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This site is in not an affiliation of MalleuS but is an independent critique site created by Josie Kogge, who is in no way associated with MalleuS or their productions.
Last updated 6th August 2001
A cold, damp March night in Worcester, England. Morris-Henshaw met me in a local pub and together we headed for Wentworth Court, home of Andrew John Morris. We were late.
Andrew welcomed us to his home, where his mini-movie LOOKING FOR GATRI would be set. He had Morris-Henshaw's costume ready for him to don - a scholarly-looking tweed jacket and tasteless green jeans. I had come in costume.
Neither of us had memorized our lines since the read-through the previous week, Andrew had stated this would be unnecessary as only one camera was being used and this would call for constant cutting...we could learn our lines inbetween shots.
Because this was to be a movie made for the internet the lighting was cranked up high. Six 100w bulbs burned in each of the two chandaliers hanging from the ceiling, and another two in the wall light sockets.
The footage was to be shot on a Sony Hi8 camcorder and later digitised for editing on a PC. As a rule of thumb high-contrast lighting does not transfer well - hence the flood-lit room. We had dabbled with daylight balanced bulbs, but the resultant shots looked very cool, so standard lightbulbs were used, giving the small room in which we shot an orange glow when viewed on tape.
Filming was a slow process. Andrew did not want a static camera shooting a conversation. He wanted a change of angle for every few lines of dialogue. Morris-Henshaw and I found that this made it difficult at times to keep a continuity of tone in our performances. To help remedy this problem a large chunk of Morris-Henshaw footage was shot first, with me off camera responding. Then we swaped and Andrew shot me reacting to Morris-Henshaw's off-camera performance. The two marry-up well in editing, but this did mean doing the whole thing twice.
Shooting commenced at around 7.30pm and went on well past midnight. By that time both Morris and I were tired and irritable and so Andrew called it a night with only a few sequences left to shoot.
A whole week passed before we met up again to film the closing sequence- the delay being due to Morris getting a stinking cold and sounding like Kenneth Williams.
The last night's shooting went very well with Morris turning in a more manic, less restrained performance as his character cracks. I had to perform with some special effects post-production in mind. Andrew allowed me to direct and shoot some of Morris-Henshaw's dialogue and action scenes, and was delighted with the results - my photographic knowledge giving me an good eye for an inventive frame.
Morris and I left Andrew at around 11 pm and got to the local pub in time for last orders, leaving Andrew to put his house back in order. We had done our part, now he had to start the hard work of reviwing the footage.
A week later Andrew phoned Morris.
"I want some location stuff shot", he said. "Can you and Ruth drop by, pick up the camera, costumes and extra page of script and do it in your own time?"
It was a Bank Holiday Monday when we were free to shoot the 'historical flashback'. Andrew's script had grown a little as I had persuaded him to turn this sequence into a little featurette in it's own right. Ruth Henshaw joined us to play the numerous fiends that Historical Gatri would encounter.
Dunstall Castle provided the backdrop for GATRI-1123ad with Morris in full medieval battle dress and being attacked by a hag-creature. Then onto some private land for GATRI-1850ad, as a fatigued soldier rests in a graveyard only to meet a redoubtable zombie. Finally Hartlebury Common, with it's sandbanks, double for the scrublands of Egypt as GATRI-1920 flees a mummy.
We enjoyed the day - which amounted to eight hours work for three minutes of story. And I'm told I have a good eye for the right angle!
So I'm getting a directorial credit on Andrew's little film, that location stuff is mine!
The above text Ruth's account of filming taken directly from The MalleuS HomepagE. To flesh out this account it is worthy of note that Looking for Gatri was filmed in three separate sessions. Session one was an evening shoot at Andrew Morris' house - jokingly referred to as Wentworth Studios - during which the whole of what is now known as Act One was shot, and about half of Act Two. This took about five hours to shoot, and Andrew was keen to have the feature finished that night - but the artists were getting tired and irritable, particularly Ruth who was having difficulty with some of her later dialogue. Shooting was halted and agreed to be continued later in the week with only approximately an hour's worth of shooting to go.
Morris fell ill with flu the day after, and so it was a whole week before both actors and Andrew met again at Andrew's house, where the closing sequences to Act Three were shot (roughly from where Alex suddenly turns on Mendax and produces the gun which he has had hidden in his breifcase all along). With those sequences filmed - and footage for the special effects in the can - filming was seemingly finished. Some sequences has been excised from the script as unecessary and never filmed, among these were Alex's arrival home in his car where he notices lights on in his flat, and a monologue by Mendax about Alex's ancestors which named the characters seen in the now wordless flashback.
Indeed, it was Ruth's unhappiness with the 'flashback dialogue' that prompted a third full day shoot. Originally Mendax was to tell Alex a tale of his predesessors as a few brief shots of Morris in various guises stood infront of a black backdrop would be super-imposed over Ruth's talking head. The guises were; Lord Lex Mundi - a cathar night, Colonel Alexander Maundi - a soldier in the 1850s, Doctor Jack Vir Agnusdei - a victorian gentleman and Professor A. Litefoot-Gatri - an archeologist in 1920.
Ruth accepted the task of shooting these sequences - now without dialogue - and decided to extend upon the idea by giving each character it's own 90 second sequence. In effect, Ruth had masterminded the bulk of the second act - the much lauded flashback.
Ruth recruited a third performer - Ruth Henshaw - to play the various ghouls that previous Gatri's would dispatch. Together the three - this time without Andrew - ventured out into the Worcestershire countryside with various props to shoot the sequences as devised - but not truley scripted - by Andrew. Ruth supervised and directed the following set-pieces; Medieval Gatri - dressed in a costume provided by Ted Morris - would guard Dunstall Castle as a hag-creature approaches and is beheaded. Soldier Gatri of 1850 would be resting wearily in a graveyard - armed with a flintlock and a crucifix (presumably expecting trouble) as a shrouded corpse arises from a grave only to have it's brains blown out when the crucifix is mocked as "a little man on a stick...". 1920 Gatri would find himself in the scrublands of Egypt in a tongue-in-cheek chase with a mummy which ends up exploding as dynamite is thrust into it's bindings. The fourth flashback, the victorian gentleman dispatching a vampire prostitute (implying that Jack The Ripper was on a holy mission) went unfilmed.
Morris-Henshaw comments that Ruth is a great director. She made fantastic use of the locations and framed the performances beautifully. She's most proud of the Mummy footage, particularly the panning and zooming of the opening persuit. In fact, so good is Ruth with a camera that Andrew has asked her to direct further installments of The Gatri Saga.
With all the necessary footage in the can, it was Morris-Henshaw's task to edit it all and work on the visual effects. His account of this can be found on the MalleuS HomepagE.
The finished cut was was completed when Sean Jeffery provided and excellent and haunting score for the film entitled Gatri's Theme.
Closing credits to the film thanked Tim Ricketts (who had signed up to play the Monster in The Wrath of Frankenstein and had been very supportive of Malleus since its' creation) Greg Corbyn (who had also been deeply enthusiastic and supportive usually over drinks with Andrew) D. Robertson Cane (a fellow writer who had read thought the original script and suggested certain changes) Jon Amphlett (who had continually checked and proof-read the website - doctoring it a little - and also acted as the 'test audience' for each edit of the movie, providing invaluable feedback) and Philippe Chabot (mis-spelled Philiipe Chabot in the credits, for his support and offers to distribute Malleus' work in Canada)
