• Watch The Wicca Man here (Shown on The Culture Show Saturday 23rd June 2007)
• Fiona at The Liverpool Tate - click here.
• You can now also find me on YouTube and MySpace (click the links)
• Read all about Fiona's new film in the Wirral Globe

‘Most Haunted’ meets ‘The Sixth Sense.’ Watch Ghost Squad Season Finale here

Shot largely in one night, and edited in three days, Ghost Squad Season Finale won second place in the 2007 Halloween Horror Challenge. Organised by Budget Film Maker, the competition was to make a short horror film on the theme ‘the final five’.

In my story, the crew of a ghost-hunting TV show find themselves tangling with real ghosts after faking previous programmes. They have inadvertently recorded the sounds from the final five minutes of some lives - the question is whose?

From real life security guards, and two creepy cemeteries on the Wirral, to a chemical works and a paint manufacturing plant in Liverpool, Ghost Squad Season Finale spanned six locations. Featuring some of the cast from ‘Blah Witch – The Tree of Death’ (comedy/horror feature out in 2008), it continues to promote Fiona Maher Film’s ability to create not just a great screenplays with fresh, invigorating ideas, but also the highest production values on the lowest possible budgets.

Show Real – a star is born… (2006)

I’d already worked with actress Kimberley Barrett on ‘Strategy’ when she asked me to create some comedy for her show reel.

She wanted something funny and sexy – somewhere between a seaside postcard and ‘Carry On’. I wrote the poem for her, storyboarded every shot, and we filmed it in a very concentrated day in her suitably made over bedroom. The project cost very little and took just a few days from idea to completion.

Kim’s great to work with, and ‘Show Real’ displays her deadpan comic timing beautifully.

Kim and I took the unedited footage to Paul Birchall’s house. A brilliant keyboards player, (ex M People), he wrote the fabulous soundtrack along to the visuals there and then!

Expiry Date – you buy, you die! (2006)

This feature was only my second ever screenplay after ‘The Apprentice’, and my first commission. The producers ‘Ffreebirds’ wanted a teen appeal horror with plenty of humour, but a really scary idea at its core.

I invented accursed gold that had transmuted into various currencies through the ages. In present day, it presents itself as a cursed credit card - the ‘Haemo Lucere’ card – cod Greek and Latin for ‘blood money’.

The card appears with your name on it. You can have anything you like - literally ‘shop ‘til you drop’. Only when the ‘expiry date’ burns in, and the repayment’s due, do you discover the interest is payable only in blood…

Benchmark – a Liverpool legend (2006)

I made this with a tiny crew on a vanishingly small budget for the first Liverpool 48 hour film challenge. It was nominated for best screenplay.

The challenge meant the film had to be written, shot and edited in 48 hours. To prevent cheating, the organisers demanded the films had the following five elements: round, chance, true, city and cross. These words could be spoken or be visual.

Being a smart arse I got all of them in twice, except for ‘true’, which is only spoken once.

I recycled Rob Shepley’s wonderful score from ‘The Apprentice’ as I believed it deserved a second outing.

This was ‘Spiky Boy Munro’s’ second appearance in one of my films. Being a big star now, he refused to pee on command, and I had to cheat the shot.

The Aeroplanes – This Is My Love (2006)

After Jeff Bridges used one of The Aeroplanes songs in his movie ‘The Moguls’, their record label gave me just a month to complete this project. Being late December, I lost a week whilst the rest of the world ‘did’ Christmas, but still delivered on time.

The song starts with scenes of unconditional love – Greyfriars Bobby on his master’s grave, and images of life and death. I gathered fifty extras, including children and animals, to tell the story of the band members’ individual searches for love. Spot the homage to the Beatles ‘When I’m 64’…

The Aeroplanes turned out to be accomplished actors, and are brilliant in this music promo. I filmed them live in Manchester for the TV inserts, and they are blindingly good. Go see them!

The Apprentice – ever needed a miracle? (2003)

Predating Alan Sugar’s show of the same name, ‘The Apprentice’ was the first short I ever wrote. Alex Cox liked it enough to put his name to it, and his involvement attracted a professional crew from Mersey Television. Friends starred in it, from professional actor Carl Chase, (Batman, Alien 3, etc), to my Geordie pal Lynne Allan. Michael Starke, (Brookside, The Royal), was perfect as The Gaffer. Then Rob Shepley from the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra wrote a gorgeous original score that adds phenomenally to the visuals.

‘The Apprentice’ premiered on Shaftesbury Avenue, London at the Raindance Festival. All in all, not bad for my first go!

MacDonalds ran a similar ad in cinemas a few months after The Apprentice first screened…

Up The Garden Path – Seven Eves for seven Edens… (2005)

Having delivered an off the cuff lecture on screenwriting to fill in for someone who’d failed to show at an event, I was asked to expand it into a twelve week screenwriting course. When that expanded into a further ten weeks, I used the time to make a short film, and this is it.

My students dreamt up the idea of seven deadly sins being enacted on an allotment. They wrote it, starred in it, and crewed it, and gave me my first experience of directing. With eight sets over two locations, and a huge prop list, somehow we shot it in two days. I asked Dean Sullivan to star as Gluttony, and he proved to be a natural comic. Insightful on the edit, and always willing to help, we were all bowled over by Dean’s generosity and enthusiasm.

And I’d like to thank… (2006)

Although the crazy iniquities visited upon me have been glossed over, all the positive things shown here really did happen. Tracy DID make ‘ a gallon of scouse for the crew’; to my shame, I DID put talented cameraman Matt Lindsay up a tree just to get a shot; and John Blackburn really CAN make just about any prop for buttons…

One day, I’ll give this speech…