Every night, the algorithm favours Rianne - aka grottygamergirl- a little less. So when a haunted demo disc arrives at her door, it might just give her channel the push it needs.

​

Hey Will, it's great to talk with you again. What does it mean to bring Grotty Gamer Girl to Bolton International Film Festival this year?

 

Hey! I’m really excited to be premiering grottygamergirl in Bolton this year - it’s a fab festival and one I’ve always wanted to screen in, so it’s a perfect start for our festival journey. 

 

Since this is going to be the World Premiere for GGG, grottygamergirl, is that adding any additional pressure/stress?

 

Not too much. I think presenting the film for cast and crew, which we did back in May, was more pressure - everyone worked hard on it so you want it to look and sound great in the room (which, happily, it did!).

​

What’s it like watching your film, for the first time, with a festival audience?

 

I love seeing a film with an audience, particularly horror and comedy, because you can really hear it work. The audience gasps or laughs at the right moments and you know that the beats are landing, which is a really gratifying experience. 

 

 The story behind Personal Effects was very personal to you; what lessons did you take from the process of making and then sharing this film with your audiences?

 

Personal Effects was a very different short in that it was a pretty serious drama and dealing with autobiographical elements, but it was also the biggest crew I’d worked with at that time and involved some new processes for me (like working with a casting director). I took that experience into GGG which also involved some new processes, notably an extensive VFX element which required a whole new set of collaborators and techniques to get right. 

 

If you could describe GGG in a sentence, what would you say?

 

Zillenial nostalgia meets very-online screaming into the void, with deadly consequences.

​

Tell me a little bit about GGG. What inspired this your screenplay?

 

During the covid pandemic my wife got into Twitch streaming for a while, mostly cosy games like Animal Crossing, and it was my first view into the weird dynamics that streamers, particularly women, have to navigate with their audiences. That crossed over with an interest in how older gaming aesthetics, the low poly PSX/N64 look in particular, are now becoming more popular. And the fusion between those things gave me Rianne and the monster, a starting point that I then worked back from.

​

When writing your screenplay, did you already have in mind that you wanted Ruth Codd to take the lead role?

 

Ruth was always in the forefront of my mind for this. I’d seen her in The Midnight Club, which is just an astonishingly good performance, around the time I wrote the first draft of the script, and I think her dialogue cadence wormed its way into my head. 

​

How did you approach getting Ruth Codd and Tazmyn-Mei involved in the project?

 

I approached Ruth through her agent and they were great about getting onboard for an independent project. Tazmyn I have known for a few years, has their own experience in the content creator world, and so was my first pick for a cosy creator.