LFA Students Get Crash Course on Short-Form Horror Filmmaking From 'Pearls' Team

17 April 2026

Recently, we were pleased to welcome LFA alumni, director Alastair Train and cinematographer Giovanni Compagnoni to the LFA Cinema for a screening of their short film Pearls. Between instructing LFA BA (Hons) Filmmaking and MA Filmmaking students, Alastair and Gio have been touring Europe and the US with their horror short film, picking up numerous accolades for their cautionary tale on the Cronenbergian dangers of eating oysters.

Pearls has picked up awards all across the film festival circuit, including 'Best Cinematography' at Exit 6 Film Festival, 'Best International Short' at the Nevermore Film Festival, 'Best Makeup' at the Unrestricted View Horror Film Festival, and most recently 'Best Horror Short' at the Poppy Jasper Film Festival.

Man directing actor in scene at table

Pearls was screened for LFA students alongside Samuel Clemens’ The Drowned, with a Q&A discussion taking place afterwards, moderated by LFA’s Nina Xyda. The short film follows Tony and Linda, a couple who are struggling to conceive a child together. As they grow desperate, Tony resorts to black market means of increasing fertility – magical oysters, which leads to some unintended consequences.

Pearls’ unique premise came about in the simplest of ways: a natural aversion to oysters. Alastair shared with our students how the idea took shape:

My brother was telling me about an oyster he was eating, that was thick and foamy. It was so grotesque an image that I was kind of like, ‘Right, well, I want to transform someone into a hybrid oyster person.’ So I knew it would kind of be a horror.

Alastair Train

Alastair found that the idea lent itself thematically to an exploration of masculinity, and how certain areas of the health industry can prey on common fears among men such as balding, low testosterone, and fertility issues.

Shaping the look of Pearls

Alastair collaborated with Gio as his director of photography, having worked together on several films prior to Pearls. Both fans of classic 1980s body horror films, they worked closely together in pre-production to strike a balance between the aesthetics they’ve achieved together on past projects and the look they were trying to achieve with Pearls.

Alastair explained:

I spent a lot of time storyboarding and planning everything. And then I got Gio in, and I said, “So what isn’t going to work?” We kind of just know. Every film, we've always tried to change our visual style a little bit, sort of evolving in what we’re trying to achieve. ‘80s, body horror-inspired, [John] Carpenter. Those were the references I was sending to Gio.

Alastair Train

Gio added:

I wanted to find the same mood, that kind of ‘80s vibe. But because we’re shooting in digital, in 4K, I also wanted to factor that in. It’s a modern film. We tried to be timeless with our production design, and that’s what I tried to do in terms of cinematography. So with a light that is, at times, quite harsh and kind of ‘80s inspired, and then with the camera side of it, something quite clean and digital looking, and see whether that contrast would create the sort of mood that we were looking for.

Giovanni Compagnoni

Behind the scenes in basement on film set

Capturing horror in a short film length

When working out the narrative structure for Pearls, Alastair found that he wanted to maintain the steady building of dread that can be found in feature-length body horror inspirations like The Thing (1982) and The Fly (1986), but compressing it to short film length without making it feel rushed. With this, Alastair emphasised the dramatic plot points of Pearls, allowing them room to breathe before the short’s sharp turn into horror.

Alastair outlined his thought process:

While we were filming, I always knew I wanted to build up the tension, and give the audience members a chance to think, ‘Why are you making this terrible decision?’ It’s putting yourself in their shoes, basically.

Alastair Train

Two people staring at giant oyster

Alastair emphasised to LFA students the importance of being ruthless with your own work however, and how you need to get used to having to ‘kill your darlings’:

For a short, every second counts. [You need to] be brutal with your film. My editor, Inigo, who was an LFA student, he was fairly brutal with the cut. And as a director, you’re always like, ‘No, please give me the ball!’ [laughs]. But you have to accept that you hire people who are good at that job, because that’s what they do in the industry. That’s their career.

Alastair Train

List of accolades for 'Pearls' short film

Pearls on the festival circuit

Alastair and Gio have found immense success with Pearls on the festival circuit, but they’re quick to say that this wasn’t paramount to their plans when making their short. Gaining recognition in film circles is exciting, and a clear calling card for your filmmaking career, but more important than that is to make the film that you set out to make in the first place.

Alastair shared:

If you’re making a film, make stuff that’s true to you, and what you think is original and different. With that in mind, when I made this film, I wasn’t thinking [about specific] festivals. There are big genre film festivals, and you have those in mind, but if you want to make something that’s true to yourself, you can’t be like, ‘My film will definitely get into these festivals.’ It’s just not realistic.

Alastair Train

We’d like to thank Alastair and Gio for sharing Pearls with our students, who hugely enjoyed it and loved hearing about how it came together behind the scenes – and will certainly be reconsidering their relationship with seafood for months to come.