed and written by " Gareth Morgan " and is set in the world of Silent Hill 3. It is not a direct adaptation, but a follow up to Silent Hill 3 and once again follows Heather Mason played by the beautiful " Della Day ".

 

I recently got the pleasure of talking with him quite abit and asked if he would like to do an interview, he was more then ready to answer all the questions I had and even some of the questions you guys had as well. 

 

 

1. When did you first get into filming and what influenced you to film in the style you do? 

 

Gareth: I first got into film making when I was at college, me, my brother and his friend Sam Swainsbury (who just had a small part in Thor 2, consider that my one and only name drop lol) would make surrealist films in the local countryside. I then took that further when I was running my dance company back in 2004. At that time it was getting difficult to get live performances so we started doing dance for camera pieces, which led to my first full length physical theatre film about teenage depression and suicide, loosely based on my own experiences. Those films were location based and not in the style I use today. This current style came from wanting to create my own individual worlds for my stories to take place in, and also because my films have no financial assistance I can't afford to hire locations etc so I turned to green screen, I first used it at University and instantly fell in love with it. Not only does it allow me to set my films anywhere but it also allows me to work with my actors individually, because as I mentioned no financial assistance means my actors work with me voluntarily, I am just very fortunate that all my friends are highly trained actors that believe in my work and give me their free time when they have it. But green screen does have it flaws, its fake, so over time I have developed an art style that allows me to blend actors with my environments in such a way that some people have been tricked into believing my actors are really in the places I have created for them, but I am not trying to fool anyone into that, I just want the elements in my films to match each other and that means using a highly saturated art style to do it.

 

 

2. What is Silent Hill to you? 

 

Gareth: For me it is the pinnacle of survival horror gaming.

It is the quintessential ghost town of middle America.

Kind of like Twin Peaks, normal on the outside but full of nightmares.

I have always had an interest in small town mentality, having come from

a small town myself, my graduation film, The Halsteadarian: Chronicles of the Colne Engine, was designed with small town mentality in mind and I believe there is a lot of scope for psychological horror in that aesthetic.

 

 

3. How come you chose to make Heather your protagonist and do a Silent Hill 3 follow up opposed to a direct adaptation?

 

Gareth: I chose Heather because she is my favourite protagonist. I have an ethos with the films that I make, from a very early age I have always had a problem with the victimisation of females in film. Not that I remember this but my father told me that when I was 6, after watching some random slasher film (my Dad wasn't big into following film certificates lol) I asked him why is it always the girls that get killed in these things? That stayed with me and my narrative works have always had a strong female protagonist leading the charge. So I instantly attached to Heather and always knew that when I was going to tackle a Silent Hill piece, Heather would be one of the main characters.Requiem isn't a follow on from SH3 per-say, it is a follow on story of Silent Hill, set today and continues the ideas raised in SH2, those being that the town itself may have an awareness, a consciousness and perhaps a sense of morality. I don't see the need to adapt any of the original Silent Hill games into films, because they are already films, if you know what I mean. The original four games are designed to look and feel like films, with set camera angles, heavy use of cut scenes and well rounded and fleshed out characters that develop through the games they are in. So my advice to anyone is if you want to see Silent Hill 1-4 as a film, well just go play the games.

 

 

4. What is gonna make your short stand out from others?

 

Gareth: Tough question to answer. Who's to say my film will stand out

from the others? Every one will have their own interpretation of how to

put Silent Hill into film. Some will succeed with the fans, others will fail.

It all depends on what you are making the films for. My goal is to make a

fan film, by a fan for the fans. but that's not to say that my film wont piss

off some of the fans, of course it will. I will make decisions from the

elements of the games to fit my narrative, and with games that have

multiple endings some choices I make wont be the choices others would make.

But one thing I will not be doing is rewriting anything, because there is no need. I will also be using the original style the game employs in terms of its use of camera, atmosphere, dialogue and pace. If anything makes my film stand out it will be the appreciation of the film from the community.

 

 

5. Will we see any new or familiar creatures/characters in Silent Hill Requiem?

 

Gareth: At this point in time I don't want to give anything away that hasn't already been shown in the promotional material. Requiem is currently only a short film, about 5 minutes in length. If this short is embraced by the community then I will be running a kickstarter to try and raise a small amount of money to turn the short into a full feature, making short films with no financial assitance is doable, making a feature without a budget isn't. The feature version will then have a larger cast of characters, monsters and locations from Silent Hill, I have wrote an initial script for the feature, but until I know it will be a reality there is no reason to go into details at this point in time.

 

 

6. When can the fans expect to see Silent Hill requiem?

 

Gareth: When its ready, but all being well it should be the early part of 2014

 

 

7. Other then Silent Hill, do you have any other future projects in the works?

 

Gareth: My web series Helsing: Set sometime in the 30’s a female descendent of Helsing fights vampires on the noir streets of New Town.  ( LInk ) 

 

The full feature version of EPiSODE: Follow FBI Special Agent King and his bizarre partner Ramona as they solve the murder of world famous signer Lisa Angel. ( LInk )

 

Splatterhouse, Jennifer Smells of Rot. Based on the game franchise: Rick failed her but can Jennifer save herself: ( Link )

 

My next feature film T.L.E. A Cyberpunk Adventure: In the city of New Babel all Tle wants is a way out and G will grant that wish, but first Tle is going to have to kill a whole lot of people. ( Link )

 

The Bureau 2123: New London has been crime free for 100 years, that is until an old friend of White Chapel returns. ( Link )

 

Dawn of a Broken Sun, a futuristic Western comedy: Billy is a marked man, but can Carmen save him from being dragged to Hell by all those he has killed?

 

Space Jockey’s an Alien inspired Space Babe romp. ( Link )

 

Syndicate Wars: A short film based on the old PC game. A real Hostile Takeover. ( Link )

 

Parasite Eve: a short film following the further adventures of Aya Brea. ( Link )

 

And I am also working on a Bioshock web series set prior to the first game.

 

So yeah, there’s a few things coming :)

 

 

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