George Henry Horton is a talented director, producer, and writer from the UK, but his beginnings might surprise a few people. The UK based filmmaker surprisingly started his career as a YouTuber with a popular channel that focused around comedy.
Having graduated from Kings College London with a bachelor’s degree in Religion, Philosophy, and Ethics in 2014, George went on to the American Film Institute Conservatory and got a master’s degree in film producing.
What was it like to start as a Youtuber and transit to professional filmmaking?
“It all started while I was getting my master’s degree at King’s College London. I and a bunch of guys started a YouTube channel called JerterLad, where we would shoot these short comedy sketches around campus. Surprisingly, I had tons of fun filming them and I devoted much more time on that then on my actual degree.”
“Then, one of our videos went viral, it was called “Star Wars Elevator Prank.” It featured all over the Internet, and we even got an invitation to appear on Good Morning America. But we all had to say no because we had exams at that time.”
“After that, a producer called Chris Branch got in touch with me and asked me if I wanted to manage his social media for a horror movie he was filming. Next thing you know I’m flying out to Canada for my first film set. I was a hugely educational experience. Later on, he convinced me to apply to the American Film Institute in LA. 4 years later I’m still here in LA and I pretty much owe everything to him and the guys at King’s College, James Shamsi and Austin Hsieh. Both of whom now live in America by the way, and are both doing amazing things.”
Your two current projects, “Ground Floor” and “Project Dorothy”, can you describe them to us?
“Project Dorothy” is a sci-fi horror with an 80s vibe. The writer Ryan Scaringe is a big 80’s sci-fi movie fan. It was an amazing experience to work with him. I’d like to think we really complemented each other in our collaboration. The movie is about two guys who are on the run from the police, so they hide in this abandoned scientific facility. We shot the movie itself in a gigantic abandoned facility in Illinois. It was a lot of fun – the whole team was great. While they’re hiding from the police, they awaken a monster called Dorothy which has been lying dormant and their situation pretty much goes downhill from there. These two guys have to make a choice between saving their lives and risking the monster getting loose on the world, or sacrificing everything in order to try to contain it.
“Ground Floor” on the other hand is a psychological horror and It’s about a young woman Sophia, who is sent by her therapist, Dr. FitzGerald, to the British countryside. We shot the movie in both the UK and USA. Dr. FitzGerald sends Sophie to this house, in order to help her escape her miserable life in the US, claiming that a lot of patients have recovered from their problems while staying there. I don’t want to disclose too much, but let’s just say that Sophia’s psychological situation doesn’t exactly improve! Psychological horror is a lot of fun, there’s so much room for experimentation.”
Both movies are currently in post-production and I’m very excited to see where they take us!
George Henry Horton has a total of 12 projects on his IMDB page, including the two mentioned in our article. He currently has two films in pre-production named “Beached” and “Muse”.
