Behind the Scenes

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

On a cold October morning in a drafty warehouse in Bristol, a 50 strong film crew and a host of international actors began their first day shooting on Starhyke. It had taken 3 months to build the sets, make the costumes and props, as well as arranging all the locations and recruiting a production team to film a six part series in only 6 weeks.

Filming was fast paced and took a lot out of everyone; there was sweat, blood, tears, shouting, swearing and more laughs than an international clown contest. For 36 days everyone lived in another reality –the world of Starhyke, a strange new world with some very odd characters (and that was just the crew!)

Starhyke was filmed in a 17,000sqft warehouse in Bristol that had been converted into a workshop and studio facility for the series. It was also filmed in exotic locations like a local café, lap dancing club, and clothing store. The Gallery is full of images of the sets from the beginning of their construction to the end of the shoot.

During the shoot, the cast and crew drank more than 20,000 cups of tea or coffee and ate 151lbs of biscuits (that’s 68.5 kilos). The construction of the sets took 284 4’x8’ sheets of MDF (that’s a stack 17 feet high or ½ a mile laid end to end).

THE INSPIRATION

Writer and director, Andrew Dymond, created Starhyke; he came up with the idea over a decade ago, which was originally made as a short film in 1991. It wasn’t until 2003 that Andrew used the idea of Starhyke as the basis for a series and so began the long journey to take this initial concept and to turn it into a brand new style of Sci-fi comedy drama.

Andrew aspired to create a comedy with a dramatic story arc that any fan of sci-fi would want to watch; each season would be different within the ongoing storyline. The main Inspirations for the show came from movies like Star Trek 4 “The voyage home”, the very funny Galaxy Quest, and TV shows like Babylon 5 and Stargate SG-1.

From day one, Starhyke was always going to be very different from a lot of sci-fi shows; the show has a number of strong characters, who all have their own problems and flaws to deal with in the series. Even the security guards in the background have their own character traits. Andrew wanted to bring an outrageous crew to the screen that had the ability to bounce off each other (Quite literally).

PUTTING THE FACTS INTO FICTION

Claudia Christian and Jeremy Bulloch were cast in the leading roles at a very early stage of the project, but with such a diverse mix of characters, the challenge was to find the right actors to fill the other roles. From over 2000 submissions from agents and actors, a shortlist of 200 candidates were invited to audition for 5 roles (Wu Oof, Dotty, Cropper, Bull Ox and Sally) After a second audition and then a day long workshop the final cast was secured, with the added bonus of finding 3 new characters along the way – but that a story in itself!

The world of Starhyke was realised in the designs created by Richard Dawson, the Production Designer. He’d worked with Jonathan G. Brown, the Producer, on other projects and brought a fresh perspective to the project. His designs for the sets and props help give Starhyke its unique look and feel, accompanied by costumes designed by Matt Spaull.

The last pieces to the jigsaw were Director of Photography, Ed Wright, as well as all the other production heads and the crew who took Starhyke from script to screen.

Andrew Dymond                  Creator / Director / Writer
Andrew has worked within the TV industry for various broadcast companies over the last decade directing commercials for ITV and cable television. He has worked as a visual effects director for the BBC, Granada Television and several independents.

Jonathan G. Brown                              Producer / Writer
Jonathan started his working life as a chef and as such quickly progressed to Michelin level as a Patissier.  In 1996, he swapped kitchen knives for make-up brushes and re-trained as a prosthetic make-up artist, working for Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson. Later he switched roles again to work as Coordinator and Production Manager on dramas for ITV and the BBC. Jonathan has been working as a producer since 2001 and Starhyke is his first outing in the Sci-Fi genre.

Pete Draper                              Visual Effects Supervisor
Pete is a CG artist with over 10 years industry experience and heads the visual effects team at Lightworx. Originally starting out as a fine artist and graphic designer, before moving into CG in the late 80’s, early 90's.
His expertise can be found in the publications he regularly writes for, such as 3D World, Computer Arts and Computer Arts Projects. Pete has also published a Discreet Certified book entitled "Deconstructing the Elements" which deals with recreating natural effects with CG.

Ed Wright                                   Director of Photography
After film school in Bristol University in the mid nineties Ed combined working as a camera assistant on bigger films like 'Twentyfour:Seven', 'Lost in Space', 'Plunkett and MacLeane' and 'Still Crazy' with shooting short films and promos. He has been a Director of Photography for 8 years building credits in feature films, commercials and television. He has filmed documentaries in New Zealand, Australia and Nigeria. The last feature film he shot 'Making a Killing', a psychological thriller, is out on DVD. Visit his website – click here...