In planning this film, I didn't want to fall into the trap of trying to ape the original work. Over the years we've seen lots of attempts at a "Prisoner" film and most of them fall down because they try to recreate scenes directly from The Prisoner and this will always fail because the original stands on it's own merit. It was made with a considerable budget, featuring professionally written scripts performed by trained actors. No insult to the amateur efforts we've seen over the years, but you can't compete with that. Why try? My heart sinks when I read that someone has "recreated the opening sequence." Why? The original looks good to me. Surely, if the series has shown us anything, it's that individuality counts. "Taking inspiration from" is one thing, just copying the original is something else entirely.

So, let's move on. With our story set some forty years after the original events and the action taking place in a Village that is now run-down and largely disused, it was necessary to create a modified Village, an 'alternate' one. The problem with using Portmeirion as a backdrop is that it's far too pretty and well-kept and certainly doesn't suggest decay or menace as it stands. So, the answer was to take pictures of the various key viewpoints and overlay them with graphic effects to age and dirty-down the pristine buildings. As an example, hover your mouse over the door picture to the right. The first picture shows the starting image, the second one after adding exposed brickwork, peeling paint and weather staining. Every shot you see of the Village in the film has been created in this way, suggesting the passage of time in a place long since decommissioned. The overall sense of forboding was enhanced by adding rain and mist to the scenes.

Other graphic elements included the scary watchtowers that now seem to cover every part of the Village. The reasoning here was that, although the Village was being de-manned, there were still a lot of secret areas that needed watching over, hence pole-mounted remote-controlled spycams. The design for these was essentially based on the "eye" cameras glimpsed in some shots of the control room in the original series. My idea was that the spycams would detect any unauthorised movement and signal the automatic surveillance system housed under the Dome building. This would then make a decision on how to deal with the intruder. My original intention was to show this in action but, sadly, it didn't make it to the finished film.