Bella wakes up in an abandoned house with no way of communicating with the outside world and no memory of how she got there. With time quickly running out, Bella must discover the true purpose of her imprisonment before it's too late, as she soon realises that she might not be alone.
Genre: Psychological, Thriller | Run Time: 09m 45s
Directed by: Hugo Kilner | Starring: Georgina McKay
Release Date: September 30, 2024
W A T C H T H E F I L M
T R A I L E R
C A S T & C R E W
CAST
Bella: Georgina McKay
Cressida: Olivia Hollreiser
The Woman: Savannah Wells
The Man: Brodie McDonough
The Consultant: Lorenzo Allchurch
The Receptionist: Annabelle Fernando
The Administrator: Brandon Regan
CREW
Written and Directed by: Hugo Kilner
Produced by: Hugo Kilner, Sam Bateman
Executive Producers: Finlay Ross,
Miah Bhabutta, Sadie Dennis
Director of Photography: Milton Gibney
Production Design / Editing by: Hugo Kilner
Makeup Artist: Grace Dalipi
Score created with: Filmstro Pro
1st Assistant Director: Sam Bateman
Production Sound Mixer: Finlay Ross
1st Assistant Camera: Miah Bhabutta
Production Runners: Savannah Wells,
Tegan Beese
Stills Photographer: Ophelia Fellhauer
T H E M A K I N G O F
The development for Clockwork actually began as far back as early 2021. As soon as I knew that I’d be studying Film & Television at the University of Exeter, I started to think of various ideas because the chance to do the creative film dissertation there was one of the major reasons as to why I went. So full disclosure, this film was made within the parameters of the film department at the university there. But, not wanting to wait until my third year of university to make a short film, in 2023, I made a short drama about a student’s declining mental health, called Gridlock, which you can WATCH HERE. You can also read all about that and how Phoenix Studios came to be HERE.
However, I knew that I wanted Clockwork to look and feel completely different to Gridlock. What was a particular challenge, albeit a welcome one this time around, was that I was naturally working within the guidelines set by the university with regard to runtime, content, etc. Perhaps more importantly, production on our most ambitious film yet, Bollocks, was looming. So Clockwork quickly became a perfect vehicle for an extended camera test – a way for the crew to get to properly know each other before undertaking a much bigger project.
I found myself writing the lead character, Bella, with Georgina already in mind, as I’d been fortunate enough to have already made Gridlock with her. Being aware that my peers would mostly be casting from the same group of actors, I made sure to approach Georgina relatively early in the process. Thankfully, she was very willing to be involved. Finding Cressida was not quite as straightforward. But, we eventually found Olivia, who sent in a stellar self-tape and brought certain aspects to the character that I hadn’t considered. It was a huge bonus that Georgina and Olivia had such great chemistry!
Then it was time to re-assemble the Gridlock crew! But owing to the more demanding nature of the project, we wouldn’t have been able to undertake this project without the additional support of Milton Gibney as our Director of Photography, and Kate Spalding as our Costume Designer. Those two really helped to elevate the whole thing and I was able to entrust a lot of tasks to them that I’d had to fulfil myself on Gridlock.
But, due to the truncated nature of our second term at university, the production of multiple other Phoenix Studios projects and our looming Kickstarter campaign for Bollocks, production certainly crept up on all of us quite quickly. And that production, which lasted a total of 4 days, was anything but straightforward. We got kicked out of an important location we were using, we had multiple crew illnesses all at once, equipment regularly broke down, shooting overran by several hours each day and to top it all off, we lost a whole day’s worth of footage! And you can read even more about the ins and outs of our difficult production by CLICKING HERE. The most important thing is, we got there in the end! Clockwork is now out on YouTube, Vimeo and right here on our website! I’m extremely grateful to everyone who worked on this one because they really put in a huge amount of work.
