Since he picked up his first video camera around nine years ago, Nils Croné has been making his own films at a fairly constant rate. Now, he is studying film theory at university and has just released his latest film, Campsite, his longest running (both in terms of duration and production time). He took some time out of his busy life to answer a few questions about himself and his film career.

How long have you been making films for?
It depends on how you look at it. I started filming small stop-motion films using Lego characters and sets when I was about 10 years old using a digital stills camera my family bought. It sort of naturally evolved into the filmmaking I’m into today – at first I filmed loads of short films just featuring me and my friends jumping into chairs – sort of a “Jackass” ripoff. Just around when I had my 12th birthday I found out about FXhome, or as it was called back then, CSB-Digital, and their nifty piece of software called AlamDV2. This prompted me to start making my own action shorts with me and friends basically running around the house shooting at eachother. These sort of small projects, as well as me watching loads and loads of films in my spare time, led to even more filmmaking, something I still love doing today.

What made you want to start making your own films?
Not sure really – I’ve always loved small projects and challenges, something to work with on my spare time – I guess my constant watching of behind-the-scenes documentaries on DVDs has prompted me to continue with my filmmaking, as I’ve always viewed the film industry as fascinating, and always wanted to figure out how they pull off the effects in films like Star Wars or The Matrix.

What is your favourite part of making films?
Heh, don’t make me choose! Right now I think I almost enjoy every part from pre-production to post-production equally – after thinking, the most fun part is probably shooting the film and directing actors from behind the camera. It’s really fun to see your script come to life – something I really saw for the first time while making Campsite through the dedication of the actors and actresses.

Have you entered any competitions/won any awards?
I haven’t entered a lot of comptetitions, nor sure why as it’s a whole lot of fun. I’ve entered a few competitions back in high school with Zombie Exterminator, which won a “best film” award. Also, I did win the Hauntfest horror competition on FXhome.com back in 2006 with my short film Cell. As Campsite was in part a project I made my last year at high school, I entered a competition at school with loads of other projects in vastly different subjects, as my high school first and foremost was a science school. And it won a prize for best project at school, which was really crazy and fun. Haven’t figured out what they were thinking just yet. Joking aside, I’d like to enter more of my future films in competitions, and also some challenges with set deadlines – sort of a 24-hour or 48-hour marathon project.

Who is your favourite director and why?
It’s a tie between Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. Tarantino mainly because I love pretty much all of his films – Reservoir Dogs is one of my absolute favorites. Also, I find his scripts and mainly his dialouge really cool – hoping myself I’ll be able to write dialouge as smart or witty, but it’s quite difficult as it’s impossible to write anything resembeling cool in Swedish. I’m a fan of Rodriguez’s films and mostly, his way to work. The way he pretty much makes Hollywood films in his own backyard (in a really huge backyard and with loads of money, but nevertheless) and edits and shoots them himself. It sort of reminds me of a more low-budget version of filmmaking, the sort I’m used to, although on a much larger scale, of course.

Who would you like to work with someday? (can be cast or crew)
Not sure about cast really, it would be awesome to get a chance to work with Tom Cruise or Michael Chiklis (playing the same character he does in The Shield), my two favorite actors. Favorite crew I’m not really sure of – it’d be fun to work around Tarantino or Rodriguez. Although it’d be fun to also make films with friends I’ve met through FXhome. Last summer I shot a sci-fi film with among others the FXhome team and Ashley Wing up in Norwich, UK, and it was really awesome, one of the best experienes I’ve had in my life. So it’d be fun to be involved in more films people with people from FXhome.

What do you hope to achieve because of your films? (Filmmaking as a job or just a hobby?)
My goal is to become a full-time filmmaker, and have it as a job. Hopefully a combination of directing, cinematography and post-production would be great. I have started to work on a few higher budget films here in Sweden – just came back from a week of shooting a new fantasy film called “Super Hero” as a script supervisor, with a large crew and some really cool equipment; we shot on the RED ONE camera, which is just astonishing. I’ll be studying film theory come this fall at university, which will hopefully help me more in pursuing a career as a filmmaker, while being a whole lot of fun.

Now that Campsite is released, do you have any ideas about what your next film project will be?
At first, I think I’m just going to sleep for a few days. It’s been over 13 months since I started writing the script for the film, and most of my free time has been going to shooting and editing it the last year. But I’m also planning to start filming my next film, and hopefully have another short filmed and ready for editing before university starts the 1st of September. I don’t have a script ready just yet, but it’d be fun to shoot something quite dialouge-heavy, as I feel it’s a subject I need to get better at, just shooting normal conversations between people. After which, I do have some plans to go out and make a sequel to Zombie Exterminator some day with a larger budget, but that’s still quite far away on the horizon.

Campsite is available to view at Redhawk Productions’ website.