With her street quarantined by a military unit attempting to destroy a savage renegade, a single mother battles to bring her estranged daughter to safety.
AWARD-WINNING WRITER COLIN O’DONNELL was discovered during his Screen Writing MA, snatching the 2003 Lynda La Plante writing award. As Story Editor for Hollyoaks at Liverpool’s Lime Pictures, he was part of the winning team that devised the ‘teacher and student affair’ storyline, scooping Best Storyline at the 2006 Soap Awards. Colin also has a parallel career in writing thriller feature film scripts, a number of which are in development.
DIRECTOR LAWRENCE GOUGH is new to feature film but has directed some impressive short films through his company Hoax Films, winning awards such as Best in the Northwest and Best Drama, from Cornerhouse Cinema. He has great technical filmmaking knowledge, and has also passed on his skills through filmmaking classes at both Liverpool and Manchester University.
PRODUCER JULIE LAU has worked predominantly with digital projects and has the ability to deliver high production value projects on a very tight budget. Most recently she has worked as Production Manager on feature film All Night And All Day. Her drama credits include Daydream, 2006, and O Jerusalem, 2005 and she also has a background in music videos.
MANCHESTER-BASED ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ALAN PATTISON started out in directing a wide variety of plays in Manchester theatre, including King Lear at the Contact, Rita, Sue and Bob Too at the Library, and Abigail’s Party and Endgame for the Green Room. In the last five years he has gone on to produce films with Lawrence Gough at Hoax Films.
SYNOPSIS AND BACKGROUND
HORROR film, Salvage, follows the physical and psychological journey of its central female character, a mother who is desperate to rescue her daughter and save her from the grip of an out-of-control savage.
It’s a raw and robust film project, says writer Colin O’Donnell, rooted in heightened but realistic concepts. It’s also Colin’s first horror script – but it won’t be his last.
“I’ve mainly written thrillers in the past, but Lawrence and Alan had an idea for a horror film and were looking for a writer, and I was recommended to them by someone we’d both worked with in the past,” he explains. After meeting up, the trio knew immediately they wanted to work together. And Colin became hooked on horror.
“I’ve just written the 6th draft of Salvage, and will be re-writing well into production. The script’s getting better all the time, although time’s something we’ve been short on from the word go,” says Colin, who admits there’s been significant changes in the story since the team first submitted their treatment to Digital Departures.
“Because of budget restrictions we had to cut a couple of big moments in the script, which was a little disheartening at the time, but then we managed to come up with some really creative solutions, telling the same story without blowing the budget,” adds Colin, who recently left Hollyoaks to freelance on other TV dramas.
“I can still only write part-time as I have to do a day-job, so it’s been difficult fitting everything in. But hopefully all the hard work will pay off,” says Colin, who despite his past successes sees this Digital Departures film as his big screen debut.
“I’ve already had one feature produced and I’ve written other thrillers in the past, but this film is by far my biggest break,” explains Colin.
It was Director, Lawrence Gough, who came up with the original concept for the film. “I thought it would be really interesting to have a shipping container washed up on a beach, and there being something terrible inside it,” explains Lawrence.
From that original idea, Salvage soon developed and it was decided to set the film within a cul-de-sac. “We loved the idea of the characters being contained, and of a mother trying to rescue her daughter,” adds Lawrence, who was intrigued by producer Julie Lau’s idea to set the horror within the former set used by TV soap, Brookside.
“I decided to pay a visit to the Close and started talking to the security guard who was looking after the empty properties. He put me in touch with the owner, and as the houses are all standing empty he was happy for us to use the set as our central location for Salvage,” explains Lawrence.
Producer Julie Lau is thrilled to be involved with such a thrilling story. “I haven’t been attached to the project for long, but because I was involved in another Digital Departures project I’d already met the guys and knew all about their story, which I thought was brilliant,” explains Julie.
“We’ll start filming at the end of February and the shoot throws up a number of challenges from a military siege to all the blood and gore viewers expect from a horror. We hope to have finished by the end of March, so it’s going to be a very busy few weeks, but I can’t wait!” she adds.
Lawrence admits he never dared dream his project would be one of the final three Digital Departures films to be commissioned.
“I never expected to win,” he says. “I always tend to play on the safe side of things, but having said that I’ve never worked so hard to try and make something happen,” he confides. “The only thing I was ever confident about was the idea. I knew it was good, and I knew it would make a brilliant film as it pulls together contemporary issues and explores this using the popular horror genre.”
