26 APRIL 2020 http://www.writers-online.co.ukIn the
frame
Author, screenwriter and director
Andrew David Barker tells Gary
Dalkin how writers can turn into
filmmakers
to be shot on next to no money, all in
the location I’d found.’
Through writing for pop culture
magazine And Cream, Andrew had
the opportunity to interview the
actor Leslie Simpson (Dog Soldiers).
Afterwards he got his script to the
actor, who agreed to star in the film.
Andrew says that getting Simpson
on board ‘changed everything. I
did manage to get a bit of financial
backing, and suddenly we were
making the film.’look like the end of the world. So I
decided to write to order – basically
shaping a story around the location.’
This is Andrew’s first big lesson,
use what resources are available to
you. ‘I’ve always loved the post-
apocalyptic genre and the location
made for a perfect fit for something
in that area. So I wrote an outline for
a story about a lone man in an empty
world – eventually his mind begins to
unravel and the crippling loneliness
takes hold. I designed the entire thingT
here are very few
novelists who are also
film writer-directors.
Perhaps the most
famous example is
Michael Crichton, who wrote the
original novel Jurassic Park, and
wrote and directed films such as
Westworld and Coma. Once, like
publishing, filmmaking existed in
a walled garden. But now, just as
ebooks and print on demand have
enabled anyone to publish a book,
so new technology has liberated
filmmaking. So when I spoke to
writer/director Andrew David Barker
I was keen to find out how a novelist
can become a filmmaker.
In the beginning, Andrew says,
‘I had no connection to the film
industry whatsoever. I grew up in
Derby to a working-class family
and the options I had when I left
school, after getting a very poor
education, where either to go and
work in a factory or on a building
site.’ He did both.
With no money, but an ambition
burning inside him to make a
film, his feature A Reckoning came
about because ‘I discovered an old
abandoned RAF base just outside
Nottingham. It was an entire village
just left to the elements and it did
Andrew David Barker is the author
of the novels The Electric and Dead
Leaves. His new novel Mick & Sarah
at the Pictures is currently being
crowdfunded through Unbound.
He wrote and directed the feature
film A Reckoning (2011) and
the shorts Two Old Boys (2018 -
winner of award for Best Comedy
Short at the Independent Shorts
Awards, Los Angeles) and Shining
To r (2018, winner of Best Fantasy
Short, Independent Shorts Awards;
Best Visual Effects – Midlands
Movies Awards, 2019; Best Actress,
Laura Rollins, The Short Cinema,
2019; Official Selection, That Film
Festival, Cannes, 2019).