production. Among the other actors that appear in the film are Thora Hird, Gordon Jackson, David King-Wood, Harold Lang, Lionel Jeffries, and Sam Kydd, many of whom appeared regularly in films directed by Val Guest. The Quatermass Xperiment also saw an early role for Jane Asher, who plays the little girl whom Carroon encounters when he is on the run. Filming Val Guest was hired to direct the film. He began his career co-writing comedies such as Oh, Mr Porter! (1937) and Ask a Policeman (1939) before moving into directing with Miss London Ltd. (1943). His first directing job for Hammer was on Life with the Lyons (1954) and he went on to direct their first two colour features: The Men of Sherwood Forest (1954) and Break in the Circle (1954). Guest had little interest in science fiction and was unenthusiastic about directing the film; he reluctantly took copies of Nigel Kneale's television scripts with him on holiday in Tangiers and only began reading them after being teased for his "ethereal" attitude by his wife, Yolande Donlan. Impressed by what he read and pleased to be offered the opportunity to break away from directing comedy films, he took the job. In his approach to directing the film, Guest sought to make "a slightly wild story more believable" by creating a "science fact" film, shot "as though shooting a special programme for the BBC or something". Influenced by Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950), Guest employed a cinéma vérité style, making extensive use of hand-held camera, even on set, an unusual technique for the time which horrified several of the technicians employed on the film. To inject pace and add further realism into the story, Guest directed his actors to deliver their lines rapid-fire and to overlap the dialogue. A meticulous planner, he created storyboards for every shot and mounted them on a blackboard so as to brief the crew for each day's scenes. As a consequence, some members of the crew found Guest's approach to be too mechanical. Principal photography began on 12 October 1954 with a night shoot at Chessington Zoo and continued from 18 October 1954 into December. The budget was £42,000, low even by the standards of Hammer at the time. Special effects technician Les Bowie recalled, "We did Quatermass on a budget so low it wasn't a real budget. I did it for wages not