technique pioneered by a British-born 1 Hollywood director starts to catch on in the
film industry. Tim Burke is setting his actors a challenge for which nothing they ever
learned in acting school will have prepared them.
The director of cult television series MTV Blag! 2 has already explored his new
technique in his forthcoming movies The Harrowing 3 and The Lords of Gas. 4 And
he is already planning on taking it to terrifying new levels in his planned, unrelenting
gruesome new horror franchise, L.A. Slasher. 5
Tim, aged 32, born in London, who topped the class at Panico Films School and
describes his film-making style as “having the balls to take the risk”, is labelling his
pioneering method the “Enigmatic Technique”, because, for the actors, what goes on
is a complete mystery, a dark, twisted enigma they have to solve for themselves.
His technique is as far as you can get in the opposite direction from the much-reviled
“response directing”, where actors are told exactly how they should feel, usually
resulting in a crass display of over-acting. Instead, he trusts his casting choices and
provides his actors with total freedom. The actors know nothing but the absolute
minimum, and then he subjects them to unexpected events, either via text messages or
through agents (other actors or extras) whispering messages for their next scenes.
“What we get is the raw emotions, genuinely felt, because actors are re-acting rather
than acting,” says Tim. “How genuine is the fear when you put an actress in a dark
wood at night, surround her with lights and the entire production crew, then tell her
she’s about to be killed by the man she saw having his prosthetic face mask applied in
make-up earlier, and with whom she was drinking coffee just a few minutes ago?”
Instead, Tim sends the actress a text message telling her to find her own way to some
remote part of the wood in the middle of the night to meet her boyfriend. When she
gets there, she finds herself waiting, all alone, with absolutely no sign of a film crew
or anyone else. And then she’s suddenly attacked by a maniac who’s going to slash
her throat with a cheese-wire. “Wouldn’t you be genuinely scared?” Tim asks.
And that, in essence, is the Enigmatic Technique – putting actors in situations that
feel as real as possible, while finding unobtrusive ways 6 to film their unscripted
reactions. 7
“Most drama students learn to improvise at acting school, and many directors use
varying degrees of free-style improvisation, but it’s still closely directed,” say Tim.
“My Enigmatic Technique takes improvisation into totally new realms of reality and
actors will find that extremely challenging, until the schools teach them how to do it.”
E N D
Notes for Editors
1. Born 8 May, 1979, Kensington, London, UK. Grew up in Bristol, Avon & Somerset. Bought a
film camera at the age of 12, and formally learned his trade at the Panico Films School (now
part of the London Film Academy), London, where he passed out top of his class. The
school’s roots lie in the production company set up by some of the Monty Python team (Terry
Gilliam, Michael Palin, Julian Doyle) after Holy Grail. In 2005, Tim Burke created, produced,
and directed the cult international smash hit series MTV Blag!, which included over 120
celebrity interviews and was viewed by five million people a week in ten countries worldwide,
described by The Times as “a must see” and give five stars by Nuts magazine. In 2006, Tim
Burke worked closely with Universal Pictures to create Miami Vice mobile portals in 17
countries, connected to 72 international mobile networks. Using his extensive celebrity and
entertainment industry contacts, Tim Burke founded the charity BuyaMovieRole, which, in
2010, raised money for the World Wildlife Fund: Save the Tiger campaign by auctioning off
donated movie roles.
2. MTV Blag! featured a team of gate-crashers who blagged their way into dozens of high
profile showbiz events, such as movie premieres, pop concerts, sports competitions, parties,
even film sets, grabbing the luxury merchandise, meeting and interviewing the A-listers, and
getting themselves on film and TV. The series resulted in some 120 impromptu interviews
with the likes of Boyoncé, Owen Wilson, Puff Daddy, Pink, 50 cent, Dennis Hopper, Ang Lee,
Paris Hilton, and Mickey Rourke, many with whom Tim Burke has remained in touch. The
series was sold by MTV Networks to Channel 5 for £185,000. The series attracted widespread
critical acclaim and out-rated The Osbournes. Tim Burke is now making a much anticipated
and hyped follow-up documentary drawn from the 600 hours of out-takes called The Lords of
Gas.
3. The Harrowing is set in an abandoned and derelict mental asylum near Sleaford, Lincolnshire,
and filming took place early in 2011. Due to be released later this year, the movie is the first
proper essay in which Tim Burke explored his Enigmatic Technique. The shoot itself attracted
widespread news coverage in the UK national media for its unconventional methods and
dramatic events in which one of the actresses was attacked and nearly strangled. The film led
to Nuts magazine describing Tim Burke as “the next big thing in British horror making”.
4. The Lords of Gas will be the first ever low-budget “mocu-documentary” applying Tim
Burke’s Enigmatic Technique to the reality comedy genre, aimed at the same audiences that
loved Borat and Jackass. The film aims to court controversy by examining topics such as film
funding, laughing gas, festival sales, porn sets, blagging your way into showbiz parties, and
the second coming of Jesus. Shooting began in March, 2000, and continued up to the present.
The film includes a wide range of A-list celebrity interviews and cameo appearances.
5. L.A. Slasher is a forthcoming movie project in which Tim Burke will more fully explore his
Enigmatic Technique. The cast will mostly comprise a large number of rising Hollywood
‘teens who are not afraid to rise to the challenge of experimenting with Tim Burke’s
demanding new requirements, the lack of a script, and virtually no detail.
6. Much of Tim Burke’s work is done using secret cameras or remote-controlled, hidden, HD
CCTV equipment to keep the actors isolated and alone, greatly increasing the fear factor.
7. Among actresses who are shortly to experience Tim Burke’s Enigmatic Technique directing is
Poppy Delevigne (see contacts below) who is cast for a role in L.A. Slasher.
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