Please introduce yourself and the film
I'm Thomas Longstaff, a Writer and Director from Coventry. My film The Siren's Song is a bit of a surreal dark comedy about a young man's utter devastation about having to get out of bed in the morning, and his overwhelming desire to press the snooze button on his alarm clock. The film is all in rhyme and parodies the Edgar Allen Poe poem "The Raven".
What was the creative process behind Siren's Song?
I had a stint of depression as a bit of a medical side effect from taking the particularly nasty acne medicine "Isotretinoin", and the most daunting part of my day was always waking up and facing the reality of getting up and doing anything that isn't just laying in the safety of my bed. After I was off the medication and returned to a somewhat "normal" state of mind, I was reflecting on how dire everything seemed to me before, and how much of not a big deal it was now. I thought it would be fun to put that into film using a juxtaposition of the totally normal act of getting out of bed, and a dark gothic narration of an overly dramatic internal monologue.
It was an interesting project to tackle because I’d never even attempted to create poetry before, never mind develop it into a script that had poetry as a backbone. Although it’s not entirely an original work and is a parody of an Edgar Allen Poe poem (so the groundwork was already there for me), it was incredibly tough to get it all plotted out and feel like each line was serving the story. I had to develop the script with a rough draft of the poem, and then myself and the lead actor Johnny Smyth, who is also a poet and songwriter, had a couple of sleepless nights just going over it again and again making sure it all works.
I loooove practical effects and art design, so a good portion of the creative process was figuring out the more surreal elements of the film and how we’re going to bring that to life in a practical way. We had a great Art Director, Lauren Heywood, who pulled it out of the bag with props design.
Honestly since the emotions of the film were so real to me, once we’d developed a sound script and got a lot of the sets and designs in place, it was just a matter of getting a bunch of passionate and talented people on board, and with the cast and crew we had the film was a pleasure to make.
Are you a morning person?
Not even slightly. Better now than I was during the time the film was based on, but still - absolutely not.
Why did you combine poetry and film?
I genuinely just thought it'd be the funniest style for the film, sometimes I'll read old poetry from people like Edgar Allen Poe and think wow this stuff is so off the wall, how he makes everything sound so dramatic and the language used is bonkers. I thought taking that style and language and putting it in a contemporary setting would be really funny.
As I said before, it was such a huge challenge that I didn’t anticipate. I’ve learned a lot about poetry and poetry in film after making The Siren’s Song, and I’d like to tackle it again at some point in my career. I've met a lot of talented poets since being somewhat immersed in that world after creating this film, people like Chris Hyde who was a fellow New Creative and made a fantastic poetry audio piece. So possibly next time I’d collaborate with talented poets who have a stronger grasp of it than I do, and give me more time to focus my efforts into bringing it to life on film. But I think for now I’ll stick to more traditional filmmaking for a bit.
What does the gothic style allow you to do?
I think the gothic style really added to the weight of the story. If it was a more light hearted poem I think I’d still achieve the comedy I was going for, but that specific style and theme really gave some gravity to the topic of mental health struggles that I was trying to portray. Also again, the juxtaposition really is the main element here, it's a style you don't often see or hear in contemporary film, so putting in something so abstract in the modern day just gives it a really bizarre vibe that I love.
Who are your favourite gothic writers?
I love Franz Kafka – proper proper genius. Some of his stories just resonate with me so much, I think he's such an interesting character. I love the mythology of all of H.P Lovecraft's stuff but I find reading his work so difficult, it's all first-person and not much room to take a breath between all the nonsense with elder gods and horrors, it's all just mad.
In terms of film writing I’ve always adored Guillermo Del Toro and the gothic themes in his work, also currently obsessed with Robert Eggers and his work such as The Lighthouse and The Witch.
Where can people find you online?
I'm on twitter at @TJLongstaff, and on Instagram @thomaslongstaff, those are the best places to find me talking about my work and musings on cinema and sometimes dungeons and dragons.
Read our review of The Siren's Song here.
New Creatives is a talent development scheme supported by Arts Council England and BBC Arts, delivered in the Midlands by Rural Media. Check out our New Creatives coverage in the New Creatives Voicebox.
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