So tell me about Ruling Class.

Ruling Class is a four-part web series, about a character called Quentin who is running in his school’s elections, the winner of which will become headmaster of the school. At first he’s very sceptical of the elections, thinking that people are just running for the benefit of their CVs. However, a girl that he likes starts to take an interest in him and the elections, and as a result he decides to run and takes the elections far more seriously.

And how was the idea formed?

I had an initial script about the elections, which I ended up developing with Matthew Lee and Mark Danciger , who I met through CineCam (the university filmmaking society). Then we casted within Cambridge, raised the money to make the film, and ended up shooting it for over a week and a half in London.

The series is clearly engaged in politics; would you say it’s a satirical piece?

Well the series is aimed at kids, hence the high school setting, but we are definitely trying to poke fun at certain political conventions as well. All the candidates and pupils, based on their opinions, fit into different parts of the political spectrum, so there’s definitely an element of satire in the show.

So would you say the show is attacking our political culture?

The show is definitely satirical, but I don’t think we necessarily have any agenda or that we’re attacking anything in particular. The show is aimed at kids, and through the show we want to encourage more young people to get involved in politics. One of the reasons Quentin starts to gain support is because he utilises his musical talent to create a more engaging campaign, and that’s the main message of the show; that politics can and should be more fun and engaging.

You crowdfunded in order to make the film, which nowadays is a really popular method for getting productions off the ground. What were your experiences with it?

The first problem was that we didn’t know how much to ask for, but we ended up trying to raise £3,000. I think the main thing we tried to do in order to reach our target was to show how much we cared about the project; we prepared a lot of drawings of what we thought the show would look like, we made a video interviewing the cast about their characters and the story, and we just tried to prepare as much as possible so people didn’t feel like they were just throwing away their money. It ended up being a big success as we raised just over £3,500. That and the money we received from within Cambridge and from ThinkBig, an O2-run initiative, meant we could start production as soon as possible.

What are your opinions on the filmmaking scene in Cambridge?

I think the scene is definitely growing as more and more films have been made over the last year or so. I think big projects like Ruling Class definitely help. Due to time commitments, we had a different crew on set practically every day, which meant people got to try out loads of different skills and components of filmmaking. I think people are definitely put off by filmmaking mainly because they don’t know where to start. But at CineCam we’re starting to do more introductory workshops, teaching people the basics of filmmaking. Once you’ve made your first film, you start to get pretty addicted, so those kinds of thing I believe are helping to expand the scene.

Has it been tough to keep going or have you always had the motivation to complete it?

Yeah it’s been a long process, but the best thing is that there have been no arguments among the main team, we’ve always been on the same page. Assembling the post production team took a lot longer than we thought; for roles such as a composer, we had to look outside of Cambridge and ended up using people at film schools, which took up a lot of our time. But I’m really glad we’ve got to this stage. So many people worked on the project, and it’s great to finally have something to show for all the effort that people put in.

And finally, why should people watch Ruling Class?

Well first of all, if you know young people that you want to get engaged in politics, the show is a great place to start. But above all I just think it’s great piece of comedy-drama. While the show does have other motives, I think it is first and foremost a piece of entertainment that everyone will hopefully enjoy.

The first episode of Ruling Class is available on YouTube now.