If the world you created in your film became a reality, is that a world you would want to live in? Is there a Sci-Fi world you’d buy a one-way ticket to?

This is a tricky question because the world we depict in our film isn’t too far removed from the world in which we live today but I’d have to say yes, I would. You only have to spend a few hours online to find a whole community of people actively researching whether events such as the one depicted within our film have actually occurred and there are numerous reports that suggest they have. Additionally, last year the USA began to declassify a lot of UFO related video content that is certainly making ‘what if’ scenarios seem a lot more plausible so perhaps we already do?

Name a Sci-Fi character you relate to on a spiritual level? Who is your Sci-Fi spirit animal/spirit alien?

I’m not a spiritual person at all but I have to say I think that I’ve always been very interested in the things that we can share, regardless of species or origin. What can or do we have in common with other animals or beings? I’m interested in questions like does Bigfoot go back to other Bigfoots and relay sightings of us as we do them? Do Bigfoots think those Bigfoots are crazy? Do aliens do the same? If they exist of course but the what ifs and suppositions are where I look for inspirations for stories.

Friend or Foe: humanoid robots with advanced artificial intelligence? What if robots start making their own Sci-Fi films? Will you support them in their endeavors?

I’m very on the fence with this one but I’m now really interested in whether their definition of sci- fi would be at all the same way as ours, since the genre is defined by that which is outside of the normal. Perhaps, to the robots, Downton Abbey is a sci-fi? Food for thought.

In 1996, Bugs Bunny recruited Michael Jordan and Bill Murray to form the greatest basketball squad of all-=me, the Tune Squad; you’re Bugs, who’s on your Sci-Fi Tune Squad?

This is going to sound like a cop-out but Space Jam got it so right that I’d hate to mess with that killer formula. I’m sticking with the 1996 line up all the way.

You’ve gotta go through some bad ideas to get to the good ones. Tell us one of your bad ideas. How do you get past the bad ones to find your spark?

Well, my experience is that all good ideas begin as bad ideas. What I’ve go*en a lot be*er at is learning which ones have legs and which ones need to go back in the melting pot, perhaps to rise like a phoenix later in life; usually this process occurs very naturally through the process of determining the characters, their motivations and then their arcs, where would the story go. Some ideas may offer loads of opportunities for the characters I’m writing and others may simply create a series of dead ends, which would need contrivances built into the story to overcome, which I’m not a huge fan of. Some ideas I get whole or others come in frustra;ng pieces over an elongated period of time which can be frustrating!

Do you consider yourself part of a sci-fi community? Or when your brain is in the future and your body’s in the present, is that isolating?

The idea of community, especially since the pandemic, has shifted and I think the world has come together in a variety of new and exciting ways. I feel like I’m part of a global community of film lovers and filmmakers, I just happen to be a filmmaker who gravitates towards sci-fi more than to other genres. I like the opportuni;es of the genre and I loved sci-fi growing up. It feels like home.

Do you consider yourself more of an analog or digital person? What kind of balance do strike between the two? Is there a disconnect between the technology you make films about and the technology that you make films with?

I’m definitely caught between two worlds. Analog and digital. To some extent I have evolved to become a digital native but I’m also old enough to remember a time before internet in every house and when the internet router used to make that awful dial up tone and not always connect. I remember a world before social media. I try to balance my time these days between the technology I need to do my job and make films, and being as separate as possible from it by spending ;me outside and in nature.

When you’re creating the props and sets that make a new world, where do you look for inspiration? How do you create objects that are relatable but unfamiliar?

I look in the story first when it comes to inspiration for props and sets. The first question has to be always ‘what does the story need’ and then ‘what does the audience need in order to understand and engage with the story we’re telling’. Those two questions always form the back bone of any decision in any department on a film. Once that has been decided, we then turn to ‘how’ to achieve that, which is where the fun starts. Lots of mood boards and internet browsing, reading books and taking long walks with lots of different things to look at and see I find really inspiring.

Lightning round: Star Wars or Star Trek? Philip K. Dick or William S. Burroughs? Practical or CGI? Dystopia or Utopia? Post Apocalypse or Pre Apocalypse?

Star Wars Philip K Dick Practical Dystopia Post-Apocalypse