By day, Rob Illidge is all-in on growing his tech start-up Vulse over in Manchester. But in his spare time and at the weekends, he’s quietly been embarking on a new venture, trading the boardroom for film sets.
He’s recently launched a £10,000 kickstarter campaign to back his new TV project called FIFTY – a 12 minute short film serving as a teaser for a forthcoming TV comedy series.
This project is a prime example of the talent and opportunity bubbling across the North’s creative industries, an area of focus for Prolific North’s new Creative Powerhouse series.
Inspired by his own transatlantic escapades as a young student in America, FIFTY follows a British student who gets lost in the US and “ultimately finds himself along the way”.
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The ambitious project has been brewing for the past 20 years, with Illidge spending every spare moment writing the series in between running a business and raising funding.
From his own experiences inadvertently befriending the cartel to escaping haunted motels, the series promises a string of comedic misadventures that he hopes could become the next big TV hit.
“I started to think: ‘You know what? This could be a great TV show,” Rob Illidge, CEO and co-founder of employee advocacy platform Vulse, tells Prolific North.
It might seem like an unlikely leap into filmmaking, but for Illidge it feels like a natural progression.
“I grew up on a diet of Saved by the Bell, Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Malcolm in the Middle. I just felt like in a previous life, maybe I was American. I was very intrigued by it all.
“Fast forward to university, I was doing an international business degree but I was always attracted to writing and creativity.”
Still “obsessed” with all things America, he jumped at a life-changing opportunity to study abroad and soon was trading student life in Lancashire for one in Connecticut.
“That obsession turned into travelling. I set out to visit every state and I started writing down all of my experiences.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then when you realise you have 50, it’s a bit of a hard task! But over the past two decades, I have continued to write about every state I went to and every person I met. Think Ted Lasso meets Poker Face.”
Armed with just a passion for the screen industries without any formal training or network, he had the quiet conviction that maybe he had a story worth telling and started honing his script writing skills.
“I thought: ‘Let’s just try it. It’s my own time if it doesn’t work out.’ The chances are slim – it’s so competitive.”
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He researched producers, made a list, and started reaching out to people.
“I ended up stumbling across somebody on Instagram, Lauren Craig, who was a producer out in LA. She’s worked with the likes of Al Pacino and Nicolas Cage. You see these people and they’re very well connected with a lot of experience, and you think, well, they’re just going to ignore me. They’re never going to respond.”
“But she did. We’ve now been working together for over a year on this project. We’ve got to a point where the pilot script is finished and we’ve been pitching it to different networks. They love the idea but wanted a proof of concept – so that’s what we’ve started!”
He’s got a solid team behind him too. Alongside producer Lauren Craig, award-winning director James Kennedy and BBC comedy heavyweight Steve Ryde (Inside No. 9) are all on board.
To his surprise, he wasn’t met with closed doors when stepping into an entirely new industry. For him, Nadia Jayne, CEO of Little Monk Pictures, is another great example of that generosity in action.
“She has just been incredible in helping out from introductions to finding people for certain roles.
“Everybody just helps everybody, which is so nice. I guess the Manchester tech scene is quite similar. But I was very surprised at how everyone would drop things to introduce you to someone they know.
“Through a mutual connection, I met with Steve at Mediacity. For him to read the script and say he loved the concept – it all felt, and still feels, very surreal.”
“Having the backing of people like that fills you with confidence, especially with the way the industry is at the moment. It’s so difficult to get sign off on things.”
Although the series is focused on the US, the crew and locations will all be based across Manchester and the North West.
“We’ve got the cast together with some great up-and-coming actors including Cameron King, who plays ‘Franklin’ – named after my dog! But we’re still looking for crew.”
But the team are still scouting for the perfect locations for a number of “specific” scenes and are on the hunt for extras to take part in the project too.
“The challenge for us is making somewhere like Manchester look like the midwest Nebraska, but there are lots of options.
“We’ve actually found that there is a bit of a community spirit. When we approach businesses, a lot of people are very supportive.”
Beyond nailing down the locations and crew, there’s the equally crucial challenge of funding as Illidge has been focused on securing the funds to bring the project to life.
“Everything is self funded. We are trying to get some financing out in America. Even though we have the backing of so many people from the cast to the team, it’s a real challenge as money is tough right now for everybody.
“We’re just trying to raise as much as we need, so we launched the kickstarter at the beginning of July which runs until August. We’re raising £10,000 and that covers a three day shoot plus looking after cast and crew.”
But Illidge is mindful that he’s still running Vulse day-to-day and is quick to emphasise that FIFTY is very much a personal passion project.
“Everything I do now, and later on, is in my own time, whether it means taking holidays or shooting on the weekend. I’m not taking time out of work, and I’m very conscious of that.
“I’m a big believer in FIFTY. I am biased, but I think we all deserve something really lighthearted and something to laugh at, in a time where there’s not a lot to laugh at.”
