Here’s Beau Willimon talking about The Ides of March from the red carpet at last nights BAFTA Awards. (see all our BAFTA coverage including the full winners list and other interviews here).

How does it feel to be a BAFTA nominee?

‘It feels thrilling. It feels like a miracle the movie made it from the script to the screen at all. The fact that this movie got made, and that it’s made it’s way across the pond and connected with so many people in the UK is a real thrill for me.’

 Aside from your own movie, what other nominated films are getting you excited?

‘I think Tinker Tailor was amazing, Moneyball was amazing. So many great films have been made this year internationally, it’s a pretty heady group to share some nominations with – a really good year for movies.’

I’m curious, the movie went through quite a long development process didn’t it?

‘I wrote the play eight years ago, and then a couple of years after I wrote the play i t got optioned for a movie with George Clooney producing, and then he decided to direct. I wrote the first feew drafts, and then turned it over to Grant and George, and what you see on the screen is a combination of all our efforts.’

When it comes to giving your baby to George and Grant, what was it like?

‘I’ll raise a baby with George and Grant any day of the week; it turned into a pretty healthy one, and now it’s got its own legs and its own life. George, from the very beginning wanted to remain faithful to the play, it wasn’t one of those stories of just cherry picking things here and there and turning it into something else. He wanted to remain true to the core story, so I was never worried that anything was going to happen to it in a bad way. Adapting it into a story just gave us an opportunity to expand characters deep in the world and really capture the adrenalin of a campaing in a way you can’t do on the stage.’

Aside from the title, there is an air of Roman-esque politics in the film. Did you have that in mind when you wrote it, or did the title come about later?

‘Not even Shakespeare or brutus or Julius Cesar themselves invented ambition or hubris, backstabbing politics. I think that’s been around since men and women could stand upright and hit each other with clubs, It definitely was at the back of our minds. Really we just set out to write a contemporary tale about a young man dealing with some pretty universal and difficult moral choices.’

The Republican primary is going on at the moment…

‘This film could just as easily have been about Republicans. It just so happens that Govenor Mike Morris in the movie is a Democrat, and a fairly liberal one, but you could have switched over to the other side of the isle, because it’s really not a movie about politics, it’s a movie about desire and ambition and loyalty, and that can be true in any number of worlds, whether it’s politics or finance or at home, sibling rivalry. I think it’s poignant right now because there’s quite a happening across the states, but I hope it transcends any given political moment.

Just a short post here, Branagh on Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe. (see all our BAFTA coverage including the full winners list and other interviews here).

What was it like for you to play such an iconic character against such an iconic character?

‘The big learning curve was just watching Michelle Williams transform into Marilyn Monroe. On the first day her coming on to set and watching every head turning, and you got this sense of what [The Marilyn Effect must have been], she walks on and just stops time. She walks on – well, she floats on, and everything stops. The thing that Marilyn – Michelle did, was to, not only recreate this icon, so she had the look and the voice and the sound and the hair and everything, but she also just kept making you feel that she was real, that she was believable in the here and now, so I found that great inspiration –to play the human being, not just the pictures and the legend as it were.’

‘It was fun every morning to go in and meet before going to the makeup trailer and be a little beaten up at five AM, and then you’d go in there and I’d wink at here, and I’d put my headphones on and listen to Lawrence Olivier reading the Bible, and then they’d put my prosthetic chin on and I’d turn around two or three hours later and Michelle had gone, she’d left the building. Instead Marilyn Monroe was there, seemed bigger in the chair, seemed as though there was a kind of aura around her. I felt that every day was a journey back in time, and I felt that I was getting a trip to the movies myself through seeing the magic she created.’

Another quickie – This time it’s Tom Hooper discussing how much more enjoyable the ceremony is without the pressure of a nomination, and talking about Les Miserables. (see all our BAFTA coverage including the full winners list and other interviews here).

I presume you get invited to these forever now that you’re a winner.

‘I know. I’m presenting this year, but it’s amazingly relaxed. I can’t tell you the difference between last year. There’s a lack of stress arriving in the car, but it’s obviously nice to be here having won last year, that’s the nicest way to do it.’

Presumably though last year it was almost a foregone conclusion.

‘Not from where i was, and not at this stage in the year. In fact, when I started I never thought I could win the Oscar, so in a way the pressure mounts the more it’s possible rather than decreases.’

And obviously back in the saddle this year with Les Mis.

‘Yeah, I start shooting in five weeks time in Pinewood Studios with Hugh Jackman, Russel Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Sascha Baron-Cohen, Helena Bonham-Carter, Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne. It’s an outrageously wonderful cast.’

Anyone you’ve not cast in it?

‘Unfortunately Victor Hugo didn’t write enough parts to get every wonderful actor, but I’ve got a few’

At the start of this year it was being touted as a 2012 release, but there have been rumours that it will slip to 2013. Is there any truth in that?

‘We’re still looking to make the December date. Because it’s very tight we’re all being careful about it, but we’re still on the December date’.

And now we have Paul Feig, up for awards for his movie, Bridesmaids (see all our BAFTA coverage including the full winners list and other interviews here).

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This was a bit of a surprise awards hit.

‘Yeah, who would have thought? When you do comedy you don’t expect this, you just have to hope that it will do well at the box office, and then suddenly you’re getting nominated for awards. It’s thrilling. It’s just a testament to how good these women are in this film.’

Did you ever expect it to be so successful, even at the box office?

‘Not as successful as it was. You always kind of hope. Sometimes you get in your head, ‘if we can do over $100million, it’ll be great’, so once we hit that I thought ‘oh good’, and then it kept going, and to do well internationally, was really exciting, because you don’t normally expect an American comedy to do well overseas, but I think think it’s a very emotional, human story that everybody can relate to, and it wasn’t too referential to our culture. I’m thrilled.’

A result of it doing well is that there’s now  pressure to make a sequel. I understand that there’s not a lot of desire to make this, but let’s speculate – if you were to get together to make one, what would it be about?

‘I think that’s one of the reasons why we’re all a little hesitant, because we’re not sure. I think the reason Bridesmaids workers well is because of a get personal story of a woman going through a nervous breakdown. If you just make it about a wedding, and the craziness of a wedding, we’ve seen that movie a million times, so I don’t know, we really would have to think of something really great, so that’s why I think we’re all a little like, ‘this one worked, maybe we step away’. But never say never. I’m confident this talented group of people could really figure out something good together.’

Next we have our interview with the Director of Senna, Asif Kapadia which is up for three awards (see all our BAFTA coverage including the full winners list and other interviews here).

Senna walked away with two awards this evening which we are very, very pleased about! MASSIVE congrats!

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At this stage now, walking up the carpet for BAFTA,did it ever occur to yo, when you began making a movie about a racing driver barely known to non- Formula One fans, that this would be the result?

‘No, not at all. While you’re making the film you’re just trying to get through the process. You’re not really thinking about this side of it,. What happened quite early on, because the nature of the film – made entirely out of archive – it’s not like you have a development process with the script. You had the material, we’d edit it and we’d show it to people. Once we’d got people into the room and showed it to them, they liked it. So we knew very early on there was something there, but it took two,three years of editing to get it right. But right from the beginning people would come back again and against and again to watch the film as it was changing, and they’d bring their friends. Most of them were not into Formula One. Quite young people in the office, whose Dads tried to get them to watch a race, and they’d never seen a race in their life, but they’d come back again and again because there’s something about Senna and his charisma that pulled them in, and people would laugh and they would cry.’

The film is up for best editing as well…

‘Yeah, which is amazing. It’s really great For them to be recognised with Hugo and those huge movies, and to be the only doc, to break out of the documentary category is great.’

Were you disappointed to miss out on an Oscar nomination?

‘At the time it was disappointing, because we were considered by  people to be one of the favourites for the longlist at least. We didn’t make the top 15, which is a bit of a surprise, but that’s part of the process of making movies, you shouldn’t take it as if it’s going to happen. If it happens, enjoy it, if it doesn’t, don’t take it too seriously. That’s what we have to do really.

How difficult was it to create a coherent narrative from archive material?

‘That was a gamble, that was a big gamble. Everyone kept saying to us ‘When We Were Kings’ has interviews, ‘Touching The Void’ has interviews, ‘Man on Wire’ has interviews – go and interview someone, but I think it’s all here. We did need to do interviews for research, but my instinct was – play it like a drama, even though it’s a doc, play it like a drama and just let the images tell the story. That was hard; it took a couple of years to get everyone to believe it, but bit by bit people thought this was the only way to make the film. The problem is when you’ve got a hole in your story. Normally you just go and interview someone and you plug the hole, but we had to go looking all over the world for the particular scene that would go perfectly between that scene and that scene to tell the story. I never like doing it the easy way. I don’t want to make it complicated, but if it’s worth the journey of trying and experimenting, as well as trying to communicate a particular story, when it comes off it makes you particularly happy.’

Next up in our Red Carpet interviews, Sarah Smith, writer/director Arthur Christmas. (see all our BAFTA coverage and other interviews here)

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Congratulations, it’s an astonishing achievement to be nominated against Steven Spielberg and Gore Verkinski certainly.

‘It’s hilarious that it happens to be the year that those two people made movies, but it’s hilarious to be up there in that company.’

Obviously there’s been some contention over whether Tintin is an animated film or not. Putting aside the fact that you’re in the same category, what are your views on that?

‘I don’t object to any director using any method to tell the story they want to tell. At the same time, I have a huge admiration for what animators do, which is take a lifeless puppet and make them live, and that isn’t the same to me as mo-cap, so I don’t have any problem with people using mo-cap, but I also love and respect what animation is, and I wouldn’t want people to say ‘it’s easier and cheaper, let’s use mo-cap’, because to me it’s not the same art. Effectively you’re following the art of the actor, and animation follows the art of the animator.’

Do you feel it’s a shame the category has only got three nominees?

‘No, given that I’m one of the three, I think that’s plenty to be going on with.’

What are you following up with?

‘At the moment I’m completely not. It takes five years to make an animated movie, and we only finished about five minutes ago it feels like, so I’m just taking a gap and trying to imagine ever doing it again.’

I’m currently sat in the media centre at BAFTA, trying to warm up after spending several hours in the freezing cold. Still, it was all worth it as I managed to snag some great interviews with the nominees and attendees. To make it even more worthwhile, I’ll be posting the interviews as soon as they’re transcribed.

First up, Thelma Schoonmaker, Editor of ‘Hugo’.

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You’ve been editing films for a while now. What do you think it is about your work on Hugo that has got it recognised this year?

‘That’s an interesting question, because it’s not as ‘splashy’ editing as some of our films that I’ve been nominated before like The Aviator or Departed or Raging Bull. I think the magic of silent filmmaking is what really has attracted people to the movie. It’s funny because many people didn’t think we even needed to shoot it, now it’s become the favourite part of the movie watching George Mellies in his glass house, lit by the sun only, bouncing around making wonderful movies, and I think that’s why it’s been nominated.’

Obviously this isn’t the only film that has it’s feet in the past that’s been recognised this year. Were you taking stylistic cues from silent era film?

‘Definitely. Sorsese showed us many silent films, all of George Mellies films -not all of them, but quite a few – and then also other films that he was referencing. 3D films like ‘Dial M For Murder’ – in 3D is a whole new experience, and there’s going to be a new Blu-ray of it soon, in 3D so people can see it. ‘House of Wax’, wonderful things like that, we were referencing all of those things.

How important do you and your peers consider this as part of the circus you have to perform.

‘It’s very important. Actually in the past it was much better  at recognising our work than the Americans were. I got a BAFTA for ‘Raging Bull’, but ‘Goodfellas’ was the one that we lost in America at the Oscars – we lost to ‘Dances With Wolves’, and Marty and I and many other people got honoured by BAFTA and that was wonderful.’
And they actually are recognising him again with the fellowship tonight.

‘I’m so proud of that because Scorsese has done so much for the history of British cinema, particularly my late husband Michael Powell, and Emwick Pressburger, his great partner, no one has done more than he has to bring their films back to the world – to bring them back to the world. He brought my husband to America and my husband got reimersed in the film world again, Scorsese has restored his films, and so it’s so important  that BAFTA recognise the great works he’s done, not only for Michael Powell, but also for me.’

When it comes to interviewing people in the film industry, there are a great many unwritten rules if you want to be considered professional: Be reasonably respectful and polite, don’t beg for autographs and don’t dribble on yourself. Beyond that it helps to have some idea what to ask, and it’s certainly considered a bit beyond the pale if you become a dribbling wreck.

As a general rule, I like to think that I stick to these. I certainly try to. Unfortunately, there are times when it’s not that easy, and certainly my recent interview with Miss Piggy was one of those. If you heard our recent round table interview with Piggy, Kermit and director of The Muppets, James Bobin, you’ll realise that even being in the same room is a hilarious and surreal experience. It’s even weirder when it’s just you, a Muppet and a film crew. So weird, in fact that not only did I start laughing like an idiot mid way through, but we ended up talking about fluffing.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I talked dirty to Miss Piggy.

The Muppets hits UK cinemas tomorrow and you can read our review of this awesome movie right here.

We’re now only days away from the creepiest and most upsetting movie in years hitting cinemas (our review here). It’s already been well received in the US, where it made back its budget this weekend, and in case you haven’t read our review, we thought it was rather good.

Last week we published our premiere coverage, where we spoke with the cast and crew of the film but we got to speak with Radcliffe in rather more depth a few days beforehand, where we discussed horror movies, missing out on school trips, and just where all the freaky props used in the film came from.

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Given that you’ve come off the biggest franchise of all time and you’re one of the more bankable actors of the moment, you could have chosen more or less any role. What drew you to a small British horror?

“I’ve done the franchise thing and I loved it, but I know I’ll never be in a film as commercially successful as that again, so in a way there’s no pressure to try and be. I read the script and it was fantastic, and I thought it was a really compelling story that I think will have an appeal to a wider audience than just me; then I met the director, James who’s wonderful, then it became a really exciting prospect, because it was to do something – it was to make, what would be a very effective horror film, but also a film about loss, and about grief, and where the relationships and characters feel real, which is a thing that’s becoming less and less common in horror. That, I suppose is what drew me to it.”

You Speak as if you’re a horror fan.

“You know what, I’m not really. I think that was one of the things that drew me to the script, that it was so – I didn’t expect to enjoy it. When somebody said, ‘this is a horror film script that you have to read’ – I knew The Woman in Black, obviously I was aware of the play and that there was a book.”
Had you seen the play?

“I hadn’t seen the play, no. I missed that particular school trip. Everyone I know seems to have seen it on a school trip, and I spent less time than I perhaps should have at school. But I was reading it, and I was so into it and I hadn’t expected to be, and that drew me in even more. I think this is a film for people, both buffs of the genre who love it will really enjoy the film, because it gives them a lot of respect. It’s not about gore, it’s about suggestion. It’s about the fact that James, our director keeps the audience in a state of slight tension throughout the film, so when there are those moments that get you, they’re heightened.”

On set is a very artificial environment, but was there that tension for you?

“Actually, it was a pretty relaxed set. We actually had quite a lot of fun. What would happen sometimes is that James would let the camera run, and would let me explore the space with a Steadicam following me around. Those were the moments that got quiet enough, and when the camera’s behind you, you could convince yourself for a second that this is all there is. There are a couple of moments you can work up a sense of fear and panic inside yourself, but generally speaking, it’s a very relaxed set. It’s like kissing. You can be kissing the most beautiful woman in the world, on a film set it suddenly becomes not quite what it would be in real life, because you’ve got people watching.”

On this you’re working with people you have worked with previously, Ciaran for instance,

“Yes, he’s going to be beside me. I’m going to have it written into my contract. Every film I do will have Ciaran Hinds in it at some point.”
Was there a hangover [from Potter] with some of the crew and some of the cast?

“Quite a lot. In fact, Simon Wilkinson, props, who had looked after my glasses for ten years on Potter was doing this as well. The AD team from second unit on Potter came over. Who else was there? In fact, Peter Cavaciuti came in and did some Steadicam work, and he worked on the early Potter films. That’s what’s lovely now about having worked on these massive British films for 10 years. I will never work on a film in Britain again where I don’t know at least one person on the crew. It’s a nice feeling of safety so it’s not like your first day of school every time you walk in.”

You mention the props master, was his job just to assemble the creepiest props? That room, that bedroom. Who would give their children those toys?
“Simon’s job actually was to make sure I didn’t break any of those toys. Those toys are all unbelievably expensive, and I think I’m right in saying, come from one woman’s house in America. They’re all part of her private collection. I think one of them’s worth upwards of 50 grand, and was made in the 1870s or something. They’re incredible, they’re unbelievably creepy and I hope she’s – they’re made to look very beautiful in the film, so I hope wherever she is, she’s pleased with how they come off.”

At this week’s second UK premiere* for A Dangerous Method, we spoke to Viggo Mortenson about the attraction of working with David Cronenberg.He explained,
“He makes what can sometimes be a very trying or difficult job, or emotionally demanding, he makes easy and fun. He never loses sight of the fact that, after all it’s play, it’s make believe. It should be fun, there’s no reason for it not to be, and he helps you feel that way too. There’s a lot of directors – I would say, more often than not, directors forget that. They feel the pressure, or they take themselves or what they’re doing too seriously.”

When asked whether he was referring to directors he has worked with he continued,

“I don’t think there’s many directors like him, who are so secure as people. That have such technical knowledge, and actually like actors – a lot of directors don’t. Don’t understand them, don’t want to understand them, feel threatened by them and the suggestions that they have. He’s not.”

Now file this under speculation, but I’m guessing Peter Jackson doesn’t count as one of the ‘secure’ people, at least not in Mortensen’s eyes. The actor hasn’t been brought back for a cameo in the Hobbit, in spite of seeming quite keen to do so. Perhaps this could be why.

During the evening we also caught up with Kiera Knightly, who explained that the film was very nearly much more tame,

“I was in doubt about doing it because of two specific scenes in the film that are of a sadomasochistic nature, and I actually phoned up David and I said, ‘look, I love you, I love your work, I love the script but I don’t know if I want to do this. It’s the age of the internet, we know what the British press are like’, and he said, ‘OK, we’ll take them out’.”

Fortunately she managed to talk Cronenberg round,

“I actually thought, the reason I’d phoned him up to turn it down is because I thought it was really important that they were in there. I didn’t think it was gratuitous to have them in there. I thought it was incredibly important, if you were going to make a film about Freud and Yung, and about this woman who was torn apart by her sexual desires, in that medium you can’t not see what you’re talking about. So anyway, we talked about it and talked about it and kind of got into what it was in her that meant that she needed to do that, and exactly how he was going to shoot it. And the fact that he didn’t want to make it sexy or voyeuristic, but kind of brutal and strangely clinical, I went, ‘OK, let’s do it’.”

*You read that right. It originally premiered at the London Film Festival in October, but apparently that doesn’t count, so we got another one.

It’s been almost a year since we first saw Chris Evans wield The Shield as Captain America, and while small children have spent the interceding months running around with a dis of their own, those of us who have (in theory) grown up have had to make do with a painted bin lid and an active imagination. Fortunately, the nice chaps at eFX collectibles are about to come to our rescue.

Due to arrive in the first quarter of this year, their newly announced range of Marvel collectibles will allow even the biggest of kids to re-enact the comic publisher-cum-studio’s movies.

Full details are yet to be released, but we do know that products available at launch will include Thor’s hammer, Iron Man’s mask, and of course, Captain America’s shield and cowl. Unfortunately with prices between $49 and $1,500, most of these goodies are only going to be available to the richest of fans, but you could always sell your computer/car/flat. I certainly plan to, and I’m sure Steve Rogers would approve.

Source Licensing.biz

Hat tip: The wonderful Vicki Isitt

In case you somehow missed it, there’s a new Muppet film coming out early next month, and at HeyUGuys, we’ve gone a little bit Muppet-crazy. On Friday we live-blogged the press conference, where Kermit, Miss Piggy and director James Bobin discussed the film. In the next few days we will be posting a one-to-one interview with Miss Piggy, where I discuss with her the rumours of the Muppets hosting the Oscars, and we try to work out what the most despicable thing she has ever done. Today we’ve got coverage of the round table interview/mini-press conference with the trio, hosted by very manly Muppet, Chris Hewitt of Empire magazine.

We toyed with the idea of transcribing the interview, but even on my best days I’m nowhere near as funny as Kermit and co, and there’s no way a transcript would have done the justice to the experience. Instead, we’ve put up the audio from the interview for your listening pleasure.

When you listen you’ll be treated to Miss Piggy’s views on feminism, relationships and her rider, Kermit’s political ambitions, and speculation as to whether we’ll see the Muppets return to a regular TV slot any time soon. Of course, being the Muppets, what they say is very much secondary to how they say it, and it’s filled with jokes and wisecracks.

So start the music, light the lights, because right now it’s time to get things started with the HeyUGuys Muppet podcast.

The Muppets is released in the UK 10th February.

Last night saw the UK premiere of This Means War, the spy-action-rom-com-bromance starring Chris Pine, Tom Hardy and Reese Witherspoon, and we braved the cold weather and the gangs of dispossessed posh people marauding around Kensington to cover the event.

You may have already seen the clip from the video where McG serenades me. Remarkably that wasn’t even the first time that had happened that day. In addition to the full interview with McG, where we spoke about his hopes for the movie, the influence the Bond franchise and Oceans 11 have had on the film, and the ‘R’-rating it originally received in the US.

We also spoke with Chris Pine about the relationship between the male leads in the film, and got a quick snippet from Reese Witherspoon about the appeal of This Means War, and her love of small dramatic movies.

Check out the interview below, and check back in a few weeks time for our interview with McG. This Means War is released March 2nd.

Normally at HeyUGuys, we don’t go in for celebrity culture, we certainly wouldn’t usually run a separate piece based on a red carpet interview with someone not involved with film, but when we spoke to Jimmy Carr at the premiere for The Woman In Black we discovered something very interesting – not only is he a fan of films, but he really knows his stuff.

He’s certainly gone up in our estimation. Frankly we’d like to see him get his own film show.

Throughout today we have been running extended versions of our interviews from the premiere of The Woman In Black. One of the most interesting things that came up during those interviews related to Hammer Films plans for the future. During our conversation with Simon Oakes, CEO of the company, he revealed,

“We’re going to look more at our catalogue, our old characters, our old IP (intellectual property) like The Mummy and Dracula, and watch this space”

So, it seems fairly clear what the studio will be making in the fairly near future.

We’ve embedded our video of the full interview below. As well as talking about plans for the future, Oakes also talks about what turning The Woman in Black into a film could bring to the story. The video begins with Exclusive Media (Hammer’s parent company) execs, Marc Shipper, Guy East and Tobin Armbrust discussing the tight timescale they were working on while making the film, as well as just how little they had to change to keep the rating of the movie down to a 12A here and a PG-13 in the US.

If you still haven’t had your fill of all things Woman in Black, check out our review, our red carpet interviews with Daniel Radcliffe & Ciaran Hinds and with Jane Goldman & James Watkins.

Earlier today we ran our full interviews with Daniel Radcliffe and Ciaran Hinds from the premiere of The Woman In Black. Next up we have extended interviews with director, James Watkins and screenwriter Jane Goldman.

During the interviews, Watkins spoke to us about the way audiences have been responding to the film, and his pleasant surprise at the level of interest in the movie. We also spoke about the chances of him making more horror films in the future, and the chances that he might turn his hand to romantic comedy.

Our chat with Goldman focused on the way she works as a collaborative writer, and how her regular partnership with Matthew Vaughn differs from working with Watkins. She also spoke about her passion for adapting works for screen, and confirmed that Vaughn will not be directing Kick-Ass 2, and that neither of them will have involvement with the script.

Check back later today for more of our red carpet interviews.

Yesterday we promised you longer versions of our interviews from the Woman In Black red carpet. Never say we don’t deliver. First up, we’ve got a full version of our interviews with Daniel Radcliffe and Ciaran Hinds.

In this interview, Radcliffe talks about the reaction of the die-hard Harry Potter fans (who spent most of the night screaming for his attention) to The Woman In Black. As he puts it, “They stuck with me through Equus”. He also gives a few details about the plot of his next project, Kill Your Darlings.

Hinds spoke about the attraction of Goldman’s script, and his casting in the film, as well as being in two films, back-to-back with Daniel Radcliffe. We also discussed Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and how he felt when he watched the film. And as a special treat, you all get to see the moment where I made a slightly embarrassing error, and assumed Tinker Tailor had been nominated for Best Feature for the Oscars.

Check back later today for more of our full length interviews from the Woman In Black premiere.

Last night a chill ran through the South Bank, as the premiere of The Woman In Black took over The Royal Festival Hall. Given how much we enjoyed the movie, it seemed only sensible to head down and grab a few quick interviews with the cast and crew, hopefully managing to steer clear of any spooky goings on while we were there.

In the video below we speak to Simon Oakes, James Watkins and Jane Goldman, respectively the producer, director and writer of the film, as well as stars Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds and Liz White. We also caught up with comedian Jimmy Carr and Orange BAFTA Rising Stars Award nominee Adam Deacon to find out what they hoped to see from the film, as well as chatting with our my favourite Goonie, Corey Feldman, who gave us his advice for Daniel Radcliffe as he transitions from child star to adult actor.

Over the course of the next few hours we will be publishing longer versions of our interviews with Radcliffe, Hinds, Oakes, Watkins and Goldman, as well as interviews with the film’s executive producers.  We’ll also put up the full version of our chat with Jimmy Carr (he came across as such a film fan, it seems wrong not to).

Update – We interview Daniel Radcliffe on his role in The Woman in Black

A truly horrific horror film is something of a rarity. The Saw films are gruesome, the Paranormal Activity movies are jumpy and Sam Raimi’s output is schlocky fun, but if you know what to expect from them – or their lower budget clones – it’s easy to brace yourself, and diffuse their effect.

More to the point, they tend to rely on the same techniques – lull the audience into a false sense of security, then use loud noises, quick cuts, and all too often revolting visuals to shock the audience into submission. The Woman In Black works in a completely different, and much more effective, fashion by removing that sense of security.

From the very first moments, with a creepy opening sequence involving the demise of a group of young girls, the film uses our base fears and human nature to bathe the audience in an uncomfortable tension that only ends when the credits roll. This tension, which the film shares with the phenomenally successful stage adaptation, allows it to have an effect on a viewer entirely unlike any modern horror film. In the truest sense of the word, it horrifies.

Of course, constant tension and discomfort are not sufficient to create a satisfying scary movie. If it were, We Need to Talk About Kevin would be a favourite with the FrightFest crowd. A horror movie needs the catharsis of a good scare to punctuate the unease, and Woman In Black has that in spades. Sometimes they come in the form of a quick, unexpected jump – a cheap little shock, but more often than not they’re much more subtle, and infinitely more effective: a door suddenly open, a piece of furniture out of place or a glimpse of a figure in a dusty photograph. In most films these would only work with a long build up, combining clever camera work and a crescendo in the soundtrack. Here they’re almost thrown away, and they’re all the more successful for it.

That’s not to say that the film doesn’t have far less subtle moments; at some points director, James Watkins, confronts the audience with shots that wouldn’t be out of place in the most artless of low budget horror flicks, but the tense, unyielding atmosphere means that, far from being ridiculous and laughable, as they would be elsewhere, they are the most successful moments, causing audible shrieks from all corners of the screening I attended.

While Jane Goldman’s screenplay and Watkins’ direction are key factors in this, the film would stand no chance at all if it weren’t for the solid, effective performance of lead actor Daniel Radcliffe. Wandering around old buildings, looking startled is clearly familiar territory, but at no stage does this feel like ‘Harry Potter and the Scary Ghost Woman’, and within moments of being introduced to Arthur Kipps, all traces of his former life as a boy wizard have vanished.

There are a few things that don’t quite work. Some of the dialogue is a little clumsy, particularly an early exchange between Radcliffe’s Kipps, and Roger Allam as his boss. During this brief sequence, Allam sets up a key story point while berating Radcliffe’s character, telling him ‘This is your final warning’. It’s an anachronistic phrase, and jars badly in the context of the conversation. That said, it’s also a fairly minor quibble. Far less minor are the changes made to the original story.

This complaint isn’t based on some idea of sticking slavishly to the text, simply that they don’t work very well. An almost out of the blue moment in the third act sees Radcliffe trying to appease a vengeful spirit, while the final moments of the movie are much more saccharine than in the original story. It’s easy to understand why Goldman and Watkins chose to make these changes, for better or worse, they give the story a much more cinematic structure, but they also feel clunky when compare to the rest of the film.

Fortunately these problems come about so late in the story they’re almost irrelevant. To be honest, after the mystery and tension built over the first hour, Radcliffe could spend the remainder of the film dressed as a Smurf and it would still be both satisfying and scary. Quite simply The Woman In Black is the most effective horror film I’ve seen. Exquisitely terrifying, it is simultaneously near impossible to watch, and too compelling to turn away from. If you’re a fan of scary movies, this is a must watch – just be sure to bring a change of underwear and someone to hold your hand when you do.

****~ (4/5)

with a bonus point for creeping me out while I was writing this review.

Those who follow me on Twitter will know I have no love for the current UK government. In fact, I can’t stand almost everyone involved with it, so bare with me while I spit the following sentence through gritted teeth: The new policy announced by David Cameron on Wednesday – to invest Lottery money in ‘commercial’ projects – is a positive step. It’s not the way I would have gone, but it is a definite improvement upon what went before.

I feel dirty.

Even as I write this, I can hear an angry mob forming, and calling me a philistine, so I’d probably best clarify my position, and my reasons for holding it.

For at least the last decade, if not considerably longer, the people charged with investing state funds in film have had two conflicting goals: to invest in a sustainable film industry and to support projects that otherwise would not have been made. And while this diktat from on high seemed reasonable to someone, somewhere, it doesn’t take a great deal of knowledge about economics, or about the film industry to realise that these two goals are mutually exclusive.

The result of this has been an investment policy that could charitably be described as ‘a mess’. It’s been confused, opaque and it consistently fails to achieve either of the goals outlined above. In the 11 years since the foundation of the UK Film Council, only a handful of the films it funded returned an investment. I don’t have access to figures for its predecessor bodies, but I suspect they would have fared equally as badly, if not worse.

It’s a little harder to gauge how successful the organisation was when it came to fulfilling the other part of its remit, but a quick glance over the list of films produced by the UKFC shows money often going to the same, small pool of production companies, directors and writers. In and of itself, there is nothing untoward about this – some film makers, as we have touched upon, rely on non-commercial support to make their movies. Even still, it seems odd to support so few people so ardently, when there are so many unheard voices, trying to break in to the industry.

Over the last few years, I’ve spoken to many people who applied for Lottery funding in the past, some successfully, others not. The overall impression I was given was that it’s a long, disheartening and all too frequently fruitless experience, where successful applicants often had an established relationship with the body, and successful projects often shared similar themes and ideas.

Let me be clear, if only for the sake of avoiding a libel action and/or sounding like some sort of crazy: I do not believe there was any corruption or conspiracy at the old UK Film Council, nor any funding body. I do believe however, that subjective decisions, made by a relatively small group of people are going to reflect their tastes and beliefs, and be biased in favour of people they are already familiar with.

The new proposals are far from perfect, and they still leave many people out in the cold – including just about everybody refused Lottery funding previously, but they should be much more objective. The basis of the policy is that funding will go to filmmakers with a proven track record. As long as there is a clear definition of what ‘proven track record’ actually means, the new system will be much more open, transparent and accountable.

There is also some logic in giving money to people who have had success previously. It may not be possible to predict with certainty how much money a given film will make, but as a general rule writers, directors and particularly producers who have made profitable films before tend to do so again. For the most part, these are the guys who tell stories well (even if they are stories about giant robots or ghostly pirates), keep costs low and extract every bit of production value from the pennies pumped into their films.

There are of course, flaws. The foremost raised by critics of the new proposals is that films that have either no commercial value, or are high risk will stand no chance of being made. Sadly this is true, at least in the immediate term, but that may not be the case over a longer duration. If these plans are successful, production companies will have more money to spend. Historically, when this has been the case, they tend to take more risks (for lots more information on that sort of thing, check out the excellent ‘Blockbuster’ by Tom Shone). That will probably be cold comfort to Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, but it should reassure, and indeed encourage most up and comers in the industry.

What is much more troubling is that production companies will no longer be expected to return the money to the investment pool when they begin to turn a profit. In the most simple terms, this means that the state is giving these companies money, rather than lending it to them. This will cause numerous issues, both economic and ethical.

This will, without question, turn the Lottery fund into the lender of first resort for those who ‘have a proven track record’. Why on earth would anyone apply for a loan on commercial terms when they can have a freebie? Consequently, it’s rather likely that the chaps administering this are going to be swamped. What makes this even more troubling, is that many of those who will be benefitting from this free money are personally very wealthy.

The argument in favour of this is that companies will reinvest that money, but unless clear conditions are laid down and adhered to, with a legal framework in place to regulate it, this will be abused. Personally, I would propose that the fund is treated as any other investor would be – the loan is paid back, in addition to a return on the investment. By doing this over a period of time, the pool of investment funding would (hopefully) increase beyond the £50 million currently available.

Which brings me neatly to the other major flaw – £50 million isn’t a lot of money. Admittedly, I’d be quite happy with it, but in production terms its peanuts. The entire pot would barely buy you an Iron Man or a Captain America. You’d need somewhere in the region of three times that for a Harry Potter, and that’s before marketing. Even a lowly, direct-to-DVD flick is likely to cost somewhere in the region of £500,000 to £1 million. In short, the fund isn’t going to generate the British version of Avatar any time soon. What it likely will do is allow companies like DNA, MARV and Matador to avoid seeking foreign investment partners, keeping their profits in the UK and allowing them to grow.

As I mentioned at the top of the article, the Tory plan isn’t the direction I would go in, and from the collective shock and hand wringing, it would seem it’s also not the direction most people in the industry would pick, but it is – finally – a direction. After years upon years of the state pottering about in the industry, being neither one thing, nor another, we now know that it’s going to support the big boys and help them get bigger.

If this new plan succeeds, we will all benefit with a film industry in sustainable growth. If it doesn’t – something that will become clear in about three to four years time as films funded by this initiative are released – then we know this wasn’t the way. We can abandon the idea of state support for large production companies, and come up with a new strategy. Either way, the industry wins.