Episode Transcript
ANDY 00:00:09 Hello and welcome to the DreamSwarm podcast. This is your home for supernatural film stories and art. I'm your host magic S filmmaker, Andy Mark Simpson. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.
ANDY 00:00:28 Hello everyone. Welcome to the next episode of the dream swarm podcast. I'm really pleased to today to welcome George Popov back to the show, a returning guest. And we're gonna talk about his new documentary side world terrors of the sea. So good morning, George.
GEORGE 00:00:42 Good morning, buddy. It's nice to be here again. Thank you. Yeah,
ANDY 00:00:45 I'm really pleased. You've come back and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the discussion about your new documentary 'Sideworld: Terrors of the Sea', but you've made quite a few films before. Would you be able to give us a quick reintroduction to yourself before we talk about your new doc?
GEORGE 00:00:58 My name is George Popov and I've directed all these films and I'm also a co-owner of our company, Rubicon Films, and we've made two feature narrative films called'Hex' and 'The Droving'. And then after that, we've gone into this side venture, which is our series of horror documentaries about the folklore and horror stories. Uh, first one being 'Sideworld: Haunted Forests of England', which we talked about in the previous episode. So I'll direct everyone to go listen to that one first, and it'll give you a good introduction in terms of what we do. And so it was a great episode about that film as well. We talked about the allure of the haunted forest and everything and our second one, one we're gonna talk about now is the Terrors of the Sea. Second more nautical horror theme, and introduce those stories in that in environment that biome, it was a great experience and yeah it's great to talk about it.
ANDY 00:01:42 For our listeners, as George was saying, George was on an episode a few months ago talking about his feature films, 'Hex' and 'The Droving', which are kind of good, folk horror full narrative features. And then the folk horror documentary 'Haunted Forests of England', which is really great for getting into the full feel, different ghostly figures in the woods. And that kind of thing, as you were saying, George, your show, it takes a different setting, which is folklore and folk horror documentary about sea and maritime folklore. So would you be at the give an introduction to this 'Sideworld: Terrors of the Sea'?
GEORGE 00:02:13 It was a great experience doing it because the sea itself is a, is a theme. I always felt it would have to be a, a more open and epic topic than what it felt like. The, the more obscure and mysterious, um, forest driven atmosphere was on the previous one. They were going to three different locations on the forest. Like we did before. This is more submitted to four chapters of different, almost sub genres of sea folklore and, and horror starting with ghost ships and then going into sea monsters, coastal ghosts of spectral sailors. And then we end on, um, topic of mermaid and, uh, they're both all terrifying and possibly even some realistic side of them as well. So yeah, we kind of, kind of try to cover it all and it's all under a play to this film even has more of a, a through line of a theme to it, to unify all these chapters even more so than, than the first one, because it really seemed like the connection between mankind and sea throughout the years and what these stores really mean. And world they come from. They have a lot in common in terms of how we feel about it and the whole duality between us land lovers and the, and the ocean. Yeah,
ANDY 00:03:20 Because in the documentary, you talk about that and you know, what it is about the sea that gives it, that mysterious kinda intersection between where humans are maybe grew up on land, and then that kind-of humans venturing into the unknown and into this side world of the mysterious elements of a sea and the depth and the isolation of it. You talk about that and how that is maybe the, the source of some of this folklore, or kind-of the reason why there's so much or so many stories.
GEORGE 00:03:49 I think there is, there is great examples in the stories as well, like almost us throughout, they just trying to come to terms with a lot of that. And that's not to say that we don't explore stories that we think the originators are just from a psychological fairytale point of view. I think there, there is a lot of stuff that could very easily be lying within a scientific possibility. And that's, again, that, that balance is what makes that well, you know, interesting is like, you know, to, to what degree do we see that being something that actually happening to what degree do we think that's some sort of therapy to ourselves in terms of us understanding all these elements. But I think first of all, to me doesn't really matter which one it is. And also they have a lot in common and especially how humans react to things that are very difficult or, or alien for them while at the same time, having that desire to explore more and more into it, sometimes being very hazardous to us. And unfortunately also very hazardous to the, the things that live in the sea, because as we know very well from our own history, we're not the most kind conquerors as a species.
ANDY 00:04:46 Yeah. I mean, that's certainly true, you know, any, any, any story hear about whales or sharks, eating people, anything well, more, more whales and sharks are killed by people. Every year. Yeah. It's interesting what you're saying there about in the documentary you talking about about folklore stories and, and like you say that as humans, our psychological approach to things is to tell stories about it and explanations through stories, which aren't necessarily an attempt to be scientific and factual. Yeah. But your documentary, like you say, it hovers that line goes, but, but you know, we understand that, but actually, is there a scientific thing and just when you were talking there made me think of giant squid. Yeah. We now have these enormous giant squids, which are, and, and we've got evidence of them and they're filmed and people have specimens of them. Yeah. But that's only in the last 10, 15 years I think for that, you know, we've realized, oh, that is a real thing. Because before that it was only stories of giant squid, but actually these things do exist and, and as cameras get better and can get deeper into the ocean, we're starting to scientifically discover some of these things, which were only myths and stories even up to 20 years ago.
GEORGE 00:05:52 Oh, absolutely. It's, it's, it's a huge part of it. And I know, even though it's a cliche, we kind of wanted to say it again, the documentary, you know, the whole thing of the, we know less about the ocean floor than we do about the moon or even Mars, in a lot of ways. It's true. And, and it really seems like it's like the last frontier on this planet for humans to explore, it's such a huge part of the planet is, you know, it's mostly covered in water, you know, like it's, it's a huge part. And so, so there's so much history, there's so much science that's yet to be uncovered and tested and explored. And there's a lot of stories where before that just only had theories on it, it be like, oh, that doesn't sound very plausible. But look, you look at, in some of those accounts, I mean, the, in our sea monster section, uh, about the store, about the Daedalus ship and the, the captain McQuhae who, you know, you know, he really stands by the fact that they saw this enormous serpent type monster.
GEORGE 00:06:42 And there was a huge blowback from the Admiralty at the time being like, well, that's, you know, that's a bunch of hooey. You can't say that you're, you know, you're in an important position. And he said, you know, I don't, I don't care. That's what I saw. And I'm gonna describe it to you, you know? And, uh, there was a, there was a big trial about all this and, and you went through, so yeah, we, we tried to bring some stories that are clearly talking about the folklore and what it means in a, in a such more vast folkloric and thematic way to humanity. But then there's like certain cases that really wanted to explore that chase for the paranormal, make it normal drive of also some of these, some of these stories have some very legit science behind it, or history that if it was about anything else, if it was about some king shagging, someone that will be now in the history books, and you have even more information behind some of those stories, but now we're still regarding as like, eh, this sounds a bit, you know, fishy, no pun intended.
GEORGE 00:07:33 I apologize. That's why we would put the legend slash completely historical proven, uh, you know, in the Chronicles story of the Wild Man of Orford, where they describe this, this weird encounter with this man they captured in the sea. And they, they took him to the castle and they explored it, but tortured them. And of course being horrible to what we don't know. Yeah. It might be made up may, maybe can be explained, but there is a lot that cannot be explained and you just have to, we just have to try to figure it out with our modern science and sensibilities.
ANDY 00:08:02 Yeah. And do that thing of, like you said, look at the paranormal and try to make it normal, like discover. Well, what's the reality behind that. And where's the source come from and that investigative kind of mind towards it.
GEORGE 00:08:14 And if we can find that, which, which is by no means in inside world, like we have that ne necessarily that ambition to be, make a statement of like, I really thought that was true. And if you think it wasn't, you know, the hell with you or the opposite, it's like, oh, that was clearly not true. And it's, that's not as interesting to me. It's like, well, if we don't know, for sure we're gonna present kind of both sides, we're gonna look at it. But at least what I'm trying to do is like tell the story. And if I can't extract like, scientific absolutely a proof for anything or, or dis proof, anything, if we can't put the pin on it at at least what we wanna do is extract the thematic relevance to what it means for now. Like we're still getting value out of these legends in these stories, even if we don't know what exactly happened, you know, let's explore them.
GEORGE 00:08:55 Let's see, let's start thinking about maybe what exactly happened. We'll do some slew thing. Absolutely. But at the same time, we want to see the meaning of, of what that can be and what it means in terms of the, the whole theme. Because as we talked like last time, I tried not to think of these documentaries as documentaries. I, you know, I started to feature narrative films. We still that's a lot what we work on. I think of stories as stories did they happen or not? It's almost like irrelevant to be in some ways of how I think about, about the storytelling, like most the thematic value, what is this about? And I try to shoot them as well, not like documentaries, but more atmospheric, a bit more poetic, really put people in the, in the, in the mood of where we are and, and make it tactile. And they can sort of like really go through an experience for the viewer. It might sound a bit ambitious, but really a new type of documentary that kind of blurs the line of what's an experience. And what's just you getting some cool information and that's the focus really. And then after that, if, if we manage to also maybe dig a little bit deeper and add to the, to the connecting of the dots in terms of the factual stuff greater, that's almost like a bonus. You,
ANDY 00:09:55 You mentioned there, the style of it, which is really interest 'cause the, the atmosphere, the sounds, the music, the soundscape really sucks you into this world of the sea and the mysteries around it. And then the visuals are really stunning as well. So how do you go about pulling that vision together then? And the soundscapes and the visuals were with, was it archive material, but then did you shoot some elements yourself as well? How, how does that mix come together?
GEORGE 00:10:22 Yeah. Well, well thank you. First of all. And like I said, it all starts from I thinking about as if I'm making an narrative film where both information, the story and everything, it's, it's all on new, you know, you start from scratch here, you don't start from a complete scratch or we're adding, like you said, a lot of materials or we need to put some historical artwork there or some proof of, like I say, even with the Daedalus ship, we know we wanted to show the drawings from the time that was made that captain McQuhae, for example, he commissioned an artist to draw what he saw and everything, but we always wanted those to be like the best that fill in the information gaps. I work with a lot of really talented people that have that drive to give an authentic experience as well, sort of in this world of people now starting to get tired of things that are very, very by committee and, and very clean and supermarket stuff.
GEORGE 00:11:09 We're almost approaching it with this sort of free wrench, chicken type of filmmaking, Matthew Laing, who does our scores. We worked on the driving together. And I just thought that after we did that, like side would be right at his alley. We did it that way on forest. And now we did that well in that film and we're doing it that way. And now on the next side world, which is the way he records the themes and the atmosphere, we talk about these films of what we need in terms of what are our keywords, what are the, the feelings? And he recorded a lot of the score terrors of the sea at actual shipwrecks in Ireland. You know, we went there with the mics and mic to all up and because he believes that that only, only gives him inspiration, but believes that there is a lot in the sound that's that, that carries those vibes.
GEORGE 00:11:47 And that's where you probably go a little bit into a side world territory. We're like, well, is that that really the case? Or is it not the case, but with our, you, it almost doesn't matter. It's part of a whole vibe. And as long as that can translate, you know, really how, how many times you think about the score in a documentary, if I'm like, that's not really an aspect that you think it's that important or a full part of the experience, you know, kind of don't think that's an important bit to it. But to me, it really is. And to him, it really is. And we try to put that in as, as if we're scoring the drawing or any other narrative project we're making, uh, same thing goes, we, we have authentic artwork, but also luckily he's my father. So it works really well like Todor Popov he's a artist and I, I know his paintings are amazing.
GEORGE 00:12:25 His drawings are amazing. So we try to, for some of our characters to come up with actual our artistic interpretation or drawing of a certain character like we did with the Jack ghost or the wild man of, or for the Merman as well. So it was important to me that with certain characters, we get those drawings that they might seem like unartistic interpretation of the time of maybe who maybe who ex experienced them. And then it was drawn and you saw it in an old book, but at the same time, its clearly something that we have added rather than something that we pulled off, that it was preexisting. These elements really feel important the way we shoot, like you said, in terms of the visuals, thank you for what you're saying and all the people even on for, and on this one, we've been saying that they really appreciate the, the visuals and the shots and because they, they talk about this, it really makes me understand that the, the, that extra effort we're putting into not just be your kind of standard documentary look, but, but to really give it that narrative extra drive on the atmosphere that adds to, it just puts you right there in the story and that it, it blurs the lines, everything about S about blurring, the lines of fact and fiction.
GEORGE 00:13:27 And I kind of almost want to do it with the genre, you know, the factual documentary and then the factual film. It's like, well, what if we start blurring the lines of those as well, a little bit, and as long as people enjoy that and that's who we are, and that's what makes us unique and we'll be doing it more and more, and
ANDY 00:13:40 It does make a huge difference. I think that style of, like I said, it's an artistic interpretation where you are taking sources that you've researched and then sometimes presenting those sources. But that other times you are putting it, twist on it to bring that character to life. As you say, like with the moon man, and also, yeah, like go on the atmosphere, these documentaries are something different. It's not like listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video on it. This is very cinematic work where the visuals and the, and the audio and the, the info you're getting and, and all the elements that you'd expect as filmmakers that we enjoy working with. These are the artists with the set designers and the composers and all these art forms pulled together. The way we do as filmmakers that is all brought together in these side world documentaries. Now I do think it creates a really good atmosphere that sucks you in to the stories and brings them to life.
GEORGE 00:14:28 Well, thank you. I'm, I'm, I'm glad it does. And, and we try to explore that more and more. Obviously we, we have voice actors who come in and do some stories that also those are our, uh, witness accounts that sometimes would do or reading of a historical figure. You have those voice actors come in and do that. And sometimes our wi eyewitness stuff is very weird because it's this they're semi-fictional as well, because we grab a lot of real eyewitness stories that have been spread around books and the internet everywhere that, that you have some of the, the best, most authentic ones. But then which one do you pick to say? And, and some of them are quite difficult to really condense into something that's acceptable, where those are gonna get borings. Like, where is this going? Like we cherry picked the elements of all these stories, and then we craft a fictional one with a fiction. Why witness then that the actor comes in and read. So even those are like, yes, they're fake, but they're absolutely inspired by all the real why witness stories that we saw and with the stories that fit, it's not all the stories, but with the ones that do really feels like we wanna bring someone in and kind of puts you into a first person view of someone experiencing deity or the entity or the creature or whatever it is,
ANDY 00:15:29 Again, it's cake and the real inspiration, and then bring it to life artistic. The stories you cover say, you, you do section on ghost ships. I really like that one. And learning about the Goodwin sands and how so many ships being wrecked there. It seems like there's return in ghosts of, of these ships on there. Yeah. And you mentioned mermaids and selkies and I'm a big fan of selkie films; that's probably, you know, one of my favorite bits of sea folklore, did you have a favorite type of story that you covered in the documentary?
GEORGE 00:15:56 I think I have one in every particular subgenre of it, but it's difficult to bring too many other big historical events, cuz almost feels like that should be its own side world documentary theme, but we did put one supernatural war story into it, which was the one with the U B 85 sea monster with the submarine, the, the German submarine. I, I love that kind of stuff. Cuz the military usually doesn't have time to bullshit around with stuff like that or, or maybe it was a, a great ploy on the side of the, the Germans to explain why there you boat suffered all these damages. But when they interrogated all of them, the captain and all the, all the sailors, all the submariners individually told the same story of, of this weird monster, attacking them while they're on top, cuz they had to resurface, you know, it's, it's the U boats didn't really need to and they couldn't submerge after that because all the damages and then the British Navy captured them. And I think that's just such a unique concept there. That's a great, really great one to speculate on.
ANDY 00:16:54 I did like that one. It's that combination isn't it, which I guess is kind of maybe at the heart of this 'Sideworld: Terrors of the Sea' is that that's a great example of mankind thinking it has this great technology and thinking yeah. Oh explore, absolutely whatever. And can go wherever around the seas, above the sea, below the sea that it's got the technology to do it. Yet somehow nature gets in the way or as speculated in the story, a sea monster attacks it where this great conquering technology can't conquer the sea. And I think that's, that's a really good example that gets the core of what the 'Terrors of the Sea' is.
GEORGE 00:17:28 Very well put. 'Cause like the sea is like one of those examples, still that humanity still the humanities still very young and as much as we think we know what we're doing, we're still like the little kid running around with its toys kind of causing havoc. And from time to time, like mother nature just gives us a, a little bit of a slap. We still realize that we have some time to go.
ANDY 00:17:47 Can you think of anything that drew you to the sea in the first place? I know for me, I grew up on the Northumberland coast. So where I grew up was full of sea folklore, dolphins near me, the seals. And I live like three minutes from the beach. So we see those creatures and the smugglers caves and there's talk of a sea monster in the harbour there. And I guess it's always been around me. But was that the same for you growing up as well?
GEORGE 00:18:10 Yeah, kind of, I mean, obviously I, I grew up in, in the capital in, in, in Sophia. So which is on the, the west side of Bulgaria. So exactly in the opposite side of where that the sea coast is, but my father was always a big, big sea guy and, and he is to this day. I mean, he's at the seaside right now actually, you know, like snorkeling and diving around there, you know? So we would go every summer for holiday there on the seaside in a couple of particular spots and because we would go to the cliffs and the cliffs were always interesting. They're so visual. And you have like so many different shapes and everything and when the light hits, it all changes. So we, you do go diving and looking with your mask and everything, which even back then I started to do.
GEORGE 00:18:49 Yeah. When the light hits a certain angle, especially when it kind of goes blue hour, you know, golden hour time towards the end of the day and the, the sun race hit the light and you can see part of the, the sea seaweed and corals and stuff, whatever, we don't really have corals in black sea, but things like that in the light. And then the rest of it's in complete darkness and you just don't know what's down there. You're a bit in awe. You're like, oh, this is scary, but this is also awesome. And then you, you, you swim above it looking down and it looks like you're flying above a huge cavern. Oh, people get really scared by that. And I get it proper, phobia, but I know to me, it was like, I was scared, but also at the same time, I really loved it. And yeah, I think, I think all of that goes into your mind. It all goes back into storage somewhere. And then later on you think back about it and it comes back resurfaces.
ANDY 00:19:35 And it is that fear of the unknown. And I used to have that and yeah, when you're swimming across bit of see that suddenly gets really deep and you can't see the bottom and you're like, oh, what, what's down there? And I think it is a, a thing for mankind as well. It's kind of what made spread around so much. And those, you know, making boats out of logs and getting out and discovering all these islands and things. And it's a very human thing to try: humanity seems to spread and go across the sea and journey to far out places. But like you say, it's that element of, well, what else is out there that I don't know?
GEORGE 00:20:07 Yeah. So, I mean, especially in this country, I mean, it's a, again, like to me, it's like I have all these feelings towards it and those individual drives, but at the same time, a lot of what makes terrorist this interesting to be a lot of those stories being shot here is the fact that, you know, this, this is, this is a very nautical nation, you know, conquered, half the world because of the sea. That's ingrained in DNA of a lot of, a lot of people here still to this day. There's so many stories of lives being lost at sea or that being, being a huge part of the coastal towns, or even, even things that are more inland because you know, it's an island you're completely surrounded by, but at the same time, it's not Greece, right. It's not like always warm and inviting and kind of like, oh, you just kind of soak in it.
GEORGE 00:20:47 Like when I arrived here, I was like, it's such a shame. Like I'm, I'm used to being from a big city. I have to travel to the seaside. But when you go there, you're just like, oh, this is, this is great. And then here you have sea everywhere. It's like mostly not being used for <laugh> for its what to, in my mind was the right purpose, which is just a chill. It's like the water is cold and you know what I mean? Like there are still parts like that, but like that was my first impression. So again, that duality, that combination count can be really, especially when we shot, we shot a lot stuff in Cornwall. So mainly we filmed in whale and Cornwall and Kent and Suffolk where we had like a lot of those stories where they came from and some other bits Cornwall has really both like sometimes it seems so almost Mediterranean in, in certain areas and that makes it so sort of alien from the rest of the country.
GEORGE 00:21:33 But you still feel that when that wind blows, you know, when you're right there on the cliffs and where we're at lands end, like filming there and we got really exposed to when we, of course we filmed a lot of it in February because what a great decision to, to make, but that made it more angry and interesting. And the weather will change every two minutes from like sun to like wind to then rain, to whatever you go through. All these situations. Just, I just can't believe like how these people, even back in day were main to, to live in those place. And that wind will blowing you all day. Every time you walk by the dock and then you go out and you fish and this ocean it's right there because the black sea is a glorified lake. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a big, really big place. I know how huge that is. But at the same time, it's not really that exposed and it can still get so angry. And so that's what degrees called it, the black sea, because there'll be a lot of shipwrecks near because of the weather, but nothing compared to the Atlantic ocean or the, or the North Sea thing. So yeah, there's a huge amount of legacy of that in this country side
ANDY 00:22:32 'Sideworld: Terrors of the Sea' is your latest in the Sideworld one. And that's out at the moment and you also made 'Haunted Forests of England', which is another great documentary using these same techniques and, and bringing that to life. So what is next for your Sideworld series is what's the next one going be themed around?
GEORGE 00:22:48 I can't quite say yet. Uh, cuz we're getting close there, but I, I have have some particular deadlines I need to adhere to. I will tell you, but we we'll have like a proper announcement for it. So, but what I will say is that it'll be, it'll be again different, you know, we're, we're going from the forest to see we're not doing immediately now, all mountains, you know, maybe we'll do that down the line. It'll be, uh, we'll change up the trend a little bit just to, to feel fresh. So it's not just another natural biome that will come in the future, but we we'll be releasing that around Halloween. So you'll have a very Halloweeny feel and it will have a very, uh, kind of staple sub genre of, of themes. So yeah, soon I will be announcing I'm sorry that I, I can't do it just yet. We'll let you all know full three films for Halloween, for everyone to really set up that it's gonna be a, a longstanding series.
ANDY 00:23:34 So 'Sideworld: Terrors of the Sea' is out now. How can people watch it? What's the best place to go to watch the film?
GEORGE 00:23:41 Yeah. In the UK, probably the, the best way to watch it will be on, on Amazon to buy it on Amazon. There is a couple of other ways on Google play and a few more, uh, platforms as well. I think you can also write the by, on, on YouTube red or whatever they call it, them specials, channels that they have in the us. I think you have a couple more options. You can also watch it on Tobi. It's a great platform. So if you are a us viewer, absolutely can also go on Amazon, but you have a couple more options to any, if you are any other English speaking country, Australia can also watch it pretty much everyone else you'll probably have it available. And uh, yeah, if you follow us also on Twitter or Facebook, Instagram, whatever, you'll be able to see where else we're on
ANDY 00:24:18 And on Twitter and Facebook. What, what are your handles on there again? So there's at Rubicon films. UK is on Twitter and that's your production company.
GEORGE 00:24:26 Yeah. We have a Sideworld_UK only Sideworld stuff on, on, on that handle at @theGeorgePopov, you'll be able to see me there. And also we have a side world page on Facebook, along side Rubicon Films and stuff about the drawing and everything. And then we have Rubicon films_UK on Instagram.
ANDY 00:24:44 I suggest people do follow Rubicon Films and the Sideworld documentaries and yeah, check out the Sideworld docs or 'Haunted Forests of England', which we did the podcast on a few months ago is really good. But then this new one 'Terrors of the Sea' is brilliant for folklore and folk horror tales, supernatural and some more realistic all based on the terrors of the sea. And it's really atmospheric and brilliant bit of storytelling. So yes, people do that. Uh, George, thanks very much for coming on the show. Really enjoyed chatting again.
ANDY 00:25:11 Thanks very much, man. Always was great to be here. I'm looking forward to the next time.
ANDY 00:25:20 Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Dreamswarm podcast. I've been your host, Andy Mark Simpson. We hope you'll join us for the next one. Remember you can subscribe to stay in touch with future episodes and follow us at the website, www.dreamswarm.org or follow on Twitter and Instagram at Dreamswarm. And we look forward to joining you for more supernatural film stories and art. In the meantime, be creative, be curious, be kind, we'll see you soon.
