The story
behind the story
The Last Jackolantern was written all the way back in 2014. It started with a simple question, what happens to pumpkins after Halloween?
The fairytale about a pumpkin that survives Halloween and lives with a homeless man soon followed. But, do they make it to Christmas?
I knew early on I wanted to tell the story not just from a pumpkin's perspective, but a homeless perspective too. What is it like to be left on the side, forgotten and ignored. How does the world look when someone is looking up at passersby, who don't acknowledge you. I'm drawn to tell stories about the powerless and those on the fringes of our society.
It's why I cast an actor in Jeremy Triscott, who used to be homeless many years back, to truly
do justice to the homeless theme of the story.
He was wonderful to work with and really inspired our sets too with insights about life on the streets. Our other 'lead' actor on the other hands... well, let's just say pumpkins are absolute divas.
You can only film with them for a very short window in the year- 3 months. They have to be kept around 10 degrees in dark conditions. We had to store over 100 pumpkins to make the film work, with different expressions carved on both sides of our 'hero' homeless pumpkin.
Even though this film is live action, it had the intricacy of animation, with every facial expression (as many as 50) had to be worked out in collaboration with an illustrator weeks before filming, which in turn had to be carved by our brilliant 3 person team of carvers.
In the past, I explored prop pumpkins, potentially VFX, but nothing beats the real thing. Various Halloweens, false attempts, Covid came and passed, until December 2021 we had the opportunity to finally make this film happen over a seven day shoot. There were trials and tribulations, but I'm glad everyone's amazing effort over that period has taken us to where we are.
Since writing the film back in 2014, I've directed 4 other films, but this is the story that I could never give up on. The story that would never fail to raise a smile, when I would tell people the log-line.
I like to tell stories in a way that have not been done before, but tap into some big and deep universal themes. With The Last Jackolantern being essentially a silent film, supported by the wonderful music of Americana singer songwriter Danni Nicholls, I hope this Christmas Fairy Tale will touch and inspire audiences across the world.