The Fan Carpet Chats To… Telling Surprising Stories: A Conversation With Film Director And screenwriter Eric Ian Steele
Eric Ian Steele’s film debut ‘Boy #5’, a subverted vampire story, was incredibly successful and selected by FrightFest. Since then the Manchester-born director and screenwriter has shot two more exciting and ambitious feature films.
He tells us about his unusual route into the industry, the challenges of shooting over lockdown, and his new alternate-history WWII film, ‘Forty-Two’.
How did you start working in the film industry?
Actually, I never intended to be a film director. For someone like me, born in Manchester in the 1970s, film and television was something magical that only happened in faraway places like London or Hollywood. So after getting my degree in English Literature (a fairly useless subject!), I went to work in a variety of jobs before ending up in the police. I stayed there for over 12 years. Then, thanks to the internet and a lot of hard work, I got an agent and started selling screenplays. After a while I met a local film group, and things just grew from there.
Can you tell us about your experiences as a writer?
I’d always written screenplays for fun. But when the internet arrived, it suddenly became possible to sell screenplays online through various websites. I got my first job writing a horror script for hire. Then I optioned a few spec scripts of my own, before finally selling my sci-fi action screenplay ‘Clone Hunter’, followed by ‘The Student’ to a company in Hollywood a few years later. But I got tired of having no control over the material. Now as a director, I understand why so many changes happen to a script – it can be anything from being kicked out of a location, to the weather, to an actor’s availability – but still, it’s nice to be the one making the changes!
Photo credit Vamoose Productions Ltd
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