Oliver Park on making the low-budget indie horror, 'Vicious'

Vicious ‘short’ horror by Oliver Park

indieactivity: Introduce your film briefly?
Oliver: Vicious is a 12 minute psychological horror about a woman who, in getting over the death of her sister is plagued by her grief and guilt.

indieactivity: How did you develop Viscious?
Oliver: Vicious began as a short horror that took place in one house at night. With a background in acting, I was originally the lead but as I developed the characters, I realised that the best protagonists for this tale would be a woman – two women in fact – sisters. Once I knew who the villain of the piece was, I knew who the protagonist needed to be, so then I surrounded the story with darkness and fear. I then went over the script many times, redrafting, trying to come up with the scariest eventuality for each scene.

indieactivity: How was it financed?
Oliver: I financed it myself after saving for a long time.

indieactivity: How long was your pre-production?
Oliver: Pre-production was six weeks. I brought the team together and we discussed every shot and frame in detail. I was lucky that I lived in the house we shot in and lived with my camera operator so we spent a lot of time together. I also put together the film I wanted to shoot with pieces from other films to give the team an idea for what was in my head.

indieactivity: What was your rehearsal process and period?
Oliver: The two actresses came down the day before the film. I spent the whole day with them and we went through all that would be needed. We also spent time talking via skype during the weeks before the shoot.

Vicious by Oliver Park

indieactivity: You shot the film in days. How long were your days?
Oliver: Very long! We shot over a weekend – two days (we started at 6pm and wrapped at 4am) and even with all we got, we needed a pick-up day to get the shot we were unable to get during the shoot.

indieactivity: Did the tight shooting schedule make it harder or easier? How did it affect performances?
Oliver: If all the prep is done before the shoot, you’re giving yourself the best chance of t running smoothly – but it never does. A tight schedule is never good in my opinion as it doesn’t allow for things to change or go wrong. I like more time as then if someone has a great idea last minute, we have time to try it.

indieactivity: What was the experience like of working with such a small shooting crew ?
Oliver: It was a ten-strong crew in a tiny house so it was very cramped in that house! It was great fun as we were all good friends and our friendships grew stronger over the short time we were together.

indieactivity: The film looks stunning. How did you get such a good look when shooting so fast?
Oliver: I chose to work with very talented crew. Production value and quality is very important to me.

indieactivity: Did you look at rushes? On what format?
Oliver: I did – I looked at them all and lots of times. We shot on the Sony F55 so it was easy enough to get the files onto my laptop where I could see them and begin editing the film in my head.

indieactivity: What were the advantages and disadvantages in the way you worked?
Oliver: Time constraints and not having enough money to pay people their worth. I paid everyone for their time but it would have been nice to pay more. We worked long hours and through the night so it was a big ask. We had no time to get used to the time shift, we just pushed through and it hurt! But working with talented friends on something you’re all passionate about is amazing and although it is a serious business when you’re there on set shooting, it’s also so much fun and although the film is dark, tense and scary, laughter filled that house whilst we were there!