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Ben Aston is a talented filmmaker who has been making short films since 2010. At the recent Edinburgh Film Festival, he was named one of the ‘British Directors of Tomorrow’ for his short Dinner and a Movie. His latest project, entitled He Took His Skin Off For Me, depicts a couple’s relationship after a man decides to take his skin off for his girlfriend, which Aston describes as “a performance driven, character based film with massive special effects.”

The director recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring the project to life, and have since reached their minimal target. However, in order to fully tell this unique story, the team still require more funding for an extra day’s shoot. We recently sat down with the director to talk about why he chose to adapt this short story and his love of practical effects. .

He Took His Skin Off For Me is based on a short story by award winning author Maria Hummer. Upon reading it, Aston knew that he wanted to tell this story, ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about it, it was constantly in the back of my head. It’s one of those things that you think might have existed before, but actually hasn’t! The allegory is subtle, but at the same time it’s kinetic and draws you in.’

Aston and his team are firm advocates of practical special effects – the project mentor is Colin Arthur, who worked under legendary visual effects creator Ray Harryhausen – and some of the skin work in the test video already looks impressive, “When you’re dealing with things that are innately impossible to believe, having a tactile, tangible presence in front of the camera helps. I look at the scenes in the end of Hollow Man [Kevin Bacon’s skin becomes invisible and you just see through and it’s all CGI], and I don’t believe it at all. For a film which is entirely about touch and presence, for us it just makes far more sense to shoot it practically.”

Aston is working closely with Maria to make sure her book is properly brought to life, but in the director’s own words, “you have to find something in the material that only you can and can say something about. The original story was written in a rush, one big explosion of ideas, and sitting and staying with it allowed us to create new scenes that aren’t in the story but could have been in the story.”

It’s clear that beneath the horror imagery, there are many interesting, thought-provoking concepts at play.  One of the film’s chief ideas is that of how much of yourself you would sacrifice for another.

“For me, taking off my skin would be not being a filmmaker. If somebody who loved me said “Ben, to be with me you can’t be a filmmaker”…If you’re in love and you’re in a beautiful place and it’s amazing, it’s an incredibly romantic thing and you say “Yes, of course, I’ll sacrifice this job I’m doing and these things I like to be with you, it’s not going to kill me!”, I’m not going to die if I don’t make films. In this story, our character doesn’t die from taking off his skin. It’s just all the little things that start to mount up, small reminders of things that aren’t working, the fact that he starts bleeding out a little bit… Before long they mount up and you realise that maybe you guys resent each other and that this was a poor decision. I could sacrifice being a filmmaker but in doing so I wouldn’t recognise myself, and I’d become someone different, that would be uglier and meaner and sadder, and the relationship as well would become a nightmare.”

Unsurprisingly, interest for this project has been high, and the Kickstarter campaign has yielded some great responses. The director recalls one particularly memorable email:

“Someone emailed me insisting that we should add a scene where the biggest problem about having no skin is that you’re more likely to contract STD’s!”

If you like what you see and want to help Ben and his team reach their stretch target of £10,000, check out their Kickstarter campaign here.

For all things He Took His Skin Off For Me, head to the official website here.