The film deals in a blackly comic way with a future where people can choose the nature of their babies and what happens to the rejects. Shot in a mixture of black-and-white and colour with a powerful impressionistic jazz soundtrack by Lee Sykes it raises all sorts of moral issues without preaching.

On the use of black-and-white:

"We called in favours and like all low-budget/no-budget productions sought out the cheapest ways. For example the "real" baby at the end was created by a Swedish firm at a fraction of the Hollywood cost."

Funding:

"The Knights of Saint Columba, a Registered Charity, put up most of the money because of the subject matter. Yorkshire Arts Board turned us down saying the script "lacked character." Now it seems that if an Art Board turns down a script we are 100% guaranteed to go out and make it! Of the five awards they did hand out three folded ... didn't even make it to the final cut. They were handing out £10,000 a time. We raised £3,000 and have now won several international awards and are hoping for a distribution deal with a cinema chain."

Future:

"We've made a three minute comedy on digital video talking about the meaning of life. We've got a budget now for a nice comedy called Eric Saves The Day about a boy that breaks his dad's window. And I am going for a low-budget feature film - a black comedy - about two grannies.

"If you want a revolution in film making, I'm all for it. As far as I'm concerned we don't have an industry in Britain. But, for example, I didn't hear of the IAC until we started going to festivals. There is a wealth of talent - I hate using the words "amateur" or "professional", we're all just film makers of every calibre. It's our choice what we make. We have great talent but you don't get in unless you know the right people. It happens everywhere, it's the way of the world. You just have to have determination.

"We're trying to shoot more and more on super-8mm. Though digital is great I still think that for saturation, depth and colour you can't touch film. Now with Pro-8mm from America offering stock, cameras, telecine deals and so on in this country we can do that. You can transfer it onto DV and download it into your computer for editing. "

A regular team:

"There's too much money wasted in making films. It would be lovely to be paid, to have it as a full-time job, but at the same time if you want to make something you need a group of people round you which is very important. Film makers like Robert Rodriguez and Ken Russell are great influences.

"There's a couple of us in York who have got together and the press coverage for Designer Babies as it wins awards has created a lot of interest. Mike Harman, director of Brassed Off is based in York and he is the first established film maker who has written back to me and wished me luck. He is trying to set up a film funding body up there - but funding bodies are all changing once again. There a worry that money will revert to the "London cronies" again. You could get bitter ... but there's no point. You find ways round it. Look at the book 'Rebel Without A Crew' by Robert Rodriguez - it's the movie making bible for me."