Siraj Syed conducts the first ever interview of writer-director Hank Orion (Despair, 2017)

Hank Orion migrated to Italy from Ukraine with his mother, at the age of 9. He had been showing interest in cinema since a very early age, and wrote his first ‘screenplay’ at the age of 12.There, Hank focussed on writing, primarily, and by the age of 16, he had written several feature film screenplays and short stories.

Later, Hank studied painting at the Liceo Artistico Statale ‘Foiso Fois’, and tourism, at the Istituto Tecnico Commerciale Statale  ‘Leonardo Da Vinci’ in Italy. Hank was never good at studies, and,

eventually, he left school and moved to London, England. That's where he got interested in the technical side of film-making, which led to his applying to the London Metropolitan University, to pursue the Film and Television Production course. But soon, he left the university, because he couldn't afford the tuition fees.

Hank's debut feature film is Despair (2017)--a psychological thriller about a psychotic woman who invades the peaceful live of a married couple. Coming-up next is Swan Song (also to be released this year), a story about an emotionally unstable actor who deals with false expectations of reality. Here, he talks about Despair, and the journey along the road that made it happen.

Inspiration for the script

This screenplay has been written and rewritten numerous times before it got where it is now. I started working on this script back in November 2015 and wanted to shoot it in Los Angeles originally. The story itself has changed about 40% from the first draft, and it took me twelve drafts before I felt confident with shooting it. Then I came to England to work on another project and decided since I'm here already I will shoot it here. I quickly rewrote the script once again but this time with the main idea in the core and started pre-production. The rest is history.

Casting process

Bizarrely enough casting process on this film was one of the easiest I had. It all went very smooth and according to plan. I had a very specific image of the characters I wanted in my mind, like Lucy (the wife), for example, played by Jagoda Kamov. If it would be somebody else this film would have been different. Jagoda did a great job and is one of the best actresses I've worked to date. I'm very happy with all the cast and I think they fit visually and emotionally very well with each other.

Did you conduct acting work-shops?

We had few rehearsals because I knew from the beginning that we won't have much time on set to go thought the script properly due to so much to be done in so little time. And it worked out great. In these moments, you always discover more, either something to add or to remove. And the best part is, it always works.

How long it took to shoot? What is the location?

It took three weeks to shoot. Filing location was Raasay Island in the middle of Scottish Highlands, and to be more precise, in the middle of the nowhere. Location and remoteness from cities made it much harder to shoot. But at the same time, the added to the value of the movie as it fits perfectly and makes a lot of sense to the story.

Budget

We shot it for very little, just over 10,000 GBP, or about 13,000 USD. Originally I planned to shoot it for 6,000 GBP but things quickly went out of control being in the middle of nowhere and having last minute expenses like cancelled flights, hotels, car rentals etc.

Shooting camera and format

We shot on Sony A7s Mark II camera, which belonged to my DP, Austen Lane. We shoot it on that camera for many reasons, but the main was that it shoots really good in low lights, and that it's a light weight and compact camera, and not very demanding. We shot in 4K, which gave us a little more room at the editing room and a lot of extra hassle too.

How many minutes did you shoot and then edit it to 78 minutes?

We shot 5 to 1 ratio. That means we shot five times more that we needed for the final cut, which as around 500 minutes give or take. I had limited storage space when it came to the DIT and had to cut on the footage.

Your own inspirations and ideals

This one is hard to answer. It comes from unexpected places and in very unexpected moments. I take ideas from nature, people don't realise how perfect and simple things are when you look closer. I also tend to look up a lot, and down. My ideals would be Tarkovsky, Dovzhenko, Scott, Tarantino and Rodriguez, to name a few. I love and respect many others, but those listed above inspire me in a special way.

What are you working on next?

I have few projects in development now. One day I want to shoot this, and then I realise that I need to shoot this for this or that reason, if you know what I mean. This creative thing is a beast.

Any memorable incident or memory of the shooting

I don't know where to start. This shoot, in particular, was really hard. We all had to deal with a ton of

stress each day and the fact that we're in the middle of the nowhere made it even harder, with the only sheep around us for miles and miles. But it was great, me personally I enjoyed every single moment of it. We had few accidents here and there. Like for instance when I went to the airport to pick up one of the lead actors, a snow storm hit and we had to stay there overnight, which is about 200 miles from the location. I called my executive producer, Valentina, who was on location and asked to do few simple scenes so we don't waste any time and tomorrow morning I will return and we will catch back. Well, that resulted almost in the complete disaster for the production, since the unit had a fight on set, being unable to agree on how to film that particular scene.