The Runner : keeps on Running to Film Festivals around the world

Torbay set comedy ' The Runner' has officially wrapped Post Production and the film has had it's first private showing at a Cast / Crew event at the Barnfield Theatre in Exeter .
The film is now been sent to eight festivals around the world to start with , with mnay more to be added and has had great support from the Torbay Community ( via Torre Abbey , Merlin Cinema and the Shoreline Cafe as locations ).

The Runner came about when director John Tomkins saw a production of Individual Theatres’ The Tempest in the spring of 2014. After the show, John met with the lead actor, Ben Gilbert, to discuss showreel material. John suggested putting together a 3-minute short, but this quickly expanded into a 30-minute film with around fifteen locations! And so began John’s latest collaborative film: The Runner.

To help make the film, John brought together most of the awesome team from his earlier films such as They're Coming, and the critically acclaimed A Dark Tale and Indietro. Formed in 2012, this collective of creatives has rapidly expanded in number and expertise, and with this film we were delighted to welcome the talented make-up artist Laura Harvey - who successfully transformed James Cotter into a man twenty years older for his role as ‘Henry’.

Key to making the film was casting, with talent assembled from right across the south-west. Among their number were directors, producers and theatre company owners who gave their time voluntarily to work on the film.

With cast and crew in place, filming commenced in mid-June at Torre Abbey (as the location for the film-within-a-film), and the staff here couldn’t have been more accommodating for us. We then moved on to Haldon Forest for the training camp scene - great fun to shoot! - and later the Merlin Cinema in Torquay where we were granted permission to film in Screen 1 for ‘Harry Wilkins’ intro scene.

The film went into post production in late 2014 and 2015 . With grading and sound editing by film maker Dom Lee . The film now complet heads off to festivals across the world .

We’re enormously proud of everything we’ve achieved so far with The Runner, but most of all in that we’ve succeeded in highlighting the south-west as a viable filming location and demonstrated that, with the terrific creative support and networks that exists down here, great things can happen!

For more information visit http://runnerfilm.weebly.com/