Marc Price is no stranger to FrightFest and this year he;s back with another must-see masterpiece, the action-packed thriller The Arbiter. We had a quick chat before its world premiere.
NYX: We first spoke way back in 2008 when your cult, (almost) no budget zombie flick Colin was released. What have you been up to since then?
MP:I worked with a production company developing a few tv series for BBC and Channel 4. None of those got made, though I did meet my brilliant producing partner Michelle Parkyn. We got a children’s zombie pilot made with CBBC. Shortly afterwards we decided to form a company and work on our own film projects. That started with Nightshooters and Dune Drifter (which screened at Frightfest 2020) and now The Arbiter.
NYX: Where did the idea for The Arbiter come from?
MP: I got locked out of Alastair Kirton’s house whilst cat sitting. I’d been acting in a zombie movie for a friend, Rob Savage, as a favour. So I was dressed as a zombie trying to frantically travel from one side of London to another so I could have a bed to sleep in, whilst figuring out how to free a hungry cat. On the way I thought about this idea of war torn London and looking like I belonged in a gang called “The Zombies” or something. That idea simmered away for a while, and then an opportunity to shape it into a story came along, so I started drafting a script. I watch a lot of film and as I get further away from the films I watched as a kid, it’s interesting to let some of the inspiration from those films steer an idea. Despite being an action film there’s a lot of The Thing that was in the back of my mind when playing with that sense of paranoia. Similarly, or coincidentally, I was also thinking about Reservoir Dogs and 12 Angry Men. Especially the Lumet version and how he blocks a room of characters
NYX: It’s another new genre to your canon of work, was this deliberate?
MP: I’m trying so desperately to be typecast as a film maker. If I could make action, horror and sci-fi for the rest of my life I’d be very happy. But I’m very fortunate to have built some trust with the people we’ve worked with. So we’ve managed to make a western, romcom, a harrowing drama, a kids show. It’s a lot of fun. Excitingly, The Arbiter isn’t our first action. Nightshooters was the first in that sense. We produced a few others with action. A western and an interactive film that both had a lot of action. So by the time we got to this film we were familiar with the logistics and safety required to do a big brawl scene like our yellow room fight or the battle at the end. And our cast are no strangers to action. Craig Russell has done plenty. And Jon Xue Zhang in particular is a big action performer. He has been working in stunts for a lot of his career and is playing Ram-Man in the new Masters of the Universe film. Which I wasn’t aware of at the time we were shooting. I think he threw a little Ram-Man-esque move into the Yellow Room brawl! I’m going to ask him if that’s what he was doing or if I’m reaching to join some dots. Either way, we had an absolutely banging team.
NYX: When writing do you always consider if you have the budget for specific scenes?
MP: I don’t know how I lucked into this, but I usually have the budget and approximate shooting window before the script. So I can write with those specifics in mind. In the case of The Arbiter I was chatting with the legend Scott Adkins about it being something we could work together on. But as these things happen, Covid struck and the script sat on a hard drive for a few years. Then Michelle told me a budget and wondered if we could make this for a lot less than was intended. I felt it was possible. So I redrafted it to suit the budget and Michelle arranged the shoot.
NYX: There’s a huge cast here, how did you go about casting the movie?
MP: I love working with an ensemble. There’s something thrilling about assembling a team with good chemistry and watching them find nuance and layers. I’d worked with everyone before in some capacity, so it was easy to identify the great chemistry between Georgina Leonidas and Craig Russell. Who have both known each other for years. And then mixing that with Jasmine Sumner, who was a newer member of the team. Alastair Kirton I’ve worked with for twenty years now and along with Ekow Quartey and Mike Geary, they’re all LAMDA alumni. So there was a lot they had in common to draw from. And when this lot very quickly figured out what I liked to see it became a very fast paced efficient shoot where we found a lot to build on from the page. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had working with a cast.
NYX: Did some have to learn to roller skate for their roles?
MP: We decided to plan ahead for that and start by casting actors who could skate. Of course everyone said they could, so we asked for a little proof in the form of a self tape. Poor Jasmine had to get around this rickety location on wheels for all of her scenes. She skated around her house for 5 weeks to get used to unskateable environments before shooting. I don’t know how she did it. I would turn around sometimes and see her piggy back on someone to get up some stairs. We were lucky to get some roller derby skaters in as well. Rhiannon Skerritt was someone who knocked our socks off every day she was on location. She’d offer these incredibly complex moves with such skill and control. I can’t wait for her to see the work.
NYX: The fight scenes are incredible, who did the choreography?
MP: The choreography was split on this one. We usually work with Marcus Shakesheff and Aaron Gasser. Marcus designed the action for the original Wonder Woman movie and the Pennyworth series. Aaron is his protégé and between them can design some complex and detailed action no matter how limited the resources. They were working on The Witcher at the time, so it was a bit tight for them to do everything. They focused on the yellow room brawl, the fight in Henry’s Office. And a few other little moments here and there. The rest of the action was by Sean Bingham and David Nolan who were part of the core team on nearly all of Vikings. Me and Sean have a very similar sense of humour. So that was worked into sequences along with the brilliant detail of story and performance needed for an action scene to be more than flips and kicks. It was very easy to work on the action when you have such a great team of coordinators who work closely with the actors. We didn’t use any doubles except for 2 shots. The actors did everything in tandem with the stunt team.
NYX: I love the Streets of Fire reference, what other references should we look out for?
MP: Keep an eye out for any video tapes and explosives with stuff written on them. We had a lot of fun coming up with movies the fire-gang would enjoy watching in their den.
NYX: How would you describe the movie as it touches a few genres?
MP: I think mixing genres is a thing I’ve got a habit of doing. It’s an action film for sure. But that said there are more character-tension moments than fights. Which makes it quite talkie. But also the characters are always at each other’s throats which makes it funny. A healthy mix of all those elements is what makes the film what I really aimed for. To be a good time for the audience. Something fun and pacy.
NYX: Have you a favourite fight scene or kill?
MP: “Peekaboo Ice Cream man!” is a moment that always made me laugh. It was a simple enough shot with a Pango Air Gun, a glob of blood and a windshield. It always makes me laugh. Hopefully in the context of the film it’ll make the FrightFest audience laugh as well.
NYX: How many of the effects were done on set?
MP: We did most of it. We had all sort of hoses and pressure tanks to squirt blood everywhere. Pango guns, fuses. We had air rams and a few guys on fire running through crowds. The logistics were all managed by my producing partner and the makeup effects and special effects team. The trick with chaos is to only make it look like chaos. As off the cuff as we can be with shooting, we are very careful with anything involving action. Nobody needs to get hurt shooting this stuff. So we do our best to mitigate any pain.
NYX: Will you be nervous when the movie has its world premiere at FrightFest 2025?
MP: It’s more exciting than nervous. You hope the film goes well but it’s never something you should dare assume. I really do hope it has enough to take an audience on a ride for 100 minutes and leave them feeling great. Or not. Depending on what they take from our ending.
NYX: So, what are you up to at the moment?
MP: At the moment we are in development on two feature projects, one of which should start shooting before the end of the year. I’m not sure which one will move into pre-production first, but both are genres I’ve done before and would love to revisit.
NYX: Marc Price, thank you very much.
