How do you make a horror movie as good as Blood And Bone China for just 3000?
Bit of Sweeney Todd, using human bones to make bone china?
Were they all written to begin with though?
It actually helped, chopping and changing and letting the actors improvise and stuff.
It was a really fun process.
It looks great presumably youre working on a fairly low budget…
…So why did you decide to make it a period piece?
Doesnt that make it more difficult?
Yeah, it makes it a thousand times more difficult!
There was only one location that was more than a 10 minute drive away.
Most of that came from charity shops.
Wed pick up waistcoats and long tailed coats and we kept recycling them, changing things around.
The trick is to try and make it look as expensive as possible, as inexpensively as possible.
I think you pulled it off, it looks great.
All the performances are great, too; Anthony Miles is brilliant…
Hes super.
I swear to God, hes gonna be the next Doctor one day.
Anthony is absolutely superb.
And Ive known Rachel for years and years, shes inHollyoaks.
Its always good when these things are actually fun to make… You hear directors say that, but really, this was fun, it was great working with everyone.
How long did it take, from start to finish?
Well, if I class this now as the finish, Id say two years.
I started it about this time 2010, roughly.
How did you fund the project?
The initial funding came from the Stoke Your Fires film festival.
I didnt want to do a corporate video like, Welcome to Stoke, we make pottery.
I wanted to do for Stoke on Trent whatDoctor Whodid for Cardiff.
You know, its not all about Cardiff, but people go down to Cardiff because theyve seenDoctor Who.
What was the biggest challenge in makingBlood And Bone China?
Everything had its own mini challenges.
Just getting that look right, getting the story right because the story is really the key with everything.
As Pixar says, story is king.
So Im constantly learning about story, studying how the mechanics of that work.
You could have a great film shot on an iPhone!
The end ofBlood And Bone Chinaimplies there might be a sequel, are you working on something like that?
Again, its all about story.
you’ve got the option to throw in bangs and flashes and cool stuff, but, yknow.
Thats kind of done its job, then.
Youre caught up enough with the characters that you want to watch them go on and develop.
That makes me so happy.
If people want to watch it, how should they do that?
Is the series still online?
All 12 episodes are online and were doing a limited DVD release too, which has just gone live.
It makes a perfect gift for Halloween!
but yeah, youre constantly learning.
Which version would you recommend people watch, then?
They can watch both versions!
The beauty of doing a web series is people can watch it on the way to work and stuff.
Chris Stone, thank you very much.
