Philip Shotton, from Whitley Bay, explains to Steve Pratt how he managed to win notable support for his ‘seven-day movie’.

WITH his boat moored to a buoy in the middle of the Humber, actor and sailor Timothy Spall was given an onboard film show – a screening of the North-East psychological horror movie Rising Tide.

He liked what he saw, although some may point out he was a captive audience during a break from filming his BBC TV series, Somewhere At Sea, in which he and his wife sail around the British Isles.

He’s described the film, made with a North-East cast and crew, as a “hugely atmospheric, stylish, intriguing and a chilling rite-of-passage horror movie”.

The movie, produced by Northern Film and Media (NFM), has also gained further endorsement from producer Lord David Puttnam, whose son Sasha composed the music for the soundtrack, which features additional music by Northumbrian musician Kathryn Tickell.

The film was premiered at Newcastle Tyneside Cinema in August and returns for a further Metro Radio Night Owls screening tomorrow.

Set on Holy Island, the film finds a group of college leavers on a camping trip on Lindisfarne, only to be trapped by the tide and left at the mercy of a killer.

Whitley Bay born Philip Shotton, who co-directed Rising Tide with Dawn Furness, explains that the project dates back to 2009 after he worked with Newcastle poet Deborah Buchan on making short films about Holy Island.

He’d made short films before. He went to film school and the Royal College of Art, ending up in Manchester making pop videos for Factory Records. By a happy coincidence someone was needed to direct a Happy Mondays video and he was offered the job and became involved in the whole Madchester movement – the name given to the explosion of music in the city. Wikipedia credits Shotton with coining the word Madchester, although he’s not so sure that’s true.

He moved into TV, working for BBC Close Up North making documentaries and working on programmes including Everyman and Reportage for about ten years. But he wanted to get back into drama, first working with Live Theatre on short films shown at the Tyneside.

Making feature films still remained an ambition.

The approach to Rising Tide resulted from his experience making films guerilla style with new actors.

He and Furness had worked with an improv group, The Suggestibles, and used its methods to put Rising Tide together.

“We started off with the idea of the teenage thing of going on camping trips and sitting round campfire telling each other spooky tales. That was one of the areas of inspiration,” he explains.

“We had a bunch of kids away from home and trying to explore all those themes that young people are really interested in like friendship groups, loyalty, who you can trust and the pressure of being a teenager.”

They auditioned about 100 young people at Newcastle’s Live Theatre, selecting a diverse group of ten for the core cast of Rising Tide. Then they spent three weeks doing workshops, improvising around the theme of a camping adventure on a remote island. At the end of sessions, Furness would shape the improvised material into dialogue.

With only a limited budget from the NFM Innovation scheme, they shot the film over seven days. Shotton worked as cameraman as well as co-director, with his experience reflected in the stylish visuals in the film.

Then came selling the movie and finding a distributor. “Dawn and myself always called it a psychological chiller, but we’ve ended up marketing it as a horror film. It does spook you although we weren’t making a gore film, but something much more psychological than spooky. It does fall into the horror genre, but not the extreme kind,” says Shotton.

“What I want is for as many people to see it as possible because I think it’s all about the young cast really.

They worked so hard on it and all come out looking great.”

As well as a local actors, the soundtrack features not only Tickell, but several bands from the North-East.

Whatever happens to Rising Tide, Shotton and Furness have already filmed a sequel – a haunted house movie made at Brinkburn Priory in Rothbury with most of the same cast and crew.

• Northern Film and Media/Night Owls Rising Tide spooky screening is at Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, tomorrow. Box Office: 0845-217- 9909.
tynesidecinema.co.uk
risingtidethemovie.com