Making “It’s John” – Q&A with Victor Hampson

So Victor, where did the idea come from?

I found an old illustrated children’s book about a birthday party, and there was one character in it who, on every page, seemed to be looking out of the pages directly at the reader. The illustration style in those old book makes a lot of the characters look quite creepy, so I thought that would be a good concept for a horror film – that if you’ve seen his picture in the book, then he can see you and can come out of it. In the original book it’s a child, but for our version John is clearly an adult man, yet he’s still dressed as a 1960s schoolboy and for some reason is attending a kids birthday party – so there’s some quite bizarre and unsettling imagery.

Why did you decide to shoot it in the found-footage style?

Partly because I wanted to be in it and this way I could without hiring a cinematographer. But also because it’s a good way of making something when you have no budget.
You don’t have to worry about getting everything to look cinematic because it shouldn’t. Out-of-focus shots! Poor lighting! Bad sound! Yep – that’s all deliberate.

What were the challenges of making a found-footage film?

In terms of the writing, you have to make sure there’s a reason for the camera to be on in every scene. The worst thing about bad found-footage horror films is when someone’s fighting off a murderer with one hand and still recording a nicely framed shot with the other. So, I came up with a special helmet that they wear in this that meant we could get away with filming action scenes and it still be just about believable. And because it’s a comedy you can get away with stretching the logic more than if it was a straight horror.

You have to get everything done in full takes as you can’t cut away, so we all had to know our lines well. We also had to do a lot of practical effects because you can’t do any of the usual editing techniques, so for one of the stabbing scenes we built a fake stomach for one of the characters which was filled with fake blood. And for another we needed a knife to stay stuck into a character’s chest, so we made a special belt with magnets that they wear under their shirt. It was a lot of effort for some pretty brief shots but I think they worked well enough.

Who is Smithy Jones?

Smithy Jones is a character I’ve played for a while who has had brief appearances in some of my other films. He was in “The Actual Truth: Coronavirus” in 2020 complaining about panic buying, and cropped up in a short film I did with comedian John Dredge last year called “Splorry” as a pizza delivery guy, but I’ve always wanted to do something bigger with him as the lead. He’s very geeky and egotistical and, despite only being in his 20s, talks like an old man a lot of the time. So, he’s quite an unusual character and I did worry that he’d be too bizarre for people to accept, but so far audiences do seem to have taken to him.

Why make a comedy horror film?

I’ve never made a horror before but I really like the genre. With this, I wanted to make the horror side of the comedy-horror genuine, so it isn’t just a parody, and the scary bits are actually scary. Tonally similar to shows like “Inside Number 9” and “Psychoville”, or “Shaun of the Dead”, so the world and the characters are real, but it’s also got lots of jokes throughout.

How did you pick your cast?

The cast are all amazing. They’re challenging roles because they need to be able to do both the comedy and the more realistic acting, as well as operating the camera for some scenes and doing quite long takes in one go, so casting was really important. We had loads of people apply for the role of Calvin, including a lot of very experienced actors, but Dillon’s comedic performance style was just perfect for the part. I watched a lot of his sketches, which are hilarious, and his audition sealed it. Rebecca had been in one of my other projects (“The Actual Truth: Cancel Culture” where she played an aggressive woman ranting about freedom of speech), and she was brilliant, so it was great to be able to offer her a bigger role in this. I met Christian at a comedy event (“The Chorts” by The Comedy Crowd) where we both had our sketches screened and I really liked his type of comedy and performance style so invited him to play Marcus based on that. I wanted to prioritise people with a comedy background over those with an acting background so that the humour would definitely come through.

How did you achieve the visual style of John?

It was important to try to capture that creepy vintage illustration style for John and the book. Callum Courtney was our designer and did all the paintings for the book and created the John masks. Instead of painting each page of the book individually, he painted individual aspects which we then composited together digitally, which meant the faces wouldn’t match the bodies and would have much more detail than could be achieved if they were painted to scale. So, this gave all the illustrations a creepy and unsettling vibe. I then had to get the book printed – I have no idea what the publishers must have thought because they didn’t have the context of it being for a horror film; It’s just a kids book that suddenly becomes very creepy and has no ending.

For the design of John himself, we wanted him to look like an illustration come to life, so it took a while to find the right way of achieving this with the costume, and making sure it matched the style of the book exactly. For the masks these were simply paper-mache creations with interchangeable faces for his different expressions. For the rest of the costume, we initially made a jacket out of paper-mache too, but it was too rigid, so in the end we just painted directly onto some ordinary jackets and by layering up the paint and letting it run as it dries, you get a great result.

I’m really happy with the end result. It’s creepy but also sort of funny because of his little shorts, and totally unique as a design.

What is next for “It’s John”?

“It’s John” will be released on Halloween 2024 on the Oxar Productions YouTube channel, (and so will the 20 minute prequel “It Was John” starring Amber Doig-Thorne from “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey”). After that, we’ll hopefully be launching on some streaming services. I’m trying to keep it non-exclusive so that it can be seen by as many people as possible, so hopefully it can remain freely accessible on YouTube and any streamers will just be an extra way of a different audience finding it.

I think horror audiences seem to be quite open to trying a new film from an unknown director if the concept sounds good, so I’m hoping people will give this film a try.

And if we get a good response to the films, we will be making two sequels. If we get a bad response, we will make three.

Ready to see the film? Check it out here: