When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, I’m sure many of us spent some of our unexpected free time writing.

I took the opportunty to dabble in creating some flash fiction stories – tiny snippets of fiction – just for my own amusement.

As I played around with them, they took on some commonalities – set in South West England in the 1890s (or a slightly reimagined version of it), and featuring as their central character, an investigator, a journalist of sorts, who seeks out tales of the strange and unexplained.

Gradually, he gained his own backstory – he has travelled the world after his university education, seeking out the ‘fantastical and bizarre’, and now he finds himself in Devon, a county rich in folklore about demons, hell hounds, and pixies, and where sailors return from sea with tall tales of the ocean’s terrifying creatures.

I called him Henry Godliman. He’s something of a dandy, but having excelled at cricket, rugby football, and other sports, he could outrun or (reluctantly) outfight most people – despite appearances.

The stories were so brief, they were barely stories at all – vignettes, perhaps, or scenes. In some cases, fairly abstract observations. They were put away and almost forgotten.

Then, I got more involved in low-budget, independent film production, notably as a producer on the multi-award-winning Annalium 8: Sssss. And that made me wonder if any of my Godliman stories might have the potential to become a short film.

I dusted them off, and generally the answer was ‘no’. A few might work, I thought, and one in particular, in which Henry arrives in a small fishing port (feeling very out of place in his London finery) to hear from some sailors, just returned from a long voyage, with tales to tell. It was called A Fish Out of Water.

But then I thought of the practicalities – four or five main actors, maybe 20 background actors, locations for a harbour and an old inn, costumes for everyone, make-up, lighting, production design, props, a whole crew, not to mention some 130-year-old ships!

That wasn’t going to happen on our budget. But then I wondered about animation. Anything is possible with animation, isn’t it?

Award-winning script-writer Rob Lancey (the man who wrote the aforementioned Sssss and a bunch of yet-to-be-filmed Annalium scripts) helped me work the very short story into a screenplay.

Then, through a mutual friend, I was introduced to the brilliant Cardiff-based animator Matthew Creed, who liked the script and agreed to take on the project as animator and director. He brought in talented illustrator Anthony Richards, and I recruited the incredible Charlie Diggle (who did such great work for us on Sssss) for sound and music.

For the voices we were lucky to get long-time friend of this blog, Francesca Louise White (also from Sssss), Richard Oliver (I Saw Black Clouds), and Samantha Hudson, with one of my all-time acting heroes, Robert Daws (with a host of high-profile TV credits and the indy horror The Unfolding to his name) as Henry himself.

As I write this (in June 2025), the film is well into production, and we’re hoping to release late this year or early in 2026.

There’s more detail on IMDb and on the Weltch Media news section. And there’ll be more on this blog too.

If you’re involved in arts and entertainment, please check out Weltch Media to see how they could help.