Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here. Reporting from the Film4Fright Fest, Doc Charlie Oughton caught up with Kate Shenton. FrightFest 2015 saw the return of the ON TENDER HOOKS’ director to the festival to premiere her new short film, SEND IN THE CLOWNS. A mockumentary following the exploits of unassuming David (who wants to be a scary clown), it shows how your worst nightmare may (or may not) be living around the corner. Doc Charlie Oughton spoke to Kate about SEND IN THE CLOWNS and her forthcoming feature, EGOMANIAC, a talking dog film.
DR. CHARLIE OUGHTON (DCO): What do you think of clowns? They vary hugely depending on what culture you’re in.KAREN SHENTON (KS): I am a big lover of scary clowns and the tramp clowns and proper clowns. For me a clown doesn’t need to wear makeup to be a clown. A clown for me is something that you laugh at. The clown in this is a very traditional clown – you don’t laugh with a clown, you laugh at a clown. Even if you have the intelligent clown and the unintelligent clown, you laugh at them and comedy is not necessarily the nicest form and often the person you’re laughing at is yourself.
DCO: Tell me about the design of the clown that David plays.
KS: It was based on me looking through eBay. I spent days looking at all the different clown masks. I still wanted it to be a bit scary. People are going to be terrified if they saw that on the street. One time I actually wore that costume to a Halloween event and I wore the costume and just stared at people and I managed to freak out a lot of corporate business people at this cocktail bar, so it was a tremendous amount of fun. It was hopefully a scary image that contrasts with David’s very loveable character.
DCO: You could see it as a hobby he could actually have. I mean, you look at the lady who dresses as a fairy, and she basically looks like a live action role player.
KS: I wrote the film as people were dressing up as scary clowns and I wrote the mockumentary to know what it is like to go and do this ridiculous thing that no one likes. Barring Piggy, who is a bit of a surreal character, most of the characters are generally quite realistic.
DCO: Why have the level of sudden and graphic bodily nastiness that you do in certain sequences?KS: Because that’s just me. I’ve always liked things a bit gory and a bit gross and I like to create a physical reaction in the audience as it shows that you’ve actually watched something. The point of Piggy is that there is no point of Piggy. He is a recurring character who is featured. It’s just Piggy. He will probably continue to appear for no other reason than to show the depths of how dark my imagination can go. And it’s always the same person who plays him, Matt Fraser. I’m hoping someone would write a PhD about the meaning of Piggy or something about Piggy but really there is no meaning.
DCO: Some documentary theory states that documentaries should be ethical. Would that apply in terms of this mockumentary in terms of the way David is portrayed?
KS: If this was an actual documentary I wouldn’t go out and film it as I do think David is a bit of a vulnerable character and I don’t like the way documentaries exploit their subject. Documentary is never true non-fiction – it’s always a view from the director of their interpretation. I wanted it to have that exploitative Channel 4 feel that I feel are there to make people look like idiots. The shoes that David buys are the symbol of everything that’s gone wrong for him.
DCO: What would you ideally like the audience to get out of this?KS: I’d like people to laugh. My ultimate worry is ‘will people be entertained?’ For a meaning that’s a little deeper, I think there’s a lot of creatives in the audience that might be able to identify with some of the feelings and I think that’s something that it will be nice for people to see… and keep going.
DCO: Do you feel there’s a warning for creatives in the film in terms of being like David or like Piggy?
KS: People have interpreted it in different ways. People have felt it is a negative message, others have said David is the creative hero who is just going to keep going. For me, I do see him as a little bit of a positive character, saying ‘I am going to keep following my dreams’. I think there is something very beautiful in that. Just because you’re not very good, why should you not go out and make it happen? Maybe just keeping going is enough. I think David is, in his own twisted little way, a positive role model.
DCO: Is the title a reference to the song?
KS: It was very much a reference to the old Frank Sinatra song, ‘Send in the Clowns’. If you listen to the song, there’s just something so tragic about that song that for me just summed up the film. All of them are clowns. You’re laughing at all of them and that song is one of the most depressingly sad songs in the world. I never laugh on a film set.
DCO: What’s next?KS: Well we’re in post production for a film called EGOMANIAC (A Talking Dog Film). And it is about an Ego Manic and a talking dog. It’s dryer and bleaker than Send SEND IN THE CLOWNS. It’s a semiautobiographical character called Katherine Sweeney and about how she tries to make a zombie horror romantic comedy but everybody in the film industry tells her to put a talking dog in it. They get her to change the casting and they get her to change her image and they keep changing everything to the point where she goes completely mental. It’s based quite a lot on my own personal experiences as a film maker. It’s the same team as SEND IN THE CLOWNS and a lot of the same cast are in it as well. SEND IN THE CLOWNS was sort of a test run, but EGOMANIAC is probably a lot darker.
DCO: And yet, to look at you, butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth! What would you most like to improve on as a film maker?
KS: I definitely want to be a bit more exciting with my cinematography as I’ve been so performance and dialogue driven. Also, just making sure that every film I do isn’t just recreating the previous one. One of the films I want to do next is a virtually completely silent horror film. I think that would be a nice challenge. With every film you should be shitting yourself that you’re about to make it. If you’re not terrified you’re not challenging yourself and you’re not going to do something interesting.
DCO: Thanks, Kate! You can find out more about when and where you can check out SEND IN THE CLOWNS on Kate’s website (and Ambush Bug will definitely post the short once it is available for all to see)! And check out the teaser trailer for SEND IN THE CLOWNS below!
