King of the creature feature

David Ellis had no intention to be a film director. In the seventies he was one of America's top "action athletes'' and the third highest ranked surfer in the world. Then everything went off script.

"I met these stunt people in Malibu and I started hanging out with them and they were telling me all their stories,'' he says.

"They called me up one day because they brought a guy in to do this tricky water stunt and he couldn't do it.

"I went down and did it for them and that's how I got into the business.''

Ellis says being a Hollywood stunt man was the perfect career transition because he was still achieving "that adrenaline rush''. Working on classics such as Scarface, Lethal Weapon and Patriot Games, Ellis says being on set was like "getting paid to go to film school''.

"Coming up through the ranks I got to work with so many great directors with different styles,'' he says.

"I got to understand how action could be executed and the best way to capture that.''

His eye for action led Ellis to second unit directing roles on films such as The Devil's Own, the Perfect Storm and The Matrix Reloaded - he was responsible for creating the three-way chase scene - and to directing his own features including Final Destination 2 and Cellular.But it was the Samuel L. Jackson vehicle Snakes On A Plane that really put Ellis on the motherfucking map.An instant cult hit, Ellis says he still gets letters from fans saying "they've seen the movie over 200 times''.

"I was really surprised with the cult following that happened,'' he says.

"When MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) inducted it into their museum archives . . . it was crazy.

"It's got some classic stuff in there you will never see in a movie, ever, like the guy that gets bitten in the bathroom. Not every movie has that.''

Certainly audiences haven't seen six different species of shark fighting over a group of tasty college students like they will in his latest film Shark Night 3D. Although Ellis says he likes his films to "not take themselves too seriously'', Shark Night 3D "taps into a universal fear''

"People are inherently afraid of sharks,'' he says.

"Sharks mystify people. It's a guilty pleasure being terrified of sharks and people are aware of that when they're in oceans and now, because of my movie, in lakes.''

Shark Night 3D follows seven college students who retreat to a lake house for the weekend.Little do they know the lake is filled with ravenous sharks whose owners are using the kids as bait.

"Real bull sharks have gone miles up river and been found in places you would never expect,'' Ellis, who says there is an element of reality to his horror comedy.

"You're trying to put people in situations where they feel like they're trapped.

"These kids are trapped on island with sharks in the water, previously it was being trapped on a plane with snakes.

"They're ridiculous movies with an element of fun to them.''

Due to the different species of sharks used in the film Ellis says "unfortunately'' they weren't able to film real ones.Instead they relied on CGI and animatronic sharks, technologies he was comfortable using after working second unit on another big shark film; Deep Blue Sea, also with Samuel L. Jackson.

"It definitely helped me,'' he says.

"I've done second unit directing on a lot of water films and from working with the animatronic sharks on that, I knew what their limitations were.

"It was a big plus because I was able to plan a scene with either CGI or a model to make it as terrifying as possible.''

Shark Night 3D is out today. To read my story on David Ellis' next project, Kite, click here.