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Seance zoom meme6/2/2023 “Being in my bedroom was quite weird because on one hand you literally roll out of bed,” says Emma. The filmmakers behind ‘Host’ have already announced their next project. Taking direction over the phone and drip-feeding redacted scripts online to keep the entire plot a secret even from the cast, each actor developed the sinister story individually in their own homes. “It was slightly more than a Zoom call, but it felt pretty DIY.” Jed adds: “Emma could never get the angle of her phone right on her laptop, that’s why she’s with her eyes poking out a lot of the time.”Īfter being cooped up for so long, the ‘Quarantine Movie Club’ was eager to face the challenges of filming, if only to break the boredom of being alone and isolated. “We taped iPhones just behind the laptop using Velcro,” reveals Emma. They self-imposed a deadline – and wrote the screenplay and shot every scene in just 12 weeks using the actors’ own equipment. When they eventually started production, the team worked at breakneck speed. Six friends hire a medium to chair their lockdown call in ‘Host’, but things quickly go wrong. And then afterwards, we were talking about it and I was thinking: ‘Maybe Jemma is just really clever, and she did that because she knew was almost like an audition’.” “Jemma had an experience whereby she felt something touch her and then a book flew off her shelf and slammed really hard,” he says. Initial research for Host saw cast and crew take part in genuine online séances that directly influenced what ended up in the movie, including losing their video connection with the medium – and actor Jemma Moore encountering a genuine poltergeist. ‘Host’ was filmed entirely during lockdown. Hiring their pals also helped speed up production, as Jed explains: “ no audition process obviously because we speak to these people every single day.” “We’re really lucky that we have a group of mates that do film,” says Emma, who plays one of the six friends to take part in the séance. That’s where Emma Louise Webb, emerging south London actress, came in. Producers also agreed, due to social-distancing restrictions, that Rob and Jed could cast their friends in lead roles. The simple, two-word premise was all that was needed to convince the horror streaming platform to allocate funding. ‘Host’ has racked up a 100% ‘Fresh’ rating on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
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