Prey Alone

IRELAND - 2005
Believe it or not it took only 4 days to shoot all of the live action elements of Prey Alone in a green screen studio at Ardmore Studios in Dublin. One can appreciate the amount of preparation this took. Every head turn, look and movement had to be worked out in advance by directors Stephen St Leger and James Mather and agreed upon for it to cut together. There are approximately 350 shots in the completed movie and each one is at least digitally enhanced if not completely created on a computer. The self-taught James Mather spent at least 18 months preparing and building all the necessary 3d objects and elements. After seeing a short clip, producer John McDonnell was successful in securing some short film funding from the Irish Film Board. With a budget most Hollywood producers spend on lunch, Technical director John O’Connell set up the domestic nine-computer render farm. Then James, Lead animator & compositor Jonathan Ridge and graphic artist Eddie Sheanon had only three and a half months to animate, model, light, render and complete the film.
It was filmed entirely against a green screen background on 16mm film.
Believe it or not it took only 4 days to shoot all of the live action elements of Prey Alone in a green screen studio at Ardmore Studios in Dublin. One can appreciate the amount of preparation this took. Every head turn, look and movement had to be worked out in advance by directors Stephen St Leger and James Mather and agreed upon for it to cut together. There are approximately 350 shots in the completed movie and each one is at least digitally enhanced if not completely created on a computer. The self-taught James Mather spent at least 18 months preparing and building all the necessary 3d objects and elements. After seeing a short clip, producer John McDonnell was successful in securing some short film funding from the Irish Film Board. With a budget most Hollywood producers spend on lunch, Technical director John O’Connell set up the domestic nine-computer render farm. Then James, Lead animator & compositor Jonathan Ridge and graphic artist Eddie Sheanon had only three and a half months to animate, model, light, render and complete the film.
It was filmed entirely against a green screen background on 16mm film.
“Ideally 35mm would have been a better format for compositing and tracking, but we didn’t have the money…so it had to be 16mm…James and I also wanted to shoot a lot of it hand held so that made things even more difficult for tracking, more difficult for everything in fact…but it’s a much better way…more exciting, realistic and unobtrusive.”
Stephen St Leger
Director

“I felt that the camera should always be trying to catch up with the action. In real life the camera operator would be struggling to shoot what is happening so that should be reflected in the 3d generated camera moves. Camera shake, camera focusing up, crash zooming into the action”…”The more unpredictable the better”
James Mather
D.O.P. / Director
CAST
Ger Carey
Andy Moore
Kurt Savage
Eric Gill, Alex Bravo,
Elias Escobedo, Jun Li
Colin Tannen, Daniel Katz,
Michael Rooney,
Brian Halford,
Franklin Egbe
John O'Connell,
Neal (Vinny) Finnie,
Shay Kirwan
John Costelloe
Saul Casey
Lynsey Kelleher
John McDonnell
Directed by Stephen St. Leger and James Mather