Merlin star Anthony Head adds magic to director’s debut movie

 
28 June 2013

A London film-maker has Hollywood knocking at his door after he persuaded Merlin star Anthony Head to appear in his £17,000 sci-fi thriller.

Johnny Kenton, 33, sent the script for his 40-minute movie Hereafter to the actor, who liked it so much that he agreed to waive his normal fee and join the week-long shoot last month in Hackney where the writer-director lives.

The short film was posted on ChannelFlip’s YouTube channel The Multiverse last week and has already won interest from Elisabeth Murdoch’s production company Shine and producers in Los Angeles and New York who yesterday flew Kenton out to meet them.

He now hopes it will give him the chance to turn it into a television series or a full-length film.

Hereafter tells the story of a character named Katcher in a near-future world where the internet feed in people’s heads is being possessed by an elusive figure known as The Ghost.

Kenton, whose previous experience was shooting music videos, said he had relied on goodwill towards him and the script to secure his cast. It includes Akemnji Ndifornyen, one of the original History Boys who also comes from Hackney, and Rob Ostlere from Game of Thrones. Lydia Wilson, whose work includes Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, plays Katcher.

It was “particularly amazing” working with Head, whose TV credits also include Buffy The Vampire Slayer, said Kenton.“I grew up with Buffy and then watching Merlin. When he called me up it was a bit terrifying. He said he had done no sci-fi since Buffy even though he got sent them all the time. But he liked the script. He was super-cool.”

The reaction to the film was immediate. “It’s been nuts. All the comments have been pretty amazing and I’ve got calls from production companies in Hollywood and New York. It’s all happened since it went online.”

The project was funded by Kenton’s savings and crowd-funding from 119 people through the project-financing website Kickstarter.

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