ADAM WILLIAM CAHILL
WRITER, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER
Adam has always been a creative person and had initially longed to be a performer. He began to sing as soon as he could speak, and as early as six years of age he sang in karaoke bars and in his school choir. He also took part in school plays and went to drama classes. He wasn't much of a reader until he became enamoured with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy at fifteen, and felt compelled to read Tolkein's novels. This galvanised Adam's desire to take up creative writing.
After finishing school he developed his skills as a video editor working for an alternative media group creating short documentaries. He would eventually use these documentaries in his college application portfolio, and as a result he was deemed eligible to skip the first year of a Media and Communications course. In college his attentions quickly turned from documentary film making to narrative drama, and he started writing stories again. In his final year of college, he wrote, produced, and directed his first short film, Inertia. In 2016 he graduated from the University of Wolverhampton with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film Production.
During his college tenure he'd spent time working in diverse capacities on various TV series that were being filmed in Ireland at the time. This included a role as Samuel Barnett's body double on Showtime's Penny Dreadful (2014-2016). While on set he paid close attention to all of the production elements in order to get a better idea of how things operate on set, and became very friendly with the assistant directors and camera assistants.
Adam is now the company director for Wild Stag Productions, and his ambition is to use the medium of film to tell affecting, thought-provoking stories, with an emphasis on making Irish genre films.
Director’s Statement
Follow the Dead (FTD) is my first feature film, and as such is very special to me. But I’m most pleased by the fact that I was able to say something through this medium that I feel was really worth saying. FTD is (as most movies in this genre are) a social commentary on our current generation. With the Millennials of the world reaching our prime, the film examines our weaknesses and follies, as well as how modern technology (especially social media) has affected our disposition towards problem solving.
FTD began as a short film idea dreamt up by the film’s lead actor, Luke Corcoran, which he asked me to helm. The short never materialised as numerous obstacles arose. However, I was so enthralled by the potential of the film’s themes that I went away and wrote a hundred page script, and fully fleshed out my own ideas regarding the narrative, which were thus:
What happens to a civilisation robbed of the hardships that once sharpened and forged us? Have we lost out on necessary elements of human growth as a result of higher standards of living and technological advancements? And consequently, have once mild annoyances and inconveniences become this day’s bemoaned sufferings? In a generation where everything is super convenient, and where minuscule issues are the terrors of our age, how would we fare if trauma incarnate came wandering through our streets? Though this film offers pessimistic answers to such questions, it also shares a message of hope by taking responsibility, and accepting that struggle is not only an unavoidable part of life, but an essential one.
The first major change from the short script to the feature was in moving the protagonists’ location from Dublin to rural Ireland. I felt that it would be best to place them out of harms way at first, as not only would this allow for a slow build of suspense, but would also facilitate us watching these entitled individuals waiting for someone else to deal with the problem instead of taking action theselves.
Being a huge fan of M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs”, I took inspiration from it for much of FTD’s tone and pacing. In both stories we’re left in a secluded part of the world with a bickering family, wondering how much of what we’re being told is real, while the information is delivered in such a manner as to keep the audience guessing just long enough for the fun and games to begin. Conversely, this film is a dark comedy, and thus takes a more comedic lean, such as another fans favourite zombie comedy “Shaun of the Dead”, or our native Irish creature feature “Grabbers”.