Magnet Releasing & Focus Features International Presents A Magnet Release THE LAST DAYS ON MARS Directed by Ruair�� Robinson Offi

 
 

Magnet Releasing & Focus Features International 

Presents 

A Magnet Release 

THE LAST DAYS ON MARS 

   Directed by Ruair�� Robinson 
 

Official Selection:

2013 Cannes Film Festival – Director��s Fortnight  

FINAL PRESS NOTES  

  98 minutes, 2.35 

Distributor Contact:	Press Contact NY/Nat��l:	Press Contact LA/Nat��l:
Matt Cowal	Steve Beeman	Guido Götz
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SYNOPSIS 

On the last day of the first manned mission to Mars, a crew member of Tantalus Base believes he has made an astounding discovery – fossilized evidence of bacterial life. Unwilling to let the relief crew claim all the glory, he disobeys orders to pack up and goes out on an unauthorized expedition to collect further samples. But a routine excavation turns to disaster when the porous ground collapses and he falls into a deep crevice and near certain death. His devastated colleagues attempt to recover his body. However, when another vanishes they start to suspect that the life-form they have discovered is not yet dead. As the group begins to fall apart it seems their only hope is the imminent arrival of the relief ship Aurora ��

 

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION  

It was pulp sci-fi author Sydney J. Bounds��s short story, The Animators, which provided the basis for what would become The Last Days on Mars. First published in 1975 in the anthology Tales of Terror from Outer Space, the story of a group of astronauts exploring the Martian surface fascinated screenwriter Clive Dawson, who brought the project to producer Michael Kuhn at Qwerty Films. ��It was very succinctly written and felt like a film treatment,�� says producer Andrea Cornwell. ��It��s sparse and atmospheric, and put the focus not on spaceships but on the human psyche.�� 

In the process of adapting the story, Dawson focused on expanding the mission��s crew and decided to lead the story not with Brunel, the group��s captain, as in the original story, but rather with senior systems engineer Vincent Campbell. ��It��s about a chain of events put into play on the very last day of one of the first missions to Mars,�� summarizes Cornwell. ��What is unusual is rather than looking at their arrival on Mars, the story is about a group of people that had been together a long time and looking at the disintegration of the group psychology.�� 

For Vincent, explains director Ruair�� Robinson, what happens on the planet plays into the deepest of his fears. ��He has a fear of losing himself that becomes manifest in facing something that literally threatens to take over,�� he says. ��That��s what first attracted me to the script: to place a character into a situation where they have to face the very thing they��re terrified of in the worst way possible.�� 

And it was this notion that attracted actor Liev Schreiber, who found the idea of Vincent��s claustrophobia and anxiety immediately appealing. Says Schreiber: ��One of the things we started talking about when I became involved was ��how do you articulate that claustrophobia?�� ��How do you express something as complex as his sort of anxiety?���� 

All the elements were aligned, he says. ��Being trapped, in a space station, in close quarters, in spacesuits�� all of it contributed to this oppressive, suffocating thing that was really interesting to explore.�� 

In fact, it harked back to some of the most interesting science-fiction horror storytelling on the big screen. The touchpoints within the subgenre were films like Alien, The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and The Thing. ��When we started this there hadn��t been a movie in that key in years,�� says Robinson, ��Or certainly not a good one, anyway.��  

But the influences went beyond science fiction too, he adds. ��There are elements of Sergio Leone��s Westerns in there – a New Frontiers vibe. And for me, United 93 was a touchstone in terms of the tone of the acting and how to deal with emotion without resorting to cheap tugging at the heartstrings.�� 
 
 

For Olivia Williams, who plays Kim, the film��s character notes were instantly relatable and not at all confined to sci-fi genre setting. ��That David Bowie-like image of the man floating around in the tin can is so powerful, but if you don��t give a toss about who that man is then you might as well not bother. When I read the script, the sweet scene of Vincent sitting with Lane and talking about Earth won me over. It could be two people sitting on a park bench on the top of Primrose Hill. It has a timeless, placeless quality.�� 

And as the title suggests, the story takes place on this crew��s final few days on the surface of Mars, something that was crucial to completing the sense of desperation that is bubbling under the surface for all of these characters, as they realize their mission��s aim – to find life on Mars – may well be left unresolved. They��re also, says Cornwell, blas�� about the environment they��re in: ��They��ve already got over the ��wow, we��re on Mars�� phase.�� 

��There��s a sort of Treasure of the Sierra Madre quest for gold thing too,�� expands Robinson, ��where the protocol goes out of the window once they see this prize that they��ll get their name on if they��re the first ones to find it. Everyone starts bickering and fighting each other and putting all their training aside, and that��s when they start making mistakes. All those things come back to haunt them, in the form of death.�� 

Goran Kostic, who plays Marko, agrees: ��They all want to be the first to make the discovery and they��re desperate to do it as the end of the mission approaches. They��re prepared to take a one-way ticket if the chance is there for their names to make history. But none of them knows what��s ahead.�� 

Mars is what is killing them. ��The walls are closing in,�� says Cornwell, ��and humans aren��t built to survive like this. Our characters�� personal journeys mirror the themes of the film. Mars is vast, but there��s nowhere to hide. And that almost makes it a counter-Western: there��s no town over the hill to run to.�� 

The Red Planet has played a part in countless science fiction stories, with the proximity of Earth��s nearest neighbor, and the uncertainty about what might lurk in its red depths having inspired writers and filmmakers for more than a century. In fact, perhaps the most famous Martian story, HG Wells��s The War of the Worlds, was first published in 1898. ��It didn��t occur to us that we were stepping into a genre of its own,�� relates Cornwell. 

In the end, it was Ruair�� Robinson��s unique pitch for the project – United 93 in space - that won him the job and crystallized The Last Days on Mars��s unique place in the pantheon of Martian moviemaking. Says Cornwell: ��In a way you want to forget it��s a sci-fi movie and focus on those characters and their individual motivations, so when this massive event comes into their lives, you believe how they react to it.�� 
 
 
 

A successful commercials and short film director and animator, Robinson was Oscar-nominated for his 2001 short Fifty Percent Grey. One of his most recent short, Blinky ^TM, is the story of a young boy and his unsettlingly cutesy housekeeper robot. ��You only need to watch that film to know Ruair�� has everything,�� enthuses Williams. ��He created such empathy for a robot and it was also deftly observant of modern life and human relationships.�� 

With an animation background, Robinson approaches every scene with a strong visual sense. ��He storyboarded the film in extreme detail,�� says Romola Garai, who plays Lane, ��and he knew exactly how he wanted to block each scene. We shot in continuous takes, with a roving camera, where every time we did the scene we did it in its entirety, and you could appear in the shot at any time.�� 

This was a boon for the actors, who were afforded an opportunity to breathe and delve into their characters in each moment. ��Ruair����s strength is in combining a strong visual sense with a real grasp of character,�� says Schreiber. ��He��s the kind of director who likes to figure things out on his feet, and so we��ll suit up, get on set and start trying things. There��s a lot of improvisation and finding the scene as we play it.�� 

Kostic was impressed with Robinson��s desire to hear the ideas of the cast and crew. ��He��s very open to ideas into what we��re trying to achieve. We see him as another member of the mission��s crew, there with us, feeding us information, listening and learning. The openness, and the idea of trust, is very important.�� 

For Robinson, allowing his cast to build fully rounded performances in their own time was essential to selling the story��s genre aspects. ��It��s not a straight horror film,�� he shares. ��There are no cheap shocks. The fear is of mounting dread more than anything else, and so hopefully it��ll be emotional.�� 

The science fiction setting, which includes plenty of sequences set on the surface of Mars, makes it an ambitious undertaking for a film of its cost. But, says Schreiber, it��s in the stories utilization of its budgetary limitations that it sets itself apart. ��What I found so fascinating about the script was how sparse it was,�� he says. ��Today, with CGI and spectacle and all of that, it almost feels like the genre has become a party for effects and production design, and forgetting the basic sense of suspense and withholding.�� The Last Days on Mars does the opposite, he insists. 

��It��s incredibly ambitious for the budget,�� confirms Robinson, ��which makes it quite challenging, and means you��ve got to work harder to achieve what you want. But, I think, if I��ve done my job, it has converged in a decent way and hopefully it��ll achieve the desired effect.�� 
 
 
 
 

LOOK AND FEEL 

For the crew of The Last Days on Mars, creating something new in a landscape in which many other stories have taken place on the Red Planet was essential. Reference photographs from the recent unmanned Mars landers offered a vision of the planet that wasn��t the orange-tinted monochrome often witnessed in Mars movies, and Robinson says that, anyway, he doesn��t like color-coded cinema.  

��I wanted to shoot on cinemascope and it��s one of the last films shot on film, too,�� he explains. ��The camera work starts stately and elegant but it slowly destabilizes until, at a certain point, it��s all handheld. In terms of the colors, I wanted it to look natural, cinematic and unforced.�� 

The one color missing from the movie is blue, says Robinson, which becomes a beacon of home for Vincent��s character. ��He has a sense of there being something missing on Earth and he hums this track, Blue Skies Are Around The Corner, because he��s missing that color.�� 

To expand his United 93 in space idea, Robinson worked with DP Robbie Ryan, who is best known for naturalistic visuals like Fish Tank and Red Road. ��We didn��t want to make it look over-lit,�� says Robinson. ��The lighting comes from where lights should be. It��s interesting to marry that with visual effects because that kind of naturalistic handheld look in an effects movie is fairly unusual.�� 

Williams describes Ryan as a ��camera warrior�� who fought the elements – which included 44-degree heat in the deserts of Jordan – to capture the action. ��He is such an artist in terms of finding shots.�� 

In a genre weighed down by the slickly-designed interfaces of futuristic technology, The Last Days on Mars bucks the trend in its production design too, settling on a simple, practical look to the film��s human technology. ��It had to look plausible,�� Robinson insists. ��It��s built to be durable and not delicate. Most of the vehicles are white with splashes of black, so they stick out against the red sand.�� 

Production designer Jon Henson says he designed the sets to be grounded in the reality of space exploration. ��We didn��t want it to be a fantastical environment: it had to be a real scenario. We looked at how they live on the ISS and worked back from that.�� 

In fact, that cramped, uncomfortable habitat formed the backbone of the art department��s brief. ��We weren��t going to be building spacious environments,�� reveals art director Stephen Lawrence. ��This is only the second manned mission to Mars, and everything had to have a very small feel to it. We wanted to create tension with the size of airlocks and the tight spaces they have to work in. The tendency with science fiction is to make everything big and bold, but we intentionally kept things small, and that allowed us to focus on the small detail.�� 

The film is set in 2036, and Henson says that real-world missions to Mars are being designed for that timeframe right now. The technology on board, then, was always intended to look similar to what is available today. ��Our computer screens are deliberately not very futuristic,�� he explains. ��If you look at the ISS it��s all very practical and they don��t have lots of touchscreen stuff, because it all goes wrong. Their priorities are reliability and practicality, not aesthetics.�� 

Of course, the challenge of any science fiction film is that everything has to be designed, drawn and made. ��Even if you use switches or buttons that exist, you still have to put them into a different combination to have them look like they��ll do what they��re meant to do,�� says Lawrence. 

Of the many environments the art department created, one of the most challenging was the Mars rover, which exists mostly inside the computer. Only the cockpit was built practically and shipped to the location. ��We had to cantilever it off the back of a truck and then drive the truck in reverse,�� Lawrence reveals. ��It was a little tricky. It took a lot of engineering to sort out.�� 

It had originally been intended that the Mars modules would have a slightly grungier feel, as though they��d occupied the landscape for years. But it was decided that, instead, it would have been the crew��s protocol to maintain the sterile cleanliness of a laboratory, which is exactly what their installations are.  

This aesthetic choice ends up offering a metaphor for what happens to the crew. ��When the sand starts getting over everything it��s like alien antibodies invading the base,�� Robinson enthuses.  This kind of artistic revelation is exactly what production design is all about, says Henson. ��It��s about getting to the core of the script and working from there. What this needed was the sensation of dusty, large open spaces on the planet – and what that does for you and how it makes you feel – and then these tight, clean, sterile living spaces. It becomes a direct representation of what is happening to them.�� 

And what is happening to them is a unique twist on another of cinema��s most popular subgenres: the zombie movie. ��They face bacteria that are lying dormant in the permafrost,�� explains Schreiber. ��Presumably, at one point, when there was water there was life on Mars, and then without water that bacteria has gone into a kind of hibernation. The minute a foreign element is introduced, and reintroduces moisture into the atmosphere, the bacteria are reanimated. The bacteria are using the human bodies as hosts to multiply. The only source of moisture that exists in that environment is the human bodies themselves.��  

Though what happens to the crew doesn��t exactly turn them into zombies, he laughs. ��They��re not entirely dead once the bacteria take control of their motor functions. They��re just very, very sick.�� 
 

Williams thinks the film takes on the best traits of that subgenre in devising its particular brand of horror. ��Zombie stories deal with such fantastic human fears,�� she explains, what you fear looks like someone you love. ��That��s what happens with our bacteria in this film, and it��s a brilliant way of scaring the shit out of people!�� 

The infection meant that some of the crew ended up playing two versions of the same character – pre- and post-infection. ��That��s the exciting thing,�� enthuses Kostic. ��Working under the make-up after infection helps come up with that different character. It��s in the way he walks, the way he communicates and his actions.�� 

There are many sequences shot on the surface of Mars, for which the deserts of Jordan provided an Earthbound cypher, which for many of the cast meant they would be required to engage in strenuous action sequences whilst wearing thick spacesuits in temperatures of up to 44 degrees celsius. ��It��s a real desert,�� says Cornwell, making it just like the surface of Mars. ��It��s hard. It��s slow. It��s heavy and tough to get anywhere. They know that now, because they were in Jordan.�� The portion of the shoot in the desert took place at the beginning of the schedule, and the production arranged for the actors to share a hotel separate from the rest of the crew. ��It forced them to get a sense of living together,�� Cornwell explains. ��From day one on set they knew each other and I think that��ll come through in the film.�� 

��Working together in relatively harsh conditions certainly bonds you together more,�� laughs Schreiber. ��There was some comfort in the fact that the crew was going through it as well. They may not have been in spacesuits, but they were certainly out there in the dust storms lugging equipment. You had to have some perspective on it.�� 

Adds Williams: ��When the dust started you couldn��t see your hand in front of your face. Filming there was an endurance test, which I think some people passed and some probably didn��t! You really did come face to face with your demons – if you suffer from claustrophobia, if you don��t react well to the heat, if you wear contact lenses in a dust storm, you found out about pain! Actors are top class whiners, but I think this cast put their best foot forward on this film.�� 

The location presented challenges elsewhere, too, given the infrequency with which Jordan is used for filming. ��Building a set in a country that has only had a limited amount of experience in building sets was very hard,�� says Henson. ��We built the rover front here and had to ship it over. We missed the deadline on the first plane, so there was this whole period where the thing was in transit and had to arrive on a certain day and we were literally finishing it on the morning of the day we shot the first scenes.�� 

For Garai, the temperature might have been manageable had they not been wearing the thick spacesuits designed by Richard Sale and his costume team. ��The combination of the two was pretty hardcore,�� she remembers. ��But had we waited an extra couple of weeks, we wouldn��t have been able to do it at all because it got even hotter there.�� 

Sale says he had to consider the environment they planned to shoot in when building the suits, but found himself often apologizing for the laws of physics, because there was only so much he could do to make the experience more comfortable. ��We used a Swedish technology that is used underneath firefighters�� uniforms, ��he explains, ��which draws heat out and keeps your core cool. It seems to have worked quite well. And we blew air through the helmet to provide some cooling and prevent condensation once we were back on the cold soundstages.�� 

The helmets of the suits were, in fact, ��grown�� by a company that specializes in 3D printing, in which three-dimensional objects are designed in the computer and literally printed out, layer by layer, until they��re physical props. ��The one thing I said was that we should treat the helmets like a set,�� says Sale. ��The actors occupy it like they would any other set, and it impacts lighting, camera and sound.�� 

The suits themselves occupied a middle ground between the bulky pressurized creations used by NASA on the Apollo missions and the slimline sci-fi suits seen in recent films of the genre. ��We slimmed down the silhouette of the Apollo suits, because Ruair�� was adamant that we avoid that kind of bulk,�� says Sale. ��But there��s still a suggestion of space for life support, while allowing room to move, because they��ve got to run and fight and all those things.�� 

Nevertheless, says Williams, physicality was a challenge. ��They look so cool but it��s impossible to describe to you how much they hamper your movement and how exhausting it is to wear them,�� she laughs. 

For all the trials of shooting in Jordan, Garai agrees that watching playback of the actors, in spacesuits, in this barren desert, creates an easy illusion of being on the surface of another planet, even without the post-production tweaks required to change the color of the sky to a more Martian tone. ��The advantages of shooting in Jordan are completely spectacular,�� she concedes. ��There��s nowhere else on earth that��s quite so inherently Martian.�� 

Agrees Henson: ��Any angle you shoot in that desert – and we selected ours quite carefully – would be otherworldly. It was an amazing place, and with the anamorphic aspect we��re shooting it, it��ll look epic.�� 

And while the budget of the film is modest by the standards of the biggest Hollywood epics, there are, Robinson says, more than 400 effects shots in the piece to sell the environment even better. ��Screen Scene in Dublin did most of them and they��ve done an amazing job. ��Ireland doesn��t necessarily have the best track record for visual effects, but it��s incredible work and once people have seen Screen Scene��s work in the film they��ll be blown away. I��ve seen movies with twenty times the budget that don��t look as good in the effects.�� 
 

Completing the picture is one of Robinson��s favorite elements: the score. The production called on Max Richter, whose work includes Shutter Island and Disconnect, to provide the film��s music. ��I��m thrilled with his score,�� enthuses Robinson. ��The one thing we talked about with the score was that when the movie starts the music is asking questions, and as we go on we start getting the answers, but they��re not answers we want to hear. Musically it��s curious, optimistic and hopeful at the start, and that sours after time and gets very oppressive and scary. It gets very big at the end in a way that was thrilling to me.�� 
 

CASTING THE FILM 
 

It was always a key part of the development process that the crew of the mission in The Last Days on Mars be drawn as wholly rounded individuals. A tremendous amount of work went into the development of the characters, so that when disaster strikes their individual methods for coping with the situation come across. 

��There was a strong sense from the script that it was a chamber piece and that the characters all had their individual arcs,�� says Garai. ��The time and trouble had been taken to realize all of those individual stories.�� 

This meant, too, that a good deal of focus was placed on the casting process, in order to ensure an eclectic ensemble. There are actors from multiple nationalities. Geographically, the cast list is made up of performers with American, Canadian, Yugoslavian, Irish, British and Somali backgrounds, and each had different paths and levels of experience as actors. 

��They��re all performers not necessarily associated with sci-fi work,�� notes Cornwell of their one commonality. ��They bring a different kind of energy to the film and they��re all naturalistic performers. When they��re scared, they��ve got good reasons for it.�� 

��We joked at the start that we couldn��t imagine any other project we��d work on together,�� laughs Garai. ��It was really exciting to get to work with actors who I love and respect on a project which, for me, was very much outside the norm of my experience as an actor.�� 

For Robinson, the challenge was in bringing them all together. ��You have to keep check of not just where they are in the scene but where they are in the movie,�� he explains. ��Doing that right takes time, but this cast knows what it��s doing anyway. Half the time, for me, it��s about getting out of the way and letting them doing what they��re good at.�� 

Leading the film is Vincent Campbell (Liev Schreiber), who Robinson describes as the star quarterback. ��He had a bit of a breakdown and since then he��s not been able to trust his own instincts. He��s been afraid of messing up and losing control. The stresses of the mission are mounting, but everyone on the mission is trying to pretend that it��s normal. When shit hits the fan he isn��t sure he can deal with it, but he has to step up and take charge.�� 

Schreiber says the idea of a claustrophobic astronaut is inherently a contradiction, something he reveled in. ��In reality, I guess, they��d test them for that, and wouldn��t let him go on the mission. But it��s a wonderful device for understanding the environment.�� 

The notion, he says, is that Vincent is one of the most experienced members of the crew, but that his experience hasn��t involved the kind of long-term mission they��re on this time. He misses home. ��Once he got past that three-month marker, something snapped, and that anxiety has developed over the course of this mission.�� 

Schreiber has been the ultimate collaborator for Robinson, who says the actor ��gets it, first time, almost every time��. He adds: ��Liev put the work into the character and invested so much in it. He ran – physically – until he collapsed.�� 

Schreiber��s attraction to the material was instant. Sci-fi horror is a tricky genre to get right, he says. ��I��d also heard good things about Ruair�� and I went online and looked at his shorts. I was really impressed by him, and when the script arrived I was equally impressed by that.�� 

Robinson describes Rebecca Lane (Romola Garai) as the most empathetic of all the characters. ��She works pretty hard to make everyone around her happy, to the detriment of herself,�� he says. ��She��s kind of in a relationship with Vincent, but there��s something unresolved between them. The whole movie follows their struggle to connect when they should and the tragedy of it being too late for them. When everything falls apart she��s the only one that holds things together. Until things start happening to her directly, and then you see the cracks develop.�� 

Continues Garai: ��She��s the most emotionally intuitive people on the team. She��s good with observing other people��s foibles and knitting people together in times of distress. Any frustration she feels, she��s much better at hiding than Vincent or Brunel.�� 

Robinson had seen Garai in Atonement and Inside I��m Dancing and thought of her for Lane immediately. ��There��s one moment in Atonement where she kind of broke my heart, and it was the best moment in the movie for me. She knocked it out of the park as Lane. She��s really natural and she��s an acting machine – I feel lucky to have people as talented to learn from.�� 

Charles Brunel (Elias Koteas) is the captain of the mission and, says Robinson, ��he��s the nicest guy not on Earth.�� He adds: ��Over time he has allowed himself to be taken advantage of by people. Because everyone is exhausted and stressed, he has relaxed his command a bit. He��s become people��s friend more than their boss, and so people don��t respect him in the way they used to. The struggle for him is to deal with the consequences of that. He��s trying to build himself back up to be able to lead and help his friends.�� 

Casting Koteas in the role was special for Robinson, who says Koteas��s performance The Thin Red Line is one of his favourites. ��And for someone so good, he��s so modest. He put everyone at ease right away and was lovely to work with.�� 

One of the geologists, Kim Aldrich (Olivia Williams), is the most driven of the crew. ��As everyone else has become tired and exhausted, she has become more and more frustrated because she��s the only one with the eye completely on the prize,�� says Robinson. ��Everyone else finds her a bit of a nag. They��re sick of her complaining and being rude to everyone. They think of her a bit as a dictator. Nobody trusts her judgment and nobody trusts that she��s able to deal with it even though she��s more focused than anyone.�� 

Williams describes her as ��a bit of a Hermione Granger character in a way��, referring to the bookish character of the Harry Potter series. ��From the first day of the mission she��s the one saying, ��I want to find life on Mars and if any of you get in my way, I��m going to mow you down.�� At school, she��d have been the first to put her hand up to answer a question, and the first in the lunch queue.�� 

Robinson had been a fan of Williams��s work since he��d seen Rushmore. ��She��d never played an action part and so she was very keen on doing something more physical,�� Robinson relates. ��She��s incredibly focused, professional and exacting. She��s in amazing control of her voice and can make tiny adjustments to make a moment stronger or more emotional. It��s impressive.�� 

Williams reveled in the action challenges and says playing a baddie was fun. But, she adds, ��Nobody thinks they��re a bad person. Even Iago, in Othello, doesn��t think he��s bad: he just has bad forces driving him. If you see these things as forces that drive you, it��s about the battle inside you to suppress those unattractive instincts. Everyone��s going through that all the time, but some people are better at fighting the battle.�� 

Robert Irwin (Johnny Harris) is primarily the psychological welfare officer on the mission, ��Though everyone has multiple roles,�� explains Robinson. ��He��s like an AA guy – always nice to everyone all the time and always trying to dig and solve their problems whether they want him to or not. But he��s frustrated under the surface. The situation brings those things to the surface. He starts crumbling and trying to avoid blame.�� 

��It��s boys and toys,�� explains Harris of his attraction to the role. ��You put a spacesuit on and you��re a ten-year-old again. It takes a bit to mature up and go, ��OK, we��re scientists, we��ve got to be responsible.�� There was something about this character that appealed to me. There were shifts within the script with him that were quite a stretch, and that intrigued me. I wanted to have a go at working that out.�� 

Harris��s casting was especially exciting to Robinson as indicative of this film��s eclectic ensemble. ��I��ve never seen Johnny Harris in a movie like this,�� he explains. ��It��s unusual to take this kind of urban guy and put him into the sci-fi context, but it��s cool to watch. It��s an interesting mix of different chemicals, this cast, to see all these different nationalities and accents mixed together, and explore all the different frustrations that ensue.�� 

Kim��s main rival in the group is Marko Petrovic (Goran Kostic), who Robinson says is an arrogant guy who��s brilliant at his job. ��His arrogance ends up being his downfall. He��s learnt to manipulate everyone around him to get what he wants and he��s the first to break protocol. That little white lie he tells ripples through the film and threatens to destroy the whole mission.�� 

Robinson saw Kostic in the lead role of In The Land of Blood and Honey, which was directed by Angelina Jolie. ��He was great in that, and it was great to add that sort of Eastern Bloc accent,�� he explains. ��He adds a bit of a Solaris feel to the movie, and he��s got a Tarkovskiy-looking haircut and sound to him.�� 

For Kostic, delving into a science-fiction film was a dream come true. ��I��ve never done sci-fi before. It��s my first time in space, but I love the genre, and so to be offered such a thing in the first place was great. And then you look at the cast and crew and I really wanted it.�� 

The youngest crewmember, Richard Harrington (Tom Cullen), is the most homesick. ��He hasn��t found his place in the group,�� describes Robinson. ��He��s sick of being taken for granted and people talk to him like he��s a kid. He��s trying to prove himself, but he��s stuck in this situation and cannot quite be taken seriously.�� 

He��s racked with guilt when the first incident occurs and he thinks Marko has been killed. ��And then he finds out he��s alive, but changed,�� teases Cullen. ��On a real human level, if you were to see your friend in that condition, how would you react? That was the great challenge of the job, which I loved.�� 

Cullen was asked to come in and read for the part, and he impressed Robinson. ��I realized immediately that I had nothing to worry about with him: his test was just amazing. He��s going to be a big actor in not too many years, and he��s really lovely; one of the best-natured guys I know. 

Cullen reveled in the opportunity to explore the character in great depth. ��We��ve been given the freedom to really pull them apart as much as we can and fill them with all those contradictions we have as human beings. And I��ve been able to learn from some of the best actors in the business. What a gift.�� 

Rounding out the crew is Lauren Dalby (Yusra Warsama), who is ��devoid of confidence��, explains Robinson. ��At home she��d probably have been a happy sort of person, but over time she has been worn down and she��s lost confidence in herself. She��s developed a crush on the guy in the group that has no respect for her, and has got into something of an abusive relationship with him. But she��s a caring person and that becomes her downfall.�� 

Warsama��s audition intrigued Robinson. ��I��d never seen anyone move like that before,�� he remembers. ��She has a lovely voice and she��s going places as well. She��s enthusiastic and incredibly awesome. She might have been a little worried coming into a cast like this, but she absolutely nailed her scenes and I was chuffed for her.�� 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ABOUT THE CAST  
 

LIEV SCHREIBER Heralded as ��the finest American theatre actor of his generation�� by the New York Times, Liev Schrieber��s repertoire of resonant, humanistic and oftentimes gritty portrayals have garnered him praise in film, theatre and television.   

Schreiber was most recently seen in HBO��s Clear History, written by Larry David and starring Kate Hudson and Jon Hamm, as well as Lee Daniels�� The Butler, in which he portrays Lyndon B. Johnson.  Schreiber also recently starred opposite Woody Allen and Sofia Vergara in Fading Gigolo, a comedy written and directed by John Turturro.   

June 2013 saw Schreiber star as the title role of Ray Donovan in the Showtime Network��s highly anticipated series alongside Jon Voight. This powerful family drama centers on Ray (Schreiber) as L.A.��s best professional fixer – the go-to guy in Hollywood who deftly solves the complicated, controversial and confidential problems of the city��s elite. 

Schreiber's many feature credits include The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Salt with Angelina Jolie; X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Defiance with Daniel Craig; Repo Men; The Painted Veil; The Manchurian Candidate, opposite Meryl Streep and Denzel Washington; The Sum of All Fears; Ang Lee��s Taking Woodstock; Kate & Leopold; Goon; Every Day; Michael Almereyda��s Hamlet; Spring Forward; The Hurricane; A Walk on the Moon with Diane Lane; The Daytrippers; Nora Ephron's Mixed Nuts; and Wes Craven's Scream trilogy.   

His portrayal of Orson Welles in Benjamin Ross's RKO 281 brought Schreiber Emmy^® and Golden Globe^® Award nominations. His other telefilm credits include George C. Wolfe's Lackawanna Blues and John Erman's The Sunshine Boys, opposite Woody Allen and Peter Falk. As one of the documentary medium's foremost narrators, he has lent his voice to such works as Mantle,:03 from Gold, A City on Fire: The Story of the ��68 Detroit Tigers, Nova, and Nature.   

In 2010, Schreiber received his third Tony^® nomination for his role in Arthur Miller��s A View from the Bridge alongside Scarlett Johansson. His performance as Ricky Roma in the 2005 Broadway revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, directed by Joe Mantello, earned him his first Tony Award. He was again a Tony nominee for his portrayal of Barry Champlain in the 2007 Broadway revival of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio, directed by Robert Falls.  Other stage work includes the Public Theatre��s Shakespeare in the Park production of Macbeth, in the lead role opposite Jennifer Ehle, directed by Mois��s Kaufman; Othello; Hamlet; Henry V; and Cymbeline.   

In 2005, Schreiber made his feature directorial debut with Everything is Illuminated, which he also adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling novel of the same name. The film, starring Elijah Wood and Eugene Hutz, was named one of the year's 10 best by the National Board of Review. 

ELIAS KOTEAS Early in his career, director Francis Ford Coppola cast Elias Koteas in both Gardens of Stone and Tucker.  Koteas then landed a role in Peter Masterson's Full Moon in Blue Water and was later chosen for the lead role in Roger Cardinal's explosive Malarek, playing true-life investigative journalist Victor Malarek. His haunting performance earned Koteas the first of two Genie nominations (Canada's Oscar) for Best Actor.  

Koteas broke out as an international sensation after his starring role in Crash, David Cronenberg's highly controversial exploration of sexual provocation and alienation which was awarded a special prize at the 1996 Cannes Film festival.  Koteas has worked on several occasions with one of Canada's most accomplished directorial exports, Atom Egoyan, starring in Egoyan's The Adjuster and Exotica, the latter for which Koteas garnered a Genie nomination for Best Actor; and Ararat, for which he won the Genie for Best Supporting Actor.   

Koteas has portrayed notable roles in many films, including: Steven Shainberg's Hit Me, a modern noir adaptation of Jim Thompson's A Swell-Looking Babe; Gattaca, starring Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke, and Jude Law; Gregory Hoblit's supernatural thriller Fallen, opposite Denzel Washington; Bryan Singer's Apt Pupil; Living Out Loud, with Holly Hunter and Danny DeVito; Terrence Malick's Academy Award-nominated film The Thin Red Line; Novocaine, with Steve Martin and Helena Bonham-Carter; Harrison��s Flowers, alongside Andie MacDowell and Adrien Brody; David Fincher directed Zodiac with Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo; Shooter with Mark Wahlberg, directed by Antoine Fuqua; David Fincher��s Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett; Haunting in Connecticut alongside Virginia Madison; Two Lovers opposite Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow;  Martin Scorsese��s Shutter Island, Defendor with Woody Harrelson and Kat Dennings; Michel Winterbottom��s Killer Inside Me, Let Me In, a remake of the award winning and critically acclaimed Danish Film Let the Right One in; Dream House, a thriller directed by Jim Sheridan, opposite Daniel Craig;  Winnie, where he played a South African apartheid supporter, opposite Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard as Winnie and Nelson Mandela; and A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas, the third film in the Harold & Kumar franchise.   Koteas most recently wrapped production on Louis Letterier��s Now You See Me with Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson and Jessie Eisenberg.   

On television, Koteas was made a series regular on Season 4 of the hit AMC drama The Killing, which debuted in June 2013. He was most recently a series regular on the ABC/Shaw Media series Combat Hospital. Set in a medical compound in Afghanistan, Koteas played ��Colonel Xavier Marks��, a career military officer and commander of the multinational medical unit. Koteas has had several critically hailed performances in such programs as USA Network��s Emmy-nominated Traffic: The Mini-Series; the HBO original movie Shot in the Heart, in which he played notorious murderer Gary Gilmore; opposite John Turturro and Mary-Louise Parker in HBO's Sugartime; and House, where he played Hugh Laurie��s nemesis.

Koteas has stared in numerous theatre productions, including Paula Vogel��s Hot ��N�� Throbbing at the Signature Theatre, Kiss of the Spider Woman at the Yale Repertory Theatre and True West on Broadway, directed by Matthew Warchus.   

Koteas is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and a member of the prestigious Actors' Studio.    
 

ROMOLA GARAI Romola��s first major film role was in 2003's I Capture the Castle, directed by Tim Fywell, where she played 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain which earned her a nomination for ��Most Promising Newcomer�� from the British Independent Film Awards. She then went on to star in Douglas McGrath��s Nicholas Nickleby, where she played Kate Nickleby. Romola��s role in Joe Wright��s multi-award winning Atonement (2007) opposite Keira Knightley earned her a nomination for Best Actress from the Evening Standard British Film Awards.  

In 2008 Romola appeared in the feature film The Other Man, directed by Richard Eyre, alongside Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, and Antonio Banderas. Romola next starred in Stephen Poliakoff's World War II thriller Glorious 39. 2009 saw Romola play the title role in a television adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, co-starring Jonny Lee Miller and Sir Michael Gambon. Romola was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. In 2009, Romola was also named one of Britain's Rising Stars by The Sunday Times Magazine. In 2011, Romola starred as Sugar in the four-part BBC drama The Crimson Petal and the White based on the novel by Michel Faber. Romola was nominated for Best Leading Actress at the BAFTAs 2012 for this role, with the series also being nominated for Best Miniseries. Also in 2011, Romola appeared in the Golden Globe nominated BBC drama, The Hour, leading with Dominic West and Ben Whishaw. For her brilliant performance in The Hour, Romola was nominated for Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie at the Golden Globes 2012. 
 
 

OLIVIA WILLIAMS is one of the UK��s most respected actresses and has worked with some of the world��s most celebrated directors including Wes Anderson and Roman Polanski.  Her performances across film, theatre and television have won her critical acclaim and awards.  In 2011 she won Best Supporting Actress by the National Society of Film Critics and the London Critics�� Circle Film Awards for her performance as Ruth Lang in Roman Polanski��s The Ghost Writer.   The previous year her performance in Lone Scherfig��s An Education earned her a London Critics�� Circle Film Award nomination as well as a shared Screen Actors Guild Award nomination with her fellow actors from the ensemble. 
 
 
 
 

After completing her university studies, she spent two years at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company for three years. In 1997, Ms. Williams was chosen by director Kevin Costner to star opposite him in the drama The Postman. Subsequently, she played opposite Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman in Wes Anderson��s acclaimed Rushmore; and appeared as Bruce Willis�� wife in M. Night Shyamalan��s blockbuster The Sixth Sense.  She has since appeared in a number of U.K. independent films, including Thaddeus O��Sullivan��s The Heart of Me, for which she was honoured with the British Independent Film Award (BIFA) for Best Actress; Peter Cattaneo��s  Lucky Break, for which she was an Empire Award nominee; and Mat Whitecross�� Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, opposite Andy Serkis. Among her other movies are George Hickenlooper��s The Man from Elysian Fields; P.J. Hogan��s Peter Pan; Collaborator, starring opposite writer/director Martin Donovan; and Joe Wright��s Hanna and Anna Karenina.  

On television, Ms. Williams has portrayed celebrated authors Jane Austen and Agatha Christie, respectively, in the telefilms Miss Austen Regrets (directed by Jeremy Lovering) and Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures (directed by Richard Curson Smith). She has also starred on the cult favourite series Dollhouse; and guest-starred on such shows as Friends, Terriers, and Beck. 
 
 

JOHNNY HARRIS was born in Lambeth, South East London and at the age of 16 won the Junior ABA National Boxing Title. He then embarked on a three-year acting course at Lambeth's Morley College and started his career in the fringe theatres of London. His first screen role was the lead in Sara Dunlop's short film BIG, which won the 'Best Film' Award at the Rushes Short Film Festival in 2000. In the same year Johnny was cast in his first feature film, Paul McGuigan's Gangster No. 1. 

Johnny's first breakthrough role came in 2006 with a critically acclaimed performance in Paul Andrew Williams's multi award-winning and BAFTA-nominated feature film London to Brighton. He has gone on to work with directors including Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Guy Ritchie, Joe Wright, and Terry Gilliam, and in 2009 Johnny won the 'Best Actor' Award at the Brest European Short Film Festival for his performance in the short film Leaving. In the same year he also played James Vane in Ealing Studios�� Dorian Gray, and starred alongside Sean Bean in Black Death, as well as giving his first motion capture performance in Ultramarines: The Movie, alongside John Hurt and Terence Stamp. In 2010 he starred alongside Noel Clarke in Ben Miller's directorial debut Huge. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

His next breakthrough came in 2011 in Shane Meadows highly acclaimed and multi-award winning This is England '86. Johnny was nominated for the 'Best Supporting Actor' BAFTA and a Royal Television Society 'Best Actor' Award for his portrayal of an abusive father, Mick, in the show. In 2012 Johnny worked with Shane Meadows again, reprising his role for the follow up series This Is England '88. The show won the BAFTA award for 'Best Mini-Series' and in the same year he starred as Neil Valentine in a six-part BBC Three drama The Fades, written by Jack Thorne, who co-wrote This is England '86-'88. The show also won the BAFTA that year for 'Best Drama Series'. 

In the summer of 2012 Johnny appeared as one of the Eight Dwarves, alongside Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan and Brian Gleeson in Snow White and the Huntsman for Universal Pictures, starring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth. In 2013 Johnny again received critical acclaim for his performance in Welcome to the Punch, directed by Eran Creevey and co-produced by Ridley Scott, in which he starred alongside James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Peter Mullen, Andrea Riseborough, and David Morrissey. He also starred in Morning, a short film directed by Cathy Brady. The film won the Irish BAFTA and is nominated in the upcoming European Film Academy Prix UIP Awards.  

In March of this year Johnny was cast in a leading role in Monsters: Dark Continent, the highly anticipated follow up to Monsters, Gareth Edward's hit film of 2010. Filming has just been completed and it will be on our screens in early 2014. 
 

GORAN KOSTIC was born and raised in Sarajevo to Bosnian Serb parents. Despite being from a family with a longstanding tradition of military service, he left the region and moved to London in 1991, where he stayed for the duration of the Bosnian War.   

In 2001, Goran played a prisoner of war alongside Scott Grims, Damian Lewis, and Ron Livingston in the Golden Globe winning TV mini-series Band of Brothers. Following in 2003 to 2004, Goran started his first major role as Ezekiel on the BBC TV series Grease Monkeys. After 19 episodes ranging over the year, he appeared in many TV series episodes such as Foyle��s War, Murder Prevention, and Sea of Souls. 2007 found Goran playing the role of Kazys ��Pot Watcher�� Provik, in Peter Webber��s Hannibal Rising. He then played Gregor in the 2008 thriller Taken directed by Pierre Morel and starring Liam Neeson and Maggie Grace. Angelina Jolie finally made Goran the lead star in her 2011 Golden Globe nominated film In the Land of Blood and Honey. 
 

TOM CULLEN Rising star Tom Cullen graduated with a first class honors from the Royal Welsh College of Drama three years ago. Whilst still in training Cullen was taken out of Drama school to star in Daddy��s Girl (BAFTA Cymru 'Best Film') and Watch Me (BAFTA Cymru 'Best Short'). He has since worked extensively in Film, Television and Stage.  

In 2011 Cullen was named on Screen International's 'Stars of Tomorrow' list and won 'Best Actor' at the IMS awards for BBC short 20 Questions.  

His breakthrough role in Andrew Haigh��s Weekend premiered at SXSW, winning the 'Audience Award'. Cullen's performance in Weekend won him critical acclaim and collected numerous awards and nominations including 'Best Newcomer' at the British Independent Film Awards, 'Best Actor' and 'Grand Jury' at the Nashville Film Festival. He was nominated alongside Gary Oldman and Michael Fassbender for 'British Actor of the Year' by the London Film Critics Circle and 'Best Actor' at the Chlortrudis Awards.  

Cullen��s performance as Jonas in Black Mirror and Wulfric in the Ridley Scott produced World Without End garnered him further critical acclaim.   

He has recently wrapped filming Desert Dancer alongside Freida Pinto. He had recently been cast as Lord Anthony Gillingham in the next season of Downton Abbey, which will air in January 2014 in the US. 
 

YUSRA WARSAMA Yusra is one of the UK��s most promising talents and recently won the 2012 Screen International��s UK Stars of Tomorrow Award. In the last year alone she has worked on Stolen, directed by Justin Chadwick; My Brother the Devil, directed by Sally El Hosaini; as well as two television series for the BBC - Sam Miller��s Savage and Stuart Orme��s Postcode.  

Yusra has also most recently completed filming Dracula for Carnival Films. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS 
 

RUAIRI ROBINSON (Director) is an Irish filmmaker based in Los Angeles. His first CG-animated short film 50 Percent Grey received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film in 2001. His follow-up Silent City starring Cillian Murphy marked Ruair��'s transition into directing live action, followed by the award-winning short film Blinky (starring Max Records from Where the Wild Things Are), and Imaginary Forces, shot in Dublin and Detroit. 
 
The Last Days on Mars is Ruair��'s feature film debut. Other feature projects in development include The Fallen with producer Kris Thykier and Lionsgate Films, and The Leviathan with screenwriter Jim Uhls (Fight Club) with producers Michael Shamberg & Stacey Sher. 
 

ANDREA CORNWELL (Producer) Andrea Cornwell worked at the First Film Foundation running schemes promoting film talent in the UK and USA before moving into production. As a producer and line producer, she has worked on such films as The Scouting Book for Boys, Micro Men, She, a Chinese and The Yellow House. Andrea recently completed the sci-fi thriller The Last Days on Mars (playing in Directors�� Fortnight 2013) and is currently in preproduction with Michael Kuhn on Suite Francaise and developing a range of projects including Invented Eden with BBC Films & screenwriter Guy Hibbert. She is the UK's Producer on the Move at this year's Cannes Film Festival. 
 

MICHAEL KUHN (Producer) Michael Kuhn joined Polygram N.V. in 1975 and in 1991 set up Polygram Filmed Entertainment, which made and distributed over 100 feature films and which, between them, won 14 Academy Awards. These films included Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Dead Man Walking, The Usual Suspects, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Elizabeth, Trainspotting and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. 

He set up Qwerty Films in 1999, producing features including I Heart Huckabees, Kinsey, Severance and The Duchess. The company��s latest project, The Last Days on Mars (a sci-fi horror based on a Sydney J. Bounds short story) has completed, shooting in Jordan and Elstree Studios, and the company��s next film, Suite Francaise, based on the novel by Ir��ne N��mirovsky and directed by Saul Dibb, started shooting summer 2013. 

His book 100 Films and a Funeral was published in 2001 and a documentary based on it was released in 2009.  
 
 

Among other positions, he is a Patron of Skillset and Chair of the Independent Cinema Office, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He was appointed Chair of the National Film and Television School in 2002, and awarded a fellowship in 2008. In addition to Qwerty Films, he is also Chair of AudioGO (previously BBC Audiobooks) and this year he joined the board of the Northern Ireland Screen Council and UK Jewish Film. 

CLIVE DAWSON (Writer) Clive Dawson has been writing professionally for film and television for over sixteen years. He wrote the original motion picture screenplay for the feature film The Bunker (2001), and the screenplay for The Property, a thriller developed with National Lottery funding provided by the UK Film Council. Clive has also worked extensively in television, regularly providing scripts for a number of top-ten rated television drama shows including The Bill, Casualty, Holby City and London��s Burning, amongst others. 

The Last Days on Mars is the culmination of his long-standing desire to bring to the screen a version of Sydney J Bounds��s short story The Animators. Clive first discovered the story many years ago and was finally able to option the Film and TV rights in 2008. Michael Kuhn and Alex Arlango at Qwerty Films subsequently offered to develop the project. 

Clive��s current projects include The Ruum, a science-fiction thriller based on the classic short story by US author Arthur Porges, and a high-concept science-fiction project (details currently under wraps) for Fox International. 

Clive��s other industry-related activities include serving on the advisory board of the Northern Film School and on the Writers�� Guild Film and TV Committee. He was a freelance project advisor to the UK Film Council, collaborated on script workshops at the Hochschule fur Film und Fersehen in Potsdam-Babelsberg, and contributed to the script editor training programme at the BBC. In 2003 he was invited to give evidence to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee��s examination of the British Film Industry. In 2008 he shared a Writers�� Guild Award for Best TV Drama Series (The Bill), and in 2010 his script for The Animators (aka The Last Days on Mars) was voted onto the annual ��Brit List�� of hottest UK screenplays. 

Clive is a member of The Writers�� Guild, The Society of Authors, The Crime Writers�� Association and The British Academy of Film and Television Arts.  He��s represented in the UK by Josh Varney at 42 Management & Production, and in the US by Abram Nalibotsky at Resolution. 
 

JON HENSON (Production Designer) studied Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art. After leaving college, he co-founded Art Effects, a design company specializing in design for television dramas and commercials. After nine years, Henson left the company to work independently. 

In 1999, Henson designed his first feature: Beautiful People directed by Jasmin Disdar. Since then, he has worked on both film and television projects, including Esther Kahn, for French director Arnaud Desplechin, starring Summer Phoenix and Ian Holm; the award–winning television film Kid In The Corner directed by Bille Eltringham; This Is Not A Love Song Again for Bille Eltringham; Never Never directed by Julian Jarrold; Gillies McKinnon��s Pure, starring Keira Knightley; and Mark Brozel��s Macbeth, which he won an RTS Award for Best Production Design in 2006. 

More recent credits include: John Crowley��s Boy A, starring Andrew Garfield and Peter Mullan; Last Chance Harvey directed by Joel Hopkins, starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson; and The Awakening directed by Nick Murphy and starring Rebecca Hall. 
 

STEVEN LAWRENCE (Art Director) is one of the industry��s most respected Art Directors.  Starting out in 1988 on Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery, he went on to land the life altering role as assistant art director for the James Cameron��s multi-Academy Award winning film Titanic. Since Titanic, Steven has worked on Harry Potter and the Philosopher��s Stone directed by Chris Columbus, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets which was also directed by Columbus, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Steven has worked on three James Bond films, two Batman films, including Oscar® nominated Batman Begins and two time Oscar® winning film The Dark Knight, both directed by Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight, which Steven was the lead art director, won 94 awards and was nominated an additional 67 times. 

Steven was nominated for six awards and won three. Steven��s three Art Directors Guild wins include Excellence in Production Design Award for Titanic in 1998, Excellence in Production Design Award for Casino Royale in 2007, and Excellence in Production Design Award for The Dark Knight in 2008. 
 

ROBBIE RYAN (Director of Photography) has collaborated with Oscar® award winning director Andrea Arnold on the multi award-winning films Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights, Red Road and her Academy Award® winning short film Wasp. 

His most recent feature films include director Ken Loach��s The Angels�� Share, Gabriel Range��s I Am Slave, Marc Evans��s Patagonia, and Tom Harper��s The Scouting Book for Boys. Other feature films include Murilo Pasta��s Carmo, Hit the Road, Sarah Gavron��s Brick Lane, Bille Eltringham's This is Not a Love Song, Philomena directed by Stephen Frears and Catch Me Daddy directed by Daniel Wolfe.  He has also worked on numerous short films. 
 

Robbie has been nominated for 10 awards and has won 6 times. In 2011 Robbie won 4 awards for the film Wuthering Heights, which include the Golden Osella Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution, the Valladolid International Film Festival award for Best Director of Photography, the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Technical Achievement, and the Camerimage Bronze Frog Award. 
 

RICHARD SALE (Costume Designer) – Since he began in 1991, Richard has worked on 32 small screen and feature films. Richard found success in the wardrobe department and worked on films that include X-Men: First Class, directed by Mathew Vaughn; 28 Weeks Later directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo; two time Oscar winning film United 93 directed by Paul Greengrass; and Green Zone also directed by Paul Greengrass, as well as Alexander directed by Oliver Stone, starring Colin Farrell. Sale has also worked on the recent Brad Pitt zombie epic World War Z. Sale is currently working for Marvel. 
 

PETER LAMBERT (Editor) Peter Lambert��s career as an editor, and, previously, as an assistant editor, has involved working for directors including Richard Curtis, Alfonso Cuar��n, and Sir Ridley Scott.   

He worked for Chris Weitz as an additional editor on the fantasy epic The Golden Compass, before going on to act as sole editor of the box office smash The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Peter��s most recent editing credits include Now Is Good and the Oscar nominated A Better Life. 
 

TARA MCDONALD (Make-up & Hair Designer) has extensive experience working with both film and television dramas, and, over her 16 year career, has worked with some of the best in the business, including Ken Loach, Sally Potter, Pawel Pawlikowski, and Dominic Savage. 

Her film work includes Submarine directed by Richard Ayoade; My Summer Of Love directed by Pawel Pawlikowski; It's a Free World directed by Ken Loach; The Heavy directed by Marcus Warren; and most recently Sally Potter��s Ginger and Rosa. 

Her previous TV productions include BBC��s England Expects directed by Tony Smith, MI High written by Keith Brumpton, Robin Hood, Freefall and Prisoners Wives. Tara has also worked on the TV series Hustle directed by Tony Jordan and designed the BAFTA nominated sketch show Cardinal Burns. 

McDonald is currently designing a pilot for Sky called The Psychopath next door starring Anna Friel.  
 
 

KRISTYAN MALLETT (Prosthetics Supervisor) has worked on 109 films as a prosthetic designer of extraordinary talent, whose work has contributed to some of the UK��s most successful films including the four time Oscar winning The King��s Speech, directed by Tom Hooper. The King��s Speech was nominated for 102 awards in all, and has won 76 of its nominations. Kristyan has also worked on the Harry Potter film series, including Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban directed by Alfonso Cuaron, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire directed by Mike Newell and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 & Part 2, both directed by David Yates. 

Most recently Kristyan was Prosthetics Supervisor on Tim Burton��s Dark Shadows and the eagerly awaited All You Need is Kill starring Tom Cruise. Other very notable titles include Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides directed by Rob Marshall, Jane Eyre directed by Cary Fukunaga, J. Edgar directed by Clint Eastwood, and Les Mis��rables directed by Tom Hooper. 

In 2011, his work on Facejacker won him the RTS Television Award for Best Make up Design – Entertainment & Non-Drama Productions. He received a further RTS Television Award nomination in 2012. 
 

MARK HOLT (SFX Supervisor) has supervised some of the UK��s more celebrated television dramas including Downton Abbey, Shackleton, and Longitude. Mark��s talent does not stop on the small screen though, as his work includes Pride & Prejudice directed by Joe Wright, Nanny McPhee directed by Kirk Jones, The Holiday directed by Nancy Meyers, Oscar winning film Atonement directed by Joe Wright, In Bruges directed by Martin McDonagh, three time Oscar winner Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy directed by Tomas Alfredson, Les Mis��rables directed by Tom Hooper, and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows by award winning director Guy Ritchie. In total, Mark has worked on over 90 titles. 

Mark was nominated twice by the Royal Television Society, and in 2010, won the award for Best Effect – Special Effect for Misfits created by Howard Overman. 
 

ADAM MCINNES (VFX Supervisor) is an EMMY Award-winning VFX Supervisor and is one of the leading talents in the industry. Over the years he has worked on countless productions covering a vast range and diversity from major television series and prime time dramas to blockbuster feature films. 

Currently, Adam is VFX Supervisor for The Senate VFX on Disney��s The Muppets��Again! He has just recently completed The Last Days on Mars, covering the VFX Supervisor and Producer roles and working in Dublin where he engaged the services of Screen Scene, with whom he received his third EMMY nomination and VES Award for the highly acclaimed HBO series Game of Thrones. 

Joining the industry in 1982 as a technical assistant in studio operations for BBC television, Adam developed a keen interest in visual effects. He worked his way up through the studio operations lighting department and in 1987 was appointed Video Effects Supervisor at a time when digital effects was just emerging. Since leaving the BBC in 1996 to pursue work in film, he has worked as a compositor and supervisor for several of London��s leading visual effects facilities, as well as an independent Visual Effects Supervisor for production. In 2009, he was notably awarded an EMMY for HBO��s Generation Kill, as well as receiving a VES nomination. He was previously also nominated for Hallmark��s The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns in 2000. Both shows had visual effects provided by Cinesite (Europe) Ltd. 

Adam has also worked with the Cinesite team as Visual Effects Supervisor on set and through post for The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy; as on-set Visual Effects Supervisor on Paramount��s World War 2; and in post on the Wayan Bros. film LiTTLEMAN, as well as lead compositor roles on Harry Potter and V for Vendetta. 

At Jim Henson��s Creature Shop, Adam��s roles included 2D Supervisor/Head of 2D on projects ranging from commercials to feature films and help develop the digital visual effects department pipeline. In January 2002, he commenced work on The Water Giant, again for Leprechauns director John Henderson, leading the project through planning, shooting on location in New Zealand and in the UK, then a protracted period of post-production until the film went into hiatus at the end of 2003. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CREDITS 

Vincent Campbell		LIEV SCHREIBER
Charles Brunel		ELIAS KOTEAS
Rebecca Lane		ROMOLA GARAI
Kim Aldrich		OLIVIA WILLIAMS
Robert Irwin		JOHNNY HARRIS
Marko Petrovich		GORAN KOSTIC
Richard Harrington		TOM CULLEN
Lauren Dalby		YUSRA WARSAMA
Flight Commander Ellis		PATRICK JOSEPH BYRNES
Infected Voices		LEWIS MacLEOD

 

Directed by

Ruair�� Robinson 

Produced by

Michael Kuhn

and

Andrea Cornwell  

Screenplay by

Clive Dawson 

Based on the short story

��The Animators��

by Sydney J. Bounds 

Executive Producers

Malcolm Ritchie

Christopher Collins 

Executive Producers

James Swarbrick

Tim Smith 

Co-Producers

John McDonnell

Brendan McCarthy 
 

Line Producer

Mark Hubbard 

Director of Photography

Robbie Ryan 

Production Designer

Jon Henson 

Editor

Peter Lambert 

Music by

Max Richter 

Visual Effects Supervisor

Adam McInnes 

Costume Designer

Richard Sale 

Hair & Make-Up Designer

Tara McDonald 

Casting Director

Shaheen Baig