As 25-year-old Stroud director Guy Davies continues work on his new feature film Philophobia - all set in the Five Valleys - SNJ reporter Rosa Smith sat down to interview the young film-maker about the project.

AT 5pm ON a Wednesday evening, most people are packing up and heading home from work.

However, on the set of Philophobia, the cast and crew, have just stopped filming for a rather late lunch break.

The SNJ had the opportunity to head over to Wycliffe College whilst filming for the feature length movie was underway.

Amongst the hustle and bustle of cameras, actors, and sound checks, we managed to speak briefly to Guy Davies, the director and writer behind the coming of age story, based in his hometown of Stroud.

At only 25, the Randwick-born film maker has an impressive CV, having studied Cinematography at New York Film Academy, and produced a number of short films.

With the head offices of his production company, Zebrafish Media, based in Stroud, Guy decided to return to his home town to direct his new project.

Looking at the final days of secondary school before the beginning of summer, Guy reveals that the film wasn’t intentionally autobiographical, but includes a lot of nostalgic memories.

“It wasn’t so much autobiographical, but an amalgamation of stories from different friends,” he explained of his inspiration behind the story.

As a former pupil of Wycliffe College, returning to his old school has brought back many childhood memories, including the beginning of his love of film.

“There’s quite a big age gap between my brother and I, and when I was younger he would look after me a lot with his friends, as my dad was ill and my mum was at work.

“He was really into films, and we would often just end up watching films for hours as something to do.”

Guy cites his early inspiration from the likes of Tarantino.

“I wouldn’t really say I’m a huge Tarantino fan, but when I was about 11 to 13 years old I was really into Pulp Fiction, etc," he said.

“I had no idea films could be that dynamic or engaging.”

Despite his talent behind the scenes, Guy was initially destined for the stage.

“When I was around nine years old I loved acting and drama, and I started acting in commercials, but when I was thirteen I decided I didn’t want to act anymore.”

This proved to be a pivotal point in Guy’s career.

Learning of his ambition to gain valuable experience on set, his GCSE English teacher, producer Rebecca Tranter, put him in touch with Matt Cook.

“I started working as a runner for them whilst they were making commercials.

They’ve since moved on to producing films, and Matt is one of the producers of Philophobia.”

Guy revealed that despite the lengthy process of making a film, writing Philophobia was a different story.

“I wrote the first draft in five days whilst shooting a commercial in California in February 2016. I’ve since re-drafted it, but it only took me a short amount of time to write because I had the idea.”

The SNJ asked Guy about his favourite aspect of the film making process.

“It’s kind of hard to explain, because it’s more of a feeling than a part. There are all these different sections, lighting, sound, hair, make-up, and when you see everything come together as one moving part, it kind of establishes the world.

“When it makes you feel something.”

Philophobia will premiere on Netflix and Amazon Prime next year.