DANIEL SHAKESPEARE

What inspires your work?

I think my biggest inspiration, and what I'd imagine is a somewhat unoriginal answer, are the myriad problems that swirl around our world and my mind on the regular. Making films about the nature of evil is quite natural when evil still hasn't been eradicated, making films about love and loss becomes second nature when you've loved and lost.

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What films did you watch as a child?

Michael Bay's Transformers and Raimi's Spider-Man films were on regular rotation when I was growing up. Still love them dearly (yes, even the Transformers sequels).

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What directors have influenced your work?

Sergio Leone, Richard Linklater, Michael Mann, and Tony Scott are the directors that have most shaped my understanding of cinema.

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What is one film that you think everyone should watch? And why?

Collateral. One of the best and most accessible works on the nature of our increasingly digitised, disconnected world, with Cruise and Foxx giving the performances of their careers. Also a hugely important work for filmmakers learning how to shoot films on digital; Mann shows just how much could be done even with more "primitive" digital cameras if you know how to use them properly.

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If you could adapt any book/play/piece of literature, which would it be?

Of Mice and Men is one of my favourite books, and I think a lot of its themes are forever prescient. So that should be my answer...but I think in my heart, what I really want to do is a Glengarry Glen Ross adaptation, even though the 90's film is pretty much perfect.

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Who are your favourite writers? (this could be from any format - script, books, poetry etc.)

I think the two writers who have been the most totemic to me have been Andrzej Sapkowski and Koren Zailckas. For film, Mann and Linklater are still quite big touchstones for their scripts just as much as their movies. And like most boys in their mid-20's, Bob Dylan's lyricism enters my mind in one form or another almost every day.

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Name a film score that makes you feel something.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. My favourite film of all-time, and Morricone's incredible score is no small part of the reason for my adoration.

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Who is an actor that you would love to work with?

Scott Adkins.

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What was the last film you watched? (and would you recommend it?)

Happyend, a Japanese dystopian coming-of-age film directed by Neo Sora. I'd highly recommend it, it's such a moving treatise on how friendships work and grow and mold individuals, while also being a "Fight the Power" film that makes it a great pairing with One Battle After Another (like its calmer, more meditative cousin).

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What is next for you?

Currently in post-production of a fun one-location crime short, in pre-production of a few others, so in-between those projects, some writing work, and learning the harmonica, I have my hands full!

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​Tell us about your film Only in Moonlight?  What`s it all about?

Only in Moonlight is a queer vampire film, about a newly-turned vampire stumbling into a nightclub in Edinburgh. It's a stealth romance film in a way, while not skimping on the horror elements.

 

Can you tell us about the creative process in making your film? What drew you to this project?

Me and Cass worked on quite a few things together in some capacity, but have never been on the same set together. So I think the main inspiration was just wanting to get out there and make something. The idea for Only in Moonlight came after a steady ideation session; where a fantasy film became an urban fantasy film, which became a horror film, which became a horror-romance film, which eventually turned into the script for Only in Moonlight.

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How long does a film like Only in Moonlight take to make? 

Pre-production took a while, because we needed to find an effective way of budgeting a film of this scope while self-financing. Cass was such a soldier here, they managed to eventually pull everything together for the shoot. The shoot itself took three days in two locations. And, as is usually the case, post-production took the longest, as co-ordinating the score, the sound effects, the grade, and the actual cutting of the film is never an easy process. From the first writing session to the final cut, Only in Moonlight took about a year (with plenty of breaks in between while we worked on other productions).

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What challenges did you encounter?

For one, rain. We had to cut the second day of filming short because it was just pouring it down, to the point where we worried about the camera holding up. There was also a hilarious oversight where we just assumed the sound system in the nightclub would take a phone connection via cable...and it didn't. So we ended up transferring the songs from the phone to the DoP's laptop, then put those on a USB drive, and plugged that into the sound system. Crisis averted!

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Do you have a favourite moment when filming/creating Only in Moonlight?

One particular moment that really stands out is on the first day of shooting, with all the extras. Me and Cass split the playlist of songs we'd use for the "house music" (replaced by Theo Vandenhoff's terrific song "Temper" in the final film), and we were shooting the scene. Two of my tracks played back to back, and the extras seemed a little out of it. Then one of Cass's picks came on and the crowd of extras actually cheered! Never has my taste in music been so resoundly trounced.

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How was working with your cast and crew? Do you have any stand out moments?

The cast and crew were a mix of people I knew well, Cass knew well, and people neither of us knew. And we all got on almost instantly. Every stage of production has its highlights: when me and Cass swapped drafts for the first time, doing the first readthroughs with the cast we initially decided upon, getting all the extras in to the location we used as our nightclub, seeing Taylor's grade and hearing Milo's score for the first time. There's a lot of stress around those moments, because we're all creatives who are incredibly passionate about what we do, and want to make it the best film we possibly can, but in the end, it's always, always worth it.

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Can you tell us more about the sound/production/costume design of your film? 

The sound design is mostly minimalistic...which makes the inevitable bite even gnarlier with its gooeyness. A huge part of the film's soundscape is the terrific music of Milo Paulus throughout, which gives the film an "urban gothic" quality that fits like a glove. The biggest parts of our production design (beyond some coloured lights in the bathroom) are the costuming of the principal cast and the extras, and Edinburgh itself. It's a city that gives you that modern/gothic contrast whenever you walk in and out of a building, we couldn't ask for a better city to shoot in. Huge shoutout to the Wee Red Bar for letting us film there!

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Where did you get the inspiration when creating Only in Moonlight? 

An obvious inspiration is Blade, but Coppola's take on Dracula is a film I think about pretty much all the time, and certainly played its part in colouring the entire vampire mythos in a certain light while writing. Our moodboard has references to all sorts: Tony Scott, Mann, Coppola, Wong Kar Wai, Blade, All of Us Strangers, and more.​​

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What have you learnt from making Only in Moonlight? Would you do anything differently next time?

Picking the right crew for the job is such a burden-lifter. Only in Moonlight is the "biggest" film I've directed in terms of scope and budget, and I've learnt a lot, made a few mistakes, but the biggest thing on my mind is how much harder this would've been if I didn't have such a solid cast and crew to work with. What a lovely bunch of people. The only thing I'd do differently? Shoot somewhere a little warmer next time!