Sam Harrison, a Year 10 pupil at Oundle School has recently taken part in a new film: ‘Dimensions, a line, a loop, a tangle of threads’ shown at the Cambridge film festival on 21 and 22 September, and hopefully cinemas around the country in the near future
Early in 2010, Sam was asked to audition for the film by his Drama Agency: The Young Actors’ Company, based in Cambridge and after a number of auditions was delighted to be offered the role of Steven.
Sam commented, “The film tells the story of three children growing up in the 1920s. Steven, one of the children, encounters an old Professor who teaches him about the fourth dimension. Victoria and Steven are particularly good friends, but when Victoria has a fatal accident, Steven grows up to devise a time machine to revisit his childhood and say goodbye.”
“I am not sure that acting is something I would like to take up professionally, as it is not a very reliable profession and you have to rely on auditions and offers to make a living. I am however doing drama for GCSE. I think it is an amazingly fun subject to do as it also involves writing scripts, another interest which I recently developed.”
London couple, Ant Neely and Sloane U'Ren cashed in the profits from the sale of their house in Twickenham to make Dimensions, a 1920's science fiction film.
They slashed their budget from over a million pounds to £180,000 and are now living with relatives.
However screenwriter Ant told Sky News they did not regret a thing saying: "It's a little bit nuts but we were not doing it as a financial decision but as a life one. Our point of view is life is short and you either do these things or you talk about them."
Director Sloane has worked on franchises like Harry Potter and Batman and pulled in favours from industry friends to finish the project.
They spent two years making the film in and around Cambridge and also got locals to help out.
Dimensions stars Patrick Godfrey, Henry Lloyd Hughes, and Camilla Rutherford – established actors who reduced their rates to get involved.
Camilla Rutherford was inspired by the producers saying: "We all knew how much they had put into this project, so we all pitched in together; we were on set a lot of the time.
"Obviously we had a pretty small budget but I think that really helped to make us all very close and probably enhanced the quality of the project".
As first time film makers, Ant and Sloane never expected to get funding.
The recession had hit when they started and the UK film council had been disbanded.
Their movie was shot relatively cheaply but both believe more support should be given to fellow film makers.
Ant said: "The British should be making more of their own films, big ones as well as small ones, because Britain has been very good at making good smaller films. There is no reason why the British should not invest in their own industry because you could make big films that were funded by British people if they wanted to invest."
For further details visit www.dimensionsthemovie.com