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 black sheep interview
Shorn of the dead. Lions and tigers and bears - all animals convincingly fearsome and potentially deadly to man. But sheep? Oh my.Nevertheless, that’s the premise behind Kiwi writer/director Jonathan King’s new movie, Black Sheep; a comedy horror with its tongue fixed firmly in its cud-chewing cheek. When a genetic engineering experiment on a sheep station goes horribly awry, New Zealand’s most populous inhabitants turn from fluffy, docile quadrupeds to a vicious, bloodthirsty flock of killers.  “When you put New Zealand and ‘sheep horror movie’ together, it kind of makes something,” says the genial King. “Everything you know about New Zealand you’ll find played with and exploded in the film.” An avid fan of horror comedies like An American Werewolf In London or Evil Dead II, by starting out with low-budget, gore-soaked laughs King follows in the Braindead footsteps of New Zealand’s most successful filmmaker, Peter Jackson. Indeed, he even got Jackson’s renowned WETA effects workshop onboard. “That was before we had the film financed, so they were our star attachment,” he says proudly. “The lead designer on the film, Dave Elsey, was nominated for an Oscar for Revenge Of The Sith while we were doing the film.” Yet King was also adamant that the film kept many of the effects as practical as possible.  “Some of the gags are very high-tech animatronic stuff,” he explains. “But then some of it is really basic - the actor puts his hand down and someone wearing a sheep hand glove comes up into frame. It helps set the tone for what sort of a film it is. When you see bad CG, it just leaves you so cold. Whereas with something that happened in front of the camera on that day, the audience have to come a little bit of the way. But then they become a part of what’s going on.” Which still meant directing many real sheep, notoriously unintelligent creatures. “There was only a few times when that really stitched us up,” smiles King. “There’s a love scene in the study and the sheep was very uncooperative.” So would he work with them again? “On the dinner plate I’m happy to interact with them but I’d prefer not to be around live sheep any more,” he laughs. “If I do the sequel it’ll be like George Lucas sitting in a room with the laser pointer and operators on computers, telling them where to put them.”
Leigh Singer
Black Sheep, on selected release 12 October 07.
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