It all started after watching a Silent Super 8 Cine film that my parents had made with a group of their friends. It was called 'Fairies'. It contained scenes where someone would walk behind an object, but someone else would walk out the other side. All done by just stopping the camera, replacing the actor and starting the film rolling again. But to my impressionable mind... it was just magic. I was only nine years old.

I went on to make around 15 Silent Super 8 Cine films over the next 5 years. My first being a short animation entitled 'Monsters on Earth'. Because I lived on the doorstep of a small forest, I based the vast majority of my films within it. The first film production name was given...I called myself 'Basing Wood Productions'.

After sneaking into the local Cinema (which I eventually worked in and is the centre of the documentary 'So What Do You Think of the Hot Dogs?') and watching the superb film...ALIENS, I then decided to create my epic! So back in 1986, I went on to create a 200 metres film entitled Alien 3, the longest film I had ever made.

My school realised my potential and eventually let me borrow the school's video camera... unattended! This was a miracle as far as I was concerned, as I considered myself just a snotty little 14-year-old. With video, I could now have sound as well as pictures! So the first thing I decided to do was remake my Alien 3. The opening scenes to the film were shot on the 18th floor of Fanum House in Basing View (The AA Headquarters based in Basingstoke), and the rest was shot in Basing Wood. The finished product was fantastic... well that's what I thought. I went on to borrow the video camera another two times, making another two films, The Chase (which has now been lost forever), and The De-Terminator. The Chase was the first film to be created under the production team name of MAD films. MAD stood for Me And Dave, Dave being David Wildman whom I met through Drama lessons at school and had played a character in my video version of Alien 3. When we went onto The De-Terminator our name changed slightly to MAD+R Films the R standing for Rebbeck, as in Chris Rebbeck the 3rd member of the new team.

In 1988 I left school and started a summer job, collecting enough money to go halves on a video camera with my parents. I bought a Sony CCD V7 8Afe. Fraught Productions was born. In the summer of '88, we made our first film... State of Mind. At 50 minutes long it was an Epic! As Science Fiction was our favourite genre, that was predominately what we have stuck to, and State of Mind was a Science Fiction Thriller. We entered it into the IAC's London International Film & Video Festival...we came away with a Blue Seal Award. Not a particularly high award, but it was our first! This was just fuel to our fire...

The Dream Arcade was our next production, based on a friend's nightmare, which he had written down. Our first stab at a supernatural film ended up being something that you may expect David Lynch to have come up with. The critics at the IAC competition the following year found themselves confused by the film, but still awarded us a Blue Seal Award.

Our next production was entitled 'Henry Jones Junior and the Cup of Asmodeus', obviously a spin on the Indiana Jones films. I had fellow friend Stuart Kerr in the title role being chased by bad guys across South America looking for this Cup. Obviously we didn't film in South America, we shot it in Basing Wood as per usual. We shot a lot of the film in the rain, mainly because I just wanted to get the film finished for the next competition. Luckily, this worked to our advantage, as it created a beautiful atmosphere and looked great too. This film broke the mould for us by getting us a Bronze Seal Award. We were very pleased with what the Judges thought of the film..."The best Direction yet." to quote one.

Geoff Harmer filming on a make shift platform

Many short films later, Fraught Productions started to make a film entitled Hell on Earth. This was the first film to bring together the team that still call itself Fraught Productions, the main three people of this team are Chris Rebbeck, Andy Gray and Myself, Geoff Harmer. On and off, Hell on Earth took 11 months to shoot, it had a huge cast (by my standards anyway!), and was the first to use many techniques that we now use. With the help of my friend Jolyon Myers, we wrote and performed the entire musical score, as well as create our own digital effects. Due to a main stream film being released under the title 'Hell on Earth' we decided to change our title to 'A Cold Summer'. 'A Cold Summer' won a Bronze Seal Award at the IAC festival in London, and to our surprise it also won 'Best Youth Action Movie of the Year Award'. This was the first time the Award was ever given out.

In 1994, Fraught Productions made 'Kill for Jesus'. It starred Andy Gray, Chris Rebbeck, Russell Spicer, and Myself, as well as supporting roles from David Denham and John Milewski. This was a thriller based around an organised gang, whose leader pushes his own members over the edge, when they are on the verge of being caught. This film won the Silver Seal Award.

In 1997 Fraught Productions created a film entitled 'The Book of Joshua'. This turned out to be a very controversial outing for the team. Even though the film was rated highly as a short film, it was banned from being shown at the two festivals it was entered into.

So as of yet, the film has never been seen in front of an audience, which is a shame, as we gave the film an ending that we hoped would cause people to discuss it.

Making Props

Making More props

Over the years, Fraught Productions has won 17 International Film Awards, and has had its film's shown all over the UK, as well as in the USA and Japan. Having recently moved to Digital Video the quality of our productions is getting better. We are currently writing a number of films, with the hope of starting to shoot in the very near future. Keep an eye on the below for all the latest updates.