UNTIL not so long ago, would-be filmmakers had three options: Option 1: Endure starvation wages or no wages at all as you work your way up from making the tea. Hope against hope that after five years or 10 or 20 you’ll be allowed to pitch your cherished idea to some bored studio executives with about as much artistic vision as a housebrick, and that they won’t mutilate it too much.

Option 2: Provided you have a generous family of multi-millionaires to bankroll the devastating costs of 35mm cine cameras, editing suites and so on, make your film straight away.

Option 3: Give up your dreams and get a conventional job instead.

These days, though, there’s a growing new breed of filmmakers. They have new technology, new attitudes and a new option: Option 4: Do the whole thing yourself and be answerable only to the public and your own vision.

“It’s a lot easier to reach that professional level,” said Alex Secker, who at 25 is managing director of an emerging Swindon studio called 22six Productions.

“It’s not all about equipment, obviously. You have to know what you’re doing and have a certain amount of talent, but the availability of editing software makes it easier to reach professional quality.”

Proof of this can be found on the company’s YouTube channel, especially in a short thriller called Online. Filmed with a digital SLR camera using a small local cast, it’s a genuinely impressive piece of work that offers a new take on the well-worn ‘young people home alone in peril’ genre.

The cast includes 47-year-old Mark Starr, a sign language interpreter by day.

“I got back into acting in 2011,” he said. “I’d done it years ago at school.

“Then I found you could get independent filmmakers locally. I was amazed at what could be done by them.”

Fellow cast member Connor Hunt-Preston, 18, is a performing arts student who secured his Silent Assassin role via a casting website.

“I thought I’d go for it,” he said. “I looked at the script and thought it was really good. The film shows what can be done now.”

The firm makes corporate documentaries and promos, wedding films, music videos and everything else one might expect from a growing production outfit. Every client can expect the same dedication the company brings to all its work, but Alex readily admits that feature films are the ultimate goal.

22six is named for the birthday of Alex’s young daughter, Madison. He founded the company earlier this year after being made redundant by Nationwide.

He’d already freelanced as a camera operator and editor for other local filmmakers, and written and directed a couple of short films of his own: Silent Assassin and Wishful Thinking.

Alex is a New College Creative Media Diploma graduate, and filmmaking is what he’s wanted to do since childhood. He remembers the first time he was impressed by the way a film was made.

“I think I was about eight and I watched Reservoir Dogs – my mum would kill me if she knew that. It was the first time I remember thinking that there was more to filmmaking than ‘point, shoot, cut’.

“I was struck by the sequence where they’re walking in slow motion.”

Alex is clear about his ambitions for the future. “Not to downplay the other stuff,” he said, “it’s our bread and butter work, but the end result for me will be to be able to make a feature film.

“The best way to do that will be to have a collection of dramatic pieces and short films that we can take to somebody and say: ‘Here’s what I can do and here’s my script for a feature film – give me money.”