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Episode 255: Interview with Writer/Director Jason Figgis
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About Jason Figgis:
Jason Figgis is an award-winning IFTA-nominated film and TV director who has had feature work commissioned or acquired by major broadcasters that include Sky One, Sky Arts, Channel Four, Hulu, RTE, Apple+, iTunes, KSM, SVT, Cinedigm, Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, and Lionsgate Studios.
This work has been placed in territories that include 150 countries worldwide.
Figgis' work includes the IFTA-nominated Discovery Channel documentary THE TWILIGHT HOUR, the Sky Arts documentary A MAVERICK IN LONDON (featuring Alan Rickman, Richard E. Grant, and Joanna Lumley), SIMON MARSDEN'S HAUNTED LIFE IN PICTURES (featuring John Hurt), High Fliers Films / Pinewood Studios release THE GHOST OF WINIFRED MEEKS (starring BIFA winner Lara Belmont) and LOVE? (written and presented by Samantha Beckinsale).
Figgis directed the official music videos for the QUEEN OF ENGLAND'S PLATINUM JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS IN 2022.
He also restored the classic German horror film NOSFERATU for the 100th anniversary. Figgis is in production on the authorized documentary looking at the life and work of actress Olivia Hussey called THE GIRL ON THE BALCONY and has just completed an authorized series of films looking at the life and career of prolific writer and philosopher Colin Wilson under the title COLIN WILSON: HIS LIFE AND WORK.
Other feature documentary work on the slate include A MAN FOR ALL REASONS, which looks at the life and work of former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, the Manchester County Council sponsored feature documentary SHIRLEY BAKER: LIFE THROUGH A LENS which looks at the life of the celebrated Mancunian street photographer, DIE STRONG which looks at Fallacy of Barriers founder Lily Brasch and FATHER OF DRACULA which looks at the life and work of Dracula author, Bram Stoker.
Figgis started his career in TV and film in animation for Murakami-Wolf on the celebrated cult TV series TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. He went on to work for Steven Spielberg at his London-based Amblimation Studios on the feature classic AN AMERICAN TAIL 2: FIEVEL GOES WEST and for legendary animator Richard Williams at his studio in Camden, London, on the cult classic THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER, which starred Vincent Price and Kenneth Williams.
I started in communications and then decided that I wanted to be a filmmaker. As a boy, I'd always wanted to be a filmmaker; when the digital world opened up, and it became something feasible, I realized I could launch and start getting work done.
So I moved into the field of documentary because I've always liked reality over artifice. Even when I write screenplays, I put my mind into a real situation instead of creating something fantastical. So I'm much more interested in relationships, other than big spectacles.
In the film industry and writing, a lot of the things that happen, you don't plan for you. You have relationships with people that you feel simpatico with, and you start developing things.
So I worked a lot with a writer called Simon Golding, and he's a real facilitator. He puts people together who he feels will work together.
I like to write because when I write, I have to get my mind into a character as a real flesh and blood person.
I always loved the idea of putting a camera on a real subject. And having people and letting it just unfold in an interview, for example, but the horror and the beauty, I always think the two of them can live quite well together and that a lot of the real horror in the world is what goes on behind closed doors and people's houses.
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