VOTD: Monsters Director Gareth Edwards' Attila The Hun

Since screening the film at Cannes, we've been hyping Gareth Edwards' new low budget monster movie Monsters. Hollywood is already going nuts over the filmmaker, who supposedly made the film for a fraction of a million dollars (maybe even as little as $15,000), and some are touting him as the next Neill Blomkamp. Yesterday we posted a featurette showing how director Gareth Edwards was able to achieve what he did with Monsters on such a low budget.

Someone sent me a link to another video showcasing Gareth Edwards' directorial and visual effects work on the 2008 one hour BBC drama Attila the Hun. Not only did Edwards direct the film, but he produced the 250 high definition resolution effects shots by himself in in his bedroom. He finished the vfx in just four months, using After Effects and Photoshop, averaging two shots a day. The Guardian called the special "a revolution in film-making."

"...but the BBC doesn't seem to know about it. The hour-long feature, commissioned by the corporation's factual department, was made for the cost of the average documentary, was filmed over three weeks in Bulgaria, has a small cast and is receiving practically no promotion. Yet, through a combination of new, affordable computer software and a lot of ingenuity on the part of its director, Attila has battle scenes and ancient landscapes to match The Lord of the Rings or Gladiator. For the first time ever, a Hollywood-scale film has been made on a British TV budget."

After the jump you can see a trailer for Edwards' Attila the Hun, followed by visual breakdowns of all the special effects Edwards created using just off the shelf software in his London flat.