We had the chance to speak with the winner of November's War of Films contest. Mark Kuczweski's film, Ready or Not, which was made with only £300, was the most liked and tweeted film on Film Annex last month. And we're not surprised! Kuczweski managed to create a haunting, isolating, and mysteriously captivating London within only 5 minutes. Truly, engaging, high-tempo, and cleverly made. Check out our interview below! F.A. You managed to create a very isolated London within only a few minutes in your film.  How did you do this?  What kind of shots were necessary to achieve this feeling of alienation?  And how did you go about location scouting for these specific shots? M.K. Creating an isolated, abandoned London was not easy, I had a lot of inspiration from 28 Days Later by Danny Boyle. It was about balancing the wide shots that show empty streets with the close up’s to show there is something wrong. I felt that by showing these iconic places in London that usually have a lot of people passing through as empty, it would immediately grab your attention. Then it was a case of suggesting that something has happened, for instance the dangling phone off the hook, the rubbish tipped over and the empty childless playground. Scouting for the locations was a case of visiting London on many occasions and working out a balance between what was achievable and what I wanted. It is not easy to film in London and getting permission is a case of telling them exactly where you will be, the duration and what equipment you are using. F.A. Can you tell us a bit more about the chase, which takes place during the second half of the film?  Is the chase real, imaginary, or open to interpretation? M.K. I always imagined that the chase in the second half of the film was real, however I love to hear different interpretations and listen to different people’s take on films. The chase was always something that I was worried about; I took some inspiration from a film called ‘Narc’. The opening scene is a really intense chase scene and I loved how the camera took you with the characters. Rather than showing a stationary shot of the characters running through frame I wanted you to be locked in this chase with the characters, so when they are running in the film I had my camera man Anderson West running with them. F.A. How much time and money went into the making of this film, starting from pre-production to the end of the post?  How big was your crew? M.K. The film was in pre-production for two months, I had permission for all the locations, which took up the majority of time. This was done by myself and Sorcha Anglim who has co produced my past films and is now producing my current and future projects. The film was then shot over two days, this was a challenge, as we had no transport through London, so the route which we took had to be organized in order of scenes stopping at each location filming then walking to the next one. The post production then took around two months from that point. There was a lot of sound we had to foly because although we made London look empty, it wasn’t, so a lot of the sound had the traffic and people in the background. I had a small crew of only six. This decision was based on budget and really to reduce attention whilst filming in London, because we were trying to make it look empty the less attention we drew the better. In the end the budget came to just under £300. We used whatever help we could, stopping at relatives and holding auditions casting people who live in London to reduce the cost. The only location we paid for was the Underground and the rest was a lot of bargaining and pleading. F.A. What are some of the new projects you are working on right now?  Should we expect to see a feature-length film from you any time soon? M.K. The latest project I am working on is a short called ‘I’ll call you back’ which is currently in post production which we are hoping to have finished before Christmas. But anybody interested in future work can log on to chupaproductions.markkuczewski.com to see updates about what I will be doing and current work. Also for our latest film there will be a ‘making of’ that will be going online to promote the film, a couple of weeks before its released.