HORROR TECHNIQUE
While Something Very Bad is Netflix- backed, Knight’s projects tend to be low- budget, independent productions. He’s currently filming Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 with one gaffer and one spark. “We haven’t got the manpower for big lights and generators and cables,” he admits. “We’re using an Aputure STORM 80c; it punches so much light.” It’s serving as a stand-in for a street lamp, as it’s ‘lightweight and safe to put up high’. Knight also uses Aputure MCs, which are his ‘get-out-of-jail card’, on almost everything he does. “I can hide them, as they’re magnetic and low profile. They’re small enough; if I want to sneak in an eyelight or a bit of backlight, I can.” For glass, Knight often turns to ZEISS Super Speed lenses, which perform well in low light – but on the whole, he chooses kit based on ‘whatever suits the project’. WORTH THE WAIT Horror tends to have its own subculture, with some films collecting a cult following. The TCU has a devout fanbase, and
SCARED STIFF Pinocchio: Unstrung (above), Bambi: The Reckoning (left) and Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare (below left)
every film gets a cinema release, often accompanied by a Q&A. “We don’t have the budget to do proper test screenings,” Knight shares, so he enjoys watching the audience react in real time. Pinocchio: Unstrung is Knight’s latest wrap. It premieres at Raindance Film Festival on 21 June and hits worldwide cinemas on 24 July. As for Trojnar, Something Very Bad is his most recent release and he reunited with Baby Reindeer director Weronika Tofilska, filming episodes 1, 2, 7 and 8. It’s a show that shares Baby Reindeer ’s anxiety-inducing atmosphere. “There’s a similarity to those stories, in terms of the first-person perspective,” he concludes. “We used a bit of that language but in a more horrific way.” Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is now streaming on Netflix
Bad benefitted from the bright, snowy light outside and lack of sunshine during shoot days. Like Knight, he grappled with the darkness early on. The dailies, which were compressed, ‘started to lose a lot of detail; there was some worry of whether we’d see the actors’. He urges viewers to watch the show in 4K HDR and in a ‘horror-friendly environment’ to get the greatest effect.
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