ABOUT

We live in extraordinary times. I often collaborate with Director of Photography Peter Bathurst. Over a FaceTime call, we were discussing the pandemic Lockdown, and how crazy the times we live in are. That we were witnessing something that London had never experienced before. Even during the height of the Black Death, the Great Fire or the Blitz has London ever shut down so utterly, so completely.

We talked about the opening sequence to Danny Boyle's genre defining shlock horror zombie flick, 28 Days Later. That was fiction. London was in the same space and time as that sequence, only this was not fiction, this was a bizarre reality. The people of London would be talking about these 12 weeks in 2020 for decades to come.

In the film world in the UK, how Boyle shot that sequence is legendary.

I said to Peter, I reckon the two of us could do what it took an army to achieve for Boyle - because of the times we live in. We could pay homage to that extraordinary sequence in the film, but also we would be creating a historical document of these strange days.

So over three mornings, at the height of Lockdown in London, we shot, as far as possible, a shot for shot remake of the opening sequence in 28 Days Later. Obviously some of the buildings were inaccessible - especially St. Thomas' hospital which was at the coalface of the pandemic. Nonetheless, we hope it is a worthy homage to Boyle's fantastic film, and a worthy document of the extraordinary times we are living in.

The sound track is lifted directly from the film. I have added quite a bit of foley, recorded while we cycled around London shooting the piece.

There is no commercial value in this project, just a homage and allowed us to continue making films even though everything was closed. I hope the credit we give to Danny Boyle is enough to keep the copyright lawyers at bay.

Empty London was very very unsettling. I hope we have captured it.