“THE movies we make have to achieve two core goals,” says Bournemouth film producer Adam J Merrifield.

“One of them is social comment on the way we live, or a comment on British society. The other one is that it’s entertainment.”

Those two aims came together in last year’s low-budget horror K-Shop, in which kebab shop owner Ziad Abaza turns drunken, abusive customers into take-aways.

Later this year, the 44-year-old boss of White Lantern Film is due to start production on Britannica, another collaboration with K-Shop’s writer-director Dan Pringle. This time, Brexit is the inspiration, with a story set in 2051, when a wall has been built around Britain to keep out foreigners.

With a £7million budget, against K-Shop’s £147,000, it is set to feature some very well-known actors. “It’s a completely different type of production,” he says.

Born in Southampton, Adam Merrifield moved to Bournemouth when his parents bought a hotel there. After attending Bethany, Malmesbury Park and Portchester schools, he went to Southampton Solent University and worked in marketing at the Nuffield Theatre.

White Lantern was set up at the Enterprise Pavilion at Arts University Bournemouth in 2005, offering training and developing short films and documentaries.

“Bournemouth was a great place to come and set a business up. There was a lot going on here and there wasn’t a lot of competition. It was very easy to be professional with the background I had from theatre, using my knowledge and understanding of how people need time and space to be creative,” he says.

At that time, when setting up in the industry cost a lot of money and the advertising agency sector was booming, the business enjoyed rapid growth – but that changed.

“A lot of things were coming online that were changing the creative landscape and making it harder to be competitive.Around 2012-13 we decided to completely change direction as a business,” he says.

By then, the company had made the feature-length documentary Drying For Freedom, about communities in the US that banned hanging clothes on a line.

Mr Merrifield decided White Lantern would focus on feature films, but would also deal with talent development and events. The Light Side (now renamed TLS) would deal with corporate video work.

K-Shop was inspired by the drunken antics taking place outside the company’s offices.

“Dan and I would be working late and we would hear the sirens. We had lots of conversations as he and I would debate why people were getting drunk and throwing up in the street and fighting – really intensive discussions – and from all that, the K-Shop story came about,” says Mr Merrifield.

“There was a Eureka moment where we said, ‘That’s like Sweeney Todd in a kebab shop’. That’s when it really took hold.”

The budget came largely from crowdfunding and from the business’s own money.

“K-Shop was really a lot of people investing as individuals, in our careers, in us as people, believing in our vision,” he says.

A producer on a low-budget film does whatever needs doing, he says. “You do what’s necessary to make the film happen. That could be driving the cast to the set or going around on set encouraging people, going out and buying props, building the set, dismantling the set. It’s just everything because it’s a small team.”

Britannica will be a big step up.“Anything under £1million, it’s likely you’re making the movie on spec. The minute you can go over £1m you have to pre-arrange distribution to raise the money,” he says. His role, he says, will be more akin to a company chief executive, taking a strategic view of the production.

The new film will be shot in Wales, but it will boost Bournemouth’s economy. “There’s no point trying to run a film company or video company without investing in the community,” the producer says.

Professional services such as legal work and accounts will be done locally, while visual effects worth £1m will be created by Outpost VFX on Richmond Hill.

“There will probably be a good £2m going to other local businesses from that budget,” he adds.

He welcomes much that is going on in the town, including the development of BH2 and the Hilton. But he is frustrated that Bournemouth does not have more of a debate about the problems caused by its stag and hen trade. Much of the drunken yobbery depicted in K-Shop was candid footage captured in Bournemouth town centre.

“I would like to say everything in K-Shop was fiction. I love this town, it’s a great town,” he says.

“We’ve got a strong creative community, a strong financial sector, some strong businesses here,” he adds. “The town can afford to try and get its night time economy and tourist industry under control. It doesn’t have to pander to that.”

n White Lantern is organising Short Sounds Film Festival, from October 12-15, which will celebrate sound and music in the movies. Details are at shortsounds.co.uk