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| Reaching for the stars |
Should science fiction be a genre that changes the way people think? Mike Buonaiuto thinks so, and that's why he set out to make Credence, a film with a mission.
“We’re tryng to create the first science fiction film that challeges the way LGBT people are portrayed in movies in general," says Mike. "There was a New York Times article earlier this week that described the lack of LGBT characters in cinema generally, but science fiction was the worst.”
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| Director Mike Buonaiuto |
Was that about the recent GLAAD survey? I ask. It was, says Mike.
“Essentially, we want to produce a film that shows equal representation of quite a large section of the fan base of science fiction that isn’t represented in film most of the time. We started by making a beautiful trailer to engage with people and we ran an Indiegogo campaign which raised £6,000 in days, smashing our target. In two weeks we got up to £19,000. It really demonstrates the need for this kind of cinema.
“It was scary making the film itsef because it’s difficult enough to get an audience to understand a character straight off, which is why a lot of films rely on stereotypes.”
That's a fair sized budget for what he had already decided would be a short, I note, and he admits that as the money came in he was increasingly tempted to extend the length of the piece, but ultimately it had to ft the story. So how will the money be spent now?
“The majority of the cast and crew are working for free," he says. "They're passionate about it and they wanted to do something high profile that would be useful for their portfolios. So we're using the budget for things like accomodation for the cast and crew, then for production equipment because you can’t really escape having to spend some money on that. When we get to post production we’d like to put the budget towards professional special effects so we can pay the equivalent of what a normal film would pay to make this look as close to a hollywood blockbuster as possible. For the trailer we did our own special effects with After Effects and a lot of coffee. We just went for it and got to a stage where we could create effects that were inspiring and that give an insight into what we can do with the final film.
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| Chasing the horizon |
“We used only professional actors but they still worked for free because they believe in the message we’re trying to promote, making science fiction more progressive. The crew was compiled, really, of friends I work with. I’ve been working in the industry for a few years now and currently I work for an ad agency making ads for companies like Adidas and Reebok, so it was quite easy to say to them ‘let’s do something different.’”
Why this particular different thing?
“Science fiction is a great love of mine and I believe science fiction can really shape how we see the world around us.”
What kind of film has done that for him?
“One example is Contact, with Jodie Foster,” he says. “It shaped how I understand life after death and the universe, these deep questions we all ask ourselves. But science fiction is not that progressive when it comes to LGBT people.
"Credence is about a family at the end of the world that have to make a sacrifice of their child because only children are permitted to leave the Earth. The government have made decision to do an evacuation of the population but only children can go, for various reasons. Only the very rich can get tickets so this couple have to make sacrifices to permit the survival of their daughter.
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| All together |
“Russia is set to introduce a new law that makes it illegal for LGBT people to have children. It’s much the same in Uganda with how LGBT people are treated there. This is not a political film but we want it to reflect the world around us.”
So where do they anticipate that the flm will be seen?
“We want to make it available online, and take it to film fesivals. Ideally the online launch will be in connection with an exclusive festival launch, with an online syndicator so people can see it all around the world.
“I’m so chuffed with how we’ve gone so far and I’m looking forward to getting into pre-production.”
If you want to help support the making of Credence, you can do so here.
