I first met Matt Ratcliff at school - his brother, David, was in my class. I had long been interested in writing, was starting to put together some photo-stories and then I discovered that Matt had access to a cine-camera. The Holy Grail! Quite quickly, we got together and made several (very) short films (the reel ran for about two minutes altogether).
Things moved on, we left school and it wasn’t until 1989 that I heard from him again. He now had a video camera and would I be interested in acting in his latest film? It seemed like a good idea, so I turned up at his house, was given a handful of pages worth of dialogue to learn right there and then, before being put in front of the camera to act alongside his Dad.
That was “Mad 2” (though later to become re-edited into “Mad 1”, which took the “Mad” films from a 5-film cycle to a trilogy). I died a horrible death in that film, but we had such a good time that I appeared in each subsequent “Mad” film, as variations on the same character.
Due to the easiness of our working relationship, we decided to collaborate on the next film and co-wrote and co-directed “All Hallow’s Eve”, using my character of Gabriel Bird. Filmed in Rothwell, Kettering and Thrapston, over the course of a week and for about £100, it told the story of a private detective (“the only Bird in the phone book,” as he says at one point) who discovers, in a relatives house, a map for a supposed sacred stone. Finding the stone proves easy, dealing with what happens when you touch it is another matter altogether.
Things moved on, we left school and it wasn’t until 1989 that I heard from him again. He now had a video camera and would I be interested in acting in his latest film? It seemed like a good idea, so I turned up at his house, was given a handful of pages worth of dialogue to learn right there and then, before being put in front of the camera to act alongside his Dad.
That was “Mad 2” (though later to become re-edited into “Mad 1”, which took the “Mad” films from a 5-film cycle to a trilogy). I died a horrible death in that film, but we had such a good time that I appeared in each subsequent “Mad” film, as variations on the same character.
Due to the easiness of our working relationship, we decided to collaborate on the next film and co-wrote and co-directed “All Hallow’s Eve”, using my character of Gabriel Bird. Filmed in Rothwell, Kettering and Thrapston, over the course of a week and for about £100, it told the story of a private detective (“the only Bird in the phone book,” as he says at one point) who discovers, in a relatives house, a map for a supposed sacred stone. Finding the stone proves easy, dealing with what happens when you touch it is another matter altogether.
Directing 2nd unit on "Mad 3" - 8/1/90
I played Bird, Matt played Atkins and his dad, Tom, played ‘Inspector Kroner’. All of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ work we did ourselves - I devised the bulk of the special effects, Matt did the music and editing and I had a brilliant time.
After making another “Mad” film (where I created an effect of boiling water being poured down someone’s throat, including the steam being visible) for which I was credited with ‘additional material’, we next collaborated on “Honour Amongst Thieves”.
This was heavily influenced by David Lynch’s “Wild At Heart” with absolutely none of that classic’s budget. Shot in Rothwell and Kettering, for about £100 again, it told a convoluted tale of two thieves (Matt and Mark Harris), who are hired (by Tom Ratcliff) to steal a gadget, hidden in a car (my Fiat Panda). Making good use of stark locations (it was winter, we filmed in a lot of industrialised areas and shot with blue filters), the film tries really hard but it’s too long and complicated for its own good. It does, however, end in the bandstand that I use in a lot of my stories.
Next up was Matt’s magnum opus, “Diseased Minds”. By this time, I was involved in a relationship and relinquished the writing to Matt, though I eventually directed some of the sequences (we called and credited it as 2nd unit).
Matt then moved to Hunstanton for several years and, with him, went my film-making aspirations. I co-wrote a couple of screenplays with Jon Litchfield, but they didn’t come to anything.
In 1998, Matt returned to Rothwell and rang me. Although, by then, I was starting to write my Strange Tales, we met up and talked about making more films. In the end, we worked on two together. “Ashdown: The Last Shadow” was the final part of a sequence he’d made through the 90s - I played the small role of a doctor and helped out with some of the direction. The second film we did was “The Barking”, which we co-wrote and he directed. I devised a couple of effects that worked really well and enjoyed myself. Not long after this, Matt went back to Hunstanton.
I enjoyed my time, making films with Matt Ratcliff. The films are full of ideas and youthful vitality, often with clever camera angles and movements and the cast are clearly enjoying themselves. Having said that, of course, there were problems - no money, often no scripted dialogue, some lapses in pacing - but these can be overcome, I think, by taking the films in the spirit they were made in. I was always badgering Matt into producing a thoroughly scripted ‘short film’, that he could send off to festivals and use as a calling card, but he saw the films as an end to themselves. And perhaps he was right.
I don’t have all of the films we made, though I do have “All Hallows Eve”, “Honour Amongst Thieves”, “Ashdown: The Last Shadow” and “The Barking” in my collection, all of them on VHS.
