gene dolders

by sam rhodes

“I just want to do stuff that makes me happy”: A director’s advice to film-making.

On the verge of releasing a feature-length slasher, The Blade Cuts Deeper, director Gene Dolders offers valuable insight into the cut-throat world of horror films.

Born in Ormskirk and growing up close to the town, Gene knew he had to leave to pursue is career in movie making. Moving to China for ten years to largely focusing on corporate and commercial filmmaking before returning to the UK to do what he loves – narrative work.

Gene said: “The good thing about commercial/corporate work is if you’re working for the right companies and you get the right job you get to travel, that’s the fun part.

“I’m just doing more narrative work and doing the things that I want to do now, instead of doing corporate and commercial, which means there’s a lot less work for me and I’m not making as much money, but that’s fine. I just want to do stuff that makes me happy.”

His passion for films came as a teenager when he started to write scripts.

Despite a lack of interest from others in the scripts, he didn’t lose his love for cinematography and was always “messing about” with cameras despite not always knowing what to do.

Learning lots on the job, how to bring crews together and the admin around film-making.

Gene continued: “We shot some of it (The Blade Cuts Deeper) in Lydiate, which is just outside of Liverpool, which is actually the town I grew up in, because there was a specific road there which I really liked.

“It’s funny because there’s a scene in the movie, basically a stalking scene, and I wrote this scene almost 20 years ago for another movie and when I was writing this film I suddenly remembered I wrote the scene many, many years ago, so I just reworked it into the film.”

“I think the tropes that you have for, say slasher movies, are part of the reason that hardcore horror fans watch them.”

“They hear a sound kick in or certain camera shot, and they know what excites them – maybe there’s kind of a formula to it, but people are excited because something’s about to happen; you want to stand out a little bit differently, but I’m not against tropes or cliches.

“I like them as long tropes are done well I’m cool with it.”

The movie that had the biggest impact on him was The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at age 11, starting his love of horror he enjoyed the intensity and realised how many emotions can be evoked through the horror genre. His passion for filmmaking was clear to see. Gene found all the Bruce Lee movies he liked and edited them into a 20-minute VHS tape with all his favourite Bruce Lee fights.

“That’s how I kind of taught myself editing, from doing it and then in 1998 I went on a multimedia course where I learned how to do non-linear work with camera operation.

“In 2000 I was planning to go to university, but then my college lecturer got me a job interview with a video production company in Southport, and I started working for them, doing commercial and corporate films.

“For me, it’s a mixture of passion, being self-taught, a little bit of education, and then mostly on-the-job training.”

Gene explained there are two points for finding happiness in film production.

For winning awards, you need to pick a message, such as mental health, as that is more likely to get you a showing at film festivals and win awards.

For fun, you need to know your market as he explains: “If you want to make horror movies”

“What age bracket are you making them for? What are they expecting? Can you deliver what they want”

At the same time, do projects that you want to do as well. That will give you some satisfaction – it’s more about knowing where you want to go – so if you win awards, go make a drama If you want to have fun just pick the genre you like.

“Your passion is going to reflect on screen so if you’re really happy with what you do and having fun, that will make a better production even if it’s low budget, you’ll be able to generally tell that there’s a lot of passion there and talent mixed in.

“So the first thing to do is to figure out what road you want to go down.”