My Life with Thomas Quain: I used my savings to make a sci-fi movie

Thomas Quain, Film Maker & Animator, at his home in Glounthaune, Co. Cork.

While some people use their savings to travel the world, I opted to make a sci-fi movie instead.

For as long as I can remember, film has always been a passion of mine. When my sister and I were children, we would put on countless theatre and puppet shows at our home. After being gifted a video camera as a confirmation present, my family did everything they could to nurture my passion. We went from staging puppet shows to making Scream movies in our kitchen. Dad played the killer on the loose while my sister shone in her role as the murder victim.

Secondary school did little to dampen my passion. My cast and crew that once comprised family members had now been replaced with classmates. We made a war film together in Transition Year, which earned us an award at the Fresh Film Festival in 2003. The following year, we filmed a Vietnam movie. CGI was not as accessible back then as it is today, which forced us to be more creative in terms of our special effects.

A seesaw was our weapon of choice to create the more impressive explosions. We used this to propel bags of flour into the air. This, coupled with some dodgy sound effects, alluded to an explosion. The movie was filmed in some woods in Knockraha, East Cork. Unfortunately, the process took such a long time that the leaves began to fall off the trees, and it didn’t look like Vietnam anymore.

After leaving school, I studied film, and decades later, at 40 years old, I’m preparing to release my first sci-fi feature film, Gardener’s Planet. Even after all these years, my family continues to be incredibly supportive.

They even allowed their garden to be transformed into a film set for days on end. I had to reassure my neighbours in advance that the fire brigade did not need to be called if they saw what appeared to be flames escaping from our house. One of the scenes incorporated beams of red light and smoke, which I feared people might mistake for a blaze. This was just one of a string of special effects that can be seen in the movie.

It was important to me that everything went according to plan. I had, after all, been cogitating on the idea for a very long time.

I first came up with the basis for the storyline in 2016 after watching gardening programmes on television. It’s a comedy sci-fi independent feature film about a television gardener who discovers that the couple who own the garden he is working on are from another planet. The people you see on these programmes are always very nice and hardworking. I wanted to turn this stereotype on its head by exploring what might happen if they were not how they appeared on the surface. It went from this to asking myself how the story would play out if the gardener had to bury the couple in their own garden.

If I had tried making this 10—or even five—years ago, it would have likely resulted in a very questionable outcome. As far as I know, we are the first Irish film to have used motion capture to the extent that we did. This is a process that blends the movement of a person or object with 3D scanning to achieve a digital 3D model. Over the years, technology has improved to the extent that ordinary people can now benefit from the same special effects filmmakers used in 1993’s Jurassic Park. That said, it was also important to me that I threw in a few handcrafted special effects too. 

Thomas Quain, Film Maker & Animator, at his home in Glounthaune, Co. Cork, promoting his new movie Gardener's Planet

As a child, I was an avid fan of Zig and Zag from RTÉ’s The Den. This might have been what sparked my lifelong fascination with puppets. It was for this reason that I had one of our quirkier characters, “the plant monster,” handcrafted from scratch. It took a lot of time to find someone to bring my vision to life.

I felt really lucky to meet with Will from Outpost Creations in Waterford, who was willing to take on this monumental task. We were, after all, talking about an eight-foot-tall talking plant monster with a large trunk and functioning mouth to boot.

The plant had to be able to speak, which was no easy feat. Will was inside the puppet for the duration of the plant monster shots. The actor had to move in time with the plant monster, which can prove very challenging. About seven or eight of us filmed for 14 hours over three nights for two and a half minutes of footage. Will and his team did a fantastic job, as did the remainder of the cast and crew.

During filming, I worked a number of jobs, including in a homeware store, an off-licence, and teaching with the Education and Training Board. The movie cost €15k in total to make. Thankfully, an audience doesn’t care if your film cost €10m or the price of a packet of crisps. All people really care about is a good story.

Find out more about Thomas and Gardener's Planet by visiting youtube.com/@thomasquainfilm