Ben Wheatley on High Rise & His Diverse CV

Moxie director Ben Wheatley has an impressive and varied CV which includes acclaimed feature films such as Kill List, A Field in England and Sightseers, hit TV shows such as Doctor Who and great commercials including T-Mobile Balcony and Carlton Dry Rocket Car.

With the recent release of his new film, High Rise, starring Tom Hiddleston, Wheatley takes time to talk to shots.net about his diverse body of work, why he likes a varied approach and how he got into directing.

Firstly, can you tell us a bit about High Rise, how the project came about and what piqued your interest in it?

I pursued the project. I wondered why the book had not been adapted into a film and asked my agent to see if he could find out who had the rights. This led me to legendary producer Jeremy Thomas (Crash, Naked Lunch, Last Emperor); I wanted to make the movie because I was a fan of JG Ballard and I feel the book is talking very clearly about now.

You work across film, television and commercials; is that something you’d always set out to do?

I like working across all media. There are a lot of different challenges. I'd be happy to continue having varied work. It keeps you sharp to work in lots of different ways you also meet a lot of crew that way.

What was it that first inspired you to want to become a director?

I have always drawn comic strips and enjoyed making things up. It's an extension of that really. I started to get interested in films in my teens but had no idea how to go about making them.

I was 22 before I saw an edit suite. It was the dark ages before cameras on phones and editing on computers. If you wanted to make a short film you had to be pretty rich. I just kept soldiering on and eventually the tech got cheap enough to make stuff. 

Do you think the increased quality of projects available on TV and, to a degree, in commercial content, has meant directors are more willing to cross those platform boundaries today?

It's never been a worry for me, I basically go where my mood takes me. I wanted to direct Doctor Who because I was a fan of the show, so I asked my agent to look into it [Wheatley director two episodes of the show in 2014]. If I was asked to work on a video game or a comic I'd probably consider it as well. Storytelling is a skill that can work in many ways.

The type of commercial projects you direct seem quite distinct from your feature films; do you purposely gravitate towards more humour-based commercial scripts?

My ad work is usually a few years behind my film work. I got work for a while as 'the realistic camcorder guy' then more comedy stuff came from Sightseers. Oddly, not many ads came from Kill List.

What is it about commercials that keeps you coming back to them?

I like the challenge of them technically and the honesty of them. They are very clear about what they are about and what the meaning is.

What are you working on at the moment and are there any more commercial projects on the horizon?

I'm finishing a feature at the moment, developing some ideas and writing. It will be interesting to see how High Rise affects how people look at my reel. It's very different from the other work.