A director from Lancashire shares the behind-the-scenes makings of his second film that will release this summer.

Ryan J Smith, 24, of Blackpool, is a MetFilm School graduate and filmmaker who has just released his debut film, Lottery.

As a passionate filmmaker, Ryan shared his love for a variety of different genres, from stop-motion animation filmmaking to classic musicals, and says he’s eager to stray away from being pigeon-holed to one genre as a director.

His second film, Talking to Ghosts which costs even less to make than his £7,000 debut film, is currently in post-production and is set to release this summer.

Lancashire Telegraph: Blackpool-born director Ryan J SmithBlackpool-born director Ryan J Smith (Image: Ryan J Smith)

Ryan says that his mind is always busy so after finishing his first film, he just wanted to keep going.

He said: “What happens when you finish a movie? From my experience, you have a kind of false energy where you want to keep going.

“And so, there are a solid couple of months after you've wrapped on a movie where you just write, you know, it's like ‘oh, what, what am I going to do next?”

Ryan came up with the idea of an exciting thriller shot in towns across Lancashire including Blackpool, Garstang, and Lytham St Annes.

He said: “Talking to Ghosts, it's about a girl who gets involved in an arms deal and it goes wrong. And It's very much a thriller.

"It's very, very stylish. The main actors are Nina Holland Smith, Neizan Fernandez and Grahame Edwards who was in The Dark Knight.”

Despite Talking to Ghosts having a low budget, Ryan said the film is rich in filmmaking skills and techniques.

He added: “It’s light years ahead of Lottery technically and just in terms of, the little weird lessons you pick up on, and stuff that you can apply to future projects.”

Ryan launched his own production firm after graduating, Skint Film Company, to create a healthy and caring working environment that he believes is scarce in a cut-throat industry like film.

He continued: “I learnt a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff in terms of running the company from working on Lottery. Finance management and, getting ‘bang for your buck’, that kind of thing.

“Because the irony is that Talking to Ghosts is a superior film technically than Lottery. It's also a longer film. Lottery is 80 minutes, Talking to Ghosts is an hour and 45. So it's a bigger film, there are more locations, there are more characters. And, it was cheaper, I learned to save money.

“I want to make a lot of movies and I want to make a lot of different kinds of movies as well and just have a real company going that's known for consistent quality output.”