Article by By Martin Paul - Senior Reporter • 13 Apr 2023
A BARNEY filmmaker’s latest project delves into the terrifying world of people being spiked on a night out.
Spiked, a film of about eight minutes, is the second project Phoebe Lorenz has co-written and performed in but the first to be co-produced by her company, Delilah Films.
The idea came about through talks with BBC New Creative Emma Zadow, who is in the same acting agency, about doing a project together.
Ms Lorenz said: “There has been a wave of that happening in the past two years and this is what got us on to doing it on spiking in particular. We got lots of advice from charities and professionals to ensure it was as accurate as possible.
“It follows two characters, one Becky and the other Andrea. Becky is a single mum and Andrea is a police officer. It is about 12 hours after the night before when Becky has been out and thinks she has been spiked. She has gone to Andrea for help.”
The pair wrote the script together.
While at the Women X Film Festival in Darlington last year Ms Lorenz met Louisa Rose Mackleston, of Northern Fortress Films, and decided to team up to produce the project.
They called on Alex Shipman to direct it because she had previously worked with Ms Zadow on her short film Jigging, which appeared on the BBC and won best film at the Seattle Independent Film Festival.
She has also worked on two award-winning shorts with Ms Mackleston in the past.
Filming took place over two days earlier last month, when Ms Lorenz played the part of Becky, and Ms Zadow took on the character of Andrea.
Ms Lorenz said: “We filmed in Barnard Castle at my house and in the surrounding area.”
Filming was completed in two days, so we managed to get everything done before the snow came – it was a race against the clock.”
Cinematography was done by Jim Embrey, who has worked with the likes of Liam Gallagher.
Spiked is in post-production.
Ms Mackleston said: “It is coming together really nicely. We have a team working on it around the country.”
When completed, the film is to be sent on the “festival rounds”.
Ms Lorenz said: “Hopefully it will do well and eventually it will be put out in the public domain and we will try get distribution for it.
“Hopefully it will have a screening at The Witham at some point in the future – that would be lovely but nothing is arranged or anything. That would be nice to have it screened in the town.”