upfront
Actress Rakie Ayola on the pros & cons of new blood
With the next series of The Pact – unrelated to the first - having just finished filming, Rakie Ayola tells me she’s now in need of a holiday. First, though, we have a chat about the myriad productions recently filming in Wales, The Pact Season 1 and 2 amongst that ever-increasing crowd. Creative Wales have been running a trainee scheme for newcomers on a domestic TV/ movie set: how’s that been, from an actor’s point of view?
“It’s been good. There are so many productions happening that it’s important we address the skill shortage, because it’s not a bottomless pit.”
It’s not all plain sailing: having trainees requires a more experienced team to teach them, as Rakie highlights. “It’s going to take time for them to be able to carry weight. Wales is going to struggle for a while with new people, and then with people who’ve been in the business for a while who’ve been promoted because of this work explosion.
Protein:
horror food for thought
Craig Russell, producer and star of new Welsh horror Protein, is no stranger to the process of getting a low-budget film made. An actor who’s appeared in Hollyoaks, The Last Kingdom, Wild Honey Pie and Welsh low-budget drama specialist Jamie Adams’ Songbird, producing was a leap Russell made with 2017’s Canaries. A gleefully enjoyable sci-fi horror set in Lower Cwmtwrch, with the tagline “in Wales no one can hear you scream”, it was made on a shoestring but embraced by the global horror community.
This gave Russell confidence to try and expand Protein, a short film he’d made in 2014 and thought had more story to tell. Written and directed by Tony Burke, it followed Sion, a haunted, fitness- obsessed serial killer who takes out bald musclemen at his local gym and turns them into protein drinks. The feature expands on this premise, adding a backstory about Sion’s PTSD and a brutal drug war – one inadvertently caused by Sion’s appetites.
The cast has also expanded, with Welsh talent like Steve Meo (High Hopes), Richard Elis (The Pact), Charles Dale (Casualty), Kai Owen (Torchwood), Richard Mylan (Waterloo Road) and Gareth John Bale (Grav) all appearing. Russell got into ridiculous shape for his part – “losing two-and-a-half stone and all sense of fun,” in his words – with the help of rugby performance coach Trystan Bevan. He also talked with PTSD sufferers to get a respectful insight into the condition.
Protein was filmed over four weeks around Llanelli, on a tiny budget. Production company Broadside Films, based in Carmathenshire, had already worked with Russell on another film, In Absentia, and loved the initial short of Protein. The crew were drawn from Wales, amongst them some recent graduates of University Of Wales Trinity St David’s film making courses in Carmarthen, who got the opportunity to sharpen their skills on the production – working long days to get this ambitious feature, a truly Welsh psychological horror film with lashings of grisly gore, in the can.
Protein will be released later this year KEIRON SELF
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“On a film crew, you might have 70 people; 30 of them given a job and have been doing it for less than two years will have an impact. [...] And when the big hitters come in… of course, everyone wants that next big Sex Education gig but it means independents like Little Door struggle to find a crew that isn’t so new. And I’m not saying those people won’t go on to be brilliant, but they’re new.
“So your runners become your third, your third becomes second, your second your first. Then your first becomes your line producer, and your line producer becomes a producer. Everybody’s relatively new. How can you train people if everyone’s learning?
“We need to think about all the organisations involved in making this profession accessible: If you cannot teach them because of time and constraints, don’t let them leave without knowing this stuff.”
Season 1 of The Pact is available on iPlayer. CARL MARSH
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