Loch Ness Monster hunter Steve Feltham to appear on global cinema screens in new short film from a company set up by world-famous director Ridley Scott, the visionary behind Alien, Blade Runner, The Martian, Thelma & Louise and Gladiator
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NESSIE hunter Steve Feltham is set to appear on cinema screens worldwide as he plays a starring role in a short film from a company set up by a visionary director.
Mr Feltham is filmed scaling sheer rock faces, rowing across Loch Ness and rising Neptune-like from the depths in Monster Hunter, made by RSA – a production company co-founded by Ridley Scott who was behind such epics as Alien and Blade Runner.
The film, directed by Alexander Farrell, has been made to promote Seagate Technology’s brand, LaCie, but conveys the message to “dream big”.
Mr Feltham, who has kept a vigil of the loch from his converted mobile library at Dores since 1991, holds the Guinness World Record for the longest time spent searching for the Loch Ness Monster.
When he was approached by Mr Farrell, he envisaged it would be a film re-telling his own story but he found himself acting the part of a fictitious monster hunter in a cinematic production set against the spectacular scenery around Loch Ness.
“He said he would like to make a portrait of me in the highest possible quality,” Mr Feltham said. “As filming went on, I realised it was not my story but a caricature. It was based on me rather than about me.”
Consequently, he was “aged” for the production while in one scene he is depicted fearlessly scaling a rock face unaided – although Mr Feltham reveals the behind-the-scenes reality.
“They lowered me down the cliff face on a rope and because my life is worth less than the production costs of taking the rope out of the film, they hooked me onto the rock and left me hanging 100ft up like a butterfly!” he quipped.
“It was not very comfortable. Alex said the first 15 minutes of what he was filming was useless as it looked like I was crying and it was not the effect he was after. I am not a rock climber at all but Alex can be very persuasive.
“When he first approached me, he told me it was all going to be really easy. He said there would be minimal intrusion, it would take three days and there would be three of them. There were 15 of them for two weeks.”
But he said the result was a great cinematic production filmed at locations around the south side of Loch Ness.
Mr Feltham also spent a week in a Belgian studio doing the voiceover but has yet to make his red carpet debut after he was unable to make the film’s premiere at the International Broadcast Conference in Amsterdam.
“This was one of the most unexpected, intense, euphoric adventures that I have ever had,” he said.
“I am so proud of what we achieved, what Alex achieved, what the whole crack team managed to achieve. We all know how crazy it was and that memory will stay with us forever.”
Mr Feltham is circumspect about a possible career in films. “I made Alex promise me when I was on that rock face that when he does a Hollywood blockbuster I will get a job as an extra sitting on a Chesterfield, smoking a pipe by the fireplace.
“Hopefully, one day he will give me a call – not for an aged monster hunter!”
Speaking about the filming process, Mr Farrell said: “We set out to capture the mystery that surrounds the waters of Loch Ness and the creature that lives below, and we discovered a man that loved the beast with all of his heart.
“To him, it wasn’t necessarily the Loch Ness Monster being real that was so important but the idea that it was possible, that’s the magic. He encouraged us to do the same – dream big.”
