Charlie Productions : How To Make A Film In 48 Hours
09.03.10 Great Little Place…
Newly sprouting in the ever fertile virtual soil of the internet, I Know This Great Little Place In London, is a great site for those looking to sniff out the otherwise hidden gems of our fair capital. They’ve just published this list of the best cinemas in London which, I’m slightly shocked to say, contains a couple I’d not heard of…
1. Everyman Cinema – Hampstead (or Belsize Park if that’s closer because, as Adam Davison said, ‘Everyman Belsize is a luxury transatlantic cruise ship to Hampstead’s cosy steamer’. Adam you travel in style). The word luxury cinema doesn’t even do the Everyman Hampstead justice. This is the Tom Ford of the cinema world. There are two screening rooms, which seat 142 and 72. The smaller one is almost entirely sofas – perfect for snuggle time in a back-row-at-fourteen-years-old kind of way. Order champagne. Order beer. Order chocolate truffles if you’re a little bit fancy. http://bit.ly/dn9tlW
Thanks for the tipoff: Adam Davison
2. Shortwave cinema – Bermondsey Art house meets independent movies at Shortwave cinema. Their screen has a capacity of 52 (so properly intimate) and the café/bar serves up all the alcohol, soft drinks, coffee and snacks you need to keep you on the edge of your seat. http://bit.ly/9LnVeb
Thanks for the tipoff: Ashish Patel.
3. The Phoenix Cinema – East Finchley If an old cinema is your bag, try this one. Set up in 1910, it doesn’t get much older. Under its modern skin, lies an historic auditorium with unique Edwardian and art deco features. It’s even been listed Grade II, so you know it’s good. http://bit.ly/9Za0Cr
Thanks for the tipoff: Louise Stapley.
4. The Electric – Notting Hill Cinema sleepers beware: if you have a tendency to nod off, this place will only make your condition worse. Plush leather armchairs, sofas for couples and comfy footstools are the order of the day. http://bit.ly/cVz5Nh
Thanks for the tipoff: Anton Bell.
5. The Garrison – London Bridge Not a cinema. But, beneath this quaint gastropub, you’ll find your own little screening room for you and Mr/Mrs. Special. Your evening is down to you and your excellent choice in film. So choose wisely. http://bit.ly/9XXgyz
Thanks for the tipoff: Tassanie Johnston.
6. Lexi Cinema – Kensal Rise Cosy 80-seater venue in North-West London. It’s the city’s first “social enterprise” art house cinema, where all profits go to charity. So you can be entertained and feel good at the same time. There tend to be chic parties going on around that area so keep your ears to the ground if you fancy venturing off into the night post-flic. http://bit.ly/aVrORD
Thanks for the tip off: Leloly Lukki.
Plus here are four recommendations from our GLP back pocket:
7. One Aldwych Hotel – Covent Garden This little number got quite a lot of attention on our wall/twitter. If you really want to impress your special someone, take them here to ‘Moet on the menu’ at the weekend. Champagne + Three Course Meal + Movie = Gold Dust. http://bit.ly/d3Gyld
8. Soho Hotel – Soho There’s a small sumptuous screening room that snuggly fits 45 (i.e. 22 couples and 1 gooseberry I’m afraid) downstairs at the Soho Hotel. The cow skin seats are a sight to be seen.
Their Film Club takes place every Sunday, and includes a Champagne Afternoon Tea or a three course lunch or dinner, and the movie (which starts at 3.30pm). The damage: £35.00 per special someone. http://bit.ly/b6e8WY
9. The Exhibit – Balham This little gem is a filmic concoction of cinema, restaurant and bar. The cinema room seats 56 on leather sofas for two. What more could you want? http://bit.ly/aDPPt7
10. It was going to be the Rex Cinema – Westminster, but it’s closed down. Boo. Thanks to Jas and Anne for pointing that out. So instead, by popular demand, it’s… Screen on the Green in Islington. Go go go! http://bit.ly/cNmecp
Which is great but can you really miss out the Curzon? The Soho Curzon is still the cinema I’m most likely to be found in and still strikes me as the best balance between art house hang-out and cared for screening room and the Mayfair branch is posh enough to be impressive for high class nights without teetering over into being more about the interior design and bar facilities. But that’s just my opinion…
I took this picture in cafe of the Curzon soho one night…
04.03.10 Your Vote Is Entirely Immaterial.
Unless my recent listing in Movie Maker as one of the top 50 filmmaking blogs has massively increased my readership amongst Academy members, the chances are that your opinion on who is going to win an Oscars TM Award is entirely irrelevant to the record of human history. As in most things in life, frankly, you don’t matter.
Sorry if that’s a little brusque but I’m fed up of the way the media constantly hollers at me that I should ‘have my say’ on the matters of the day as if my angrily hammering out an email to the Today programme is going to achieve anything except a momentary continuation of the pre-existing tedium in the daily working routine of whoever it is that reads the emails that come into the Today programme (which, by the way, for those Academy members currently reading this in LA, is a thing on British Radio that exists purely to make middle class english people feel like they are still in school and the headmaster is still cross…)
However, whilst I detest the entirely fallacious sense of democracy created by this constant summons to pointless spouting off, I love gambling – so therefore I’m urging you to click on the link below and try and second guess the Academy on the off chance that in so doing you’ll win dollar bills. Unless of course you are one my new readers from the Academy in which case I don’t think it’d be ethical for you to enter this competition.
http://shootingpeople.org/poll/oscars2010/
Remember though folks, it’s a gambling quiz not a chance to influence the voting for the real an Oscars Awards TM. So whichever planks out there have voted for District 9 for best picture – you really need to sort yourself out. It’s not going to win. You’ve just wasted like 80 seconds of your life having that thought and clicking the button. Did you imagine that my readers from the Academy would glance at the pie charts and see the way you’d angled the voting and change their minds? These guys are intelligent, free thinking, cineliterate types – they’re not going to be swayed by 1.7% of the Shooting People population voting for a film. They’re clearly only going to vote for the film that offers them the best goodies or for Jeff Bridges because he hasn’t won one yet and it’s legally his go. That said District 9 is by the guy who invented that dancing citroen robot (which is why all the aliens look like dancing citroen robots). Now I always thought that carbot was too realistic to just be CG. Perhaps he’s actually made a whole bunch of them and he’s giving them away to members of the Academy. Sound unlikey? Well – THAT IS THE ONLY REASON WHY DISTRICT 9 COULD WIN BEST PICTURE. So don’t click on it because then you can’t win the money. OK?
THIS IS NOT REAL.
02.03.10 Pitagora Suichi
There’s a japanese tv programme which you can find using your googling fingers called Pitagora Suichi which is a constant delight to me no matter how many times I put it on. The new video for “OK Go” steals the idea and whilst at first I found this a bit winsome and was childishly irked by what looks like a pretty obvious edit in the shower curtain sequence, I have to admit that by the end I was rather won over by this silly and oddly inspiring video.
02.03.10 Taking A Hammering.
I’m delighted to say that there are a pair of brilliant comments on the end of my recent posting about self distribution. If you’ve not yet seen them then go here http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog/2010/02/diy/ and have a look at two very interesting case studies.
My original question was whether anyone chose to self-distribute their film or whether in truth it was always something forced on them but the disinterest of the established system. Hammad clearly answers that with the case of Lance Hammer who did indeed turn down a distribution deal for his film “Ballast” to do it himself.
I can completely see Hammer’s argument but you have to ask if the time and energy he committed to self-distribution was worth that extra $30k. Seems unlikely when it is suggested that he raised an additional $250k for the P&A.
As is generally the case in discussions about distribution, these numbers are all annoyingly flimsy. I can’t find any quotes for the original budget and I wouldn’t remortgage anything based on IMDB figures. Neither have I seen “Ballast” but it’s a highly praised, award winning film, listed among the Guardian’s “Top 10 Films of 2009 you probably won’t have seen”, which is surely not the best advert for self distribution…
However the other issue that came up last week was that of the self-distribution of feature films. I flippantly wrote that “…No one considers a self-distribution strategy. You are forced to accept a self-distribution strategy because distributors don’t yet trust you to back you…” and understandably some people leapt to the defence of their projects.
The brilliant Zahra Zomorrodian wrote “…yes it can mean one hasn’t yet garnered the trust or support of the industry – BUT – it could also be because the filmmaker has decided upfront that that is the best way to get their film in front of an audience…”
Now I have to be honest, this struck me as an odd thing to say. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that self-distribution is a mistake or even a bad thing. Nor am I implying that films that don’t get picked up by a distributor are necessarily bad. Distributors make a commercial decision, not a creative one. There are huge numbers of films that do “get distribution” which are utterly abysmal and many that don’t which never the less deserve to be seen. I’m not even saying that self-distribution is an uncommercial option, even making a purely financial call on a film is a very hard job and clearly Distributors do sometimes just get it wrong.
What struck me as odd about Zahra’s comment though was the idea that a filmmaker would chose self-distribution over having the job handled by someone more experienced and much better connected. However Zahra was not the only one to take issue with my throw-away remark. Seb Smith wrote “…my first no- budget film was picked up by Lionsgate but considering self-dist for my next one as don’t want to sign all my rights away for 20 years…”
Zahra closed her response with this…
“I think the industry is on the cusp of a whole new way of working at the moment and a lot of that revolves around distribution and exhibition. One of the films we currently have on our slate is a definite self distribution case, whereas with the rest we will be looking at a more traditional model.”
This fascinates me. Like I say, I completely see the value in self-distribution but turning to it as a definite preference over using an established Distributor? Who else is planning this? Is it genuinely a preference or just a good alternative? What are the benefits?
26.02.10 Going Round In Circles.
Unnecessary apologises for my silence over the past few days, which was caused in part by a trip to Gillingham to talk to some students about filmmaking.
A few years back a corporate job for St.Pancras Station turned me into a bit of a train geek so I was childishly excited to have a reason to travel on the new high speed line that goes from St.Pancras to Ebbsfleet, sadly still one of the least glamorous names ever given to a place. It’s genuinely only about fifteen minutes from Kings Cross to Stratford. Obviously the downside of this is that then you’re in Stratford but Phil’ll be running the East End Film Festival there soon so at least all that rail infrastructure investment wasn’t a total waste.
Once we got to Gillingham though our journey became a little harder. We decided to walk from the station to the college but, guided by an iPhone, we seemed to take a strange zig zagging course through the town. However this sign suggested that it might not have been entirely the fault of the computer…
That’s right, Gillingham Town centre is one and a quarter miles to our left and also one and a quarter miles to our right. I think that means Gillingham is a sphere roughly two and a half miles in circumference, which explains a lot.
18.02.10 Precisely The Point.
Oh huzzah and joy for the internet.
I wrote a couple of days ago about what I saw to be a classic example of the bad casting call. I think my post was pretty clear that I did this not out of any desire to blacken the name of the director responsible, but rather to highlight the importance of wording these posts correctly.
There has been a lot of anger about the unpaid work that gets advertised on Shooting People and a lot of hot air spouted about exploitation. This post seemed a classic example of why the actors who use Shooting People often feel so hard done by, why they feel that there is so little good work available to them on the site. Actors wrote in support of my post both on the site and to me in person.
However Mark McDermott’s eloquent defence of his project (which you can read here http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog/2010/02/not-a-good-casting/) proves my real point. I made it plain in my original post that I didn’t believe Mark was trying to exploit anyone and his reply makes it clear that he is an intelligent, thoughtful, dedicated professional who is trying to make a challenging and complex film. In short, Mark is actually precisely the sort of director that the actors who use SP should want to work with.
I’ve not set out to attack him personally and I’m sorry if anyone felt that it was unfair of me to name him, I was simply quoting from a public posting not divulging any private conversations. However I am glad that his reply has given me this chance to publicly praise him – and also given him a chance to set straight a few of the confusions about his project that his posting created. I am far from alone in seeing the underscoring of the importance of female nudity in a project as a worrying sign and it’s great to read that far from insisting on it, the matter is entirely open to discussion.
However, the crucial point remains – through some bad choices of wording this talented director has made his project look much less appealing than it actually is. Not only that but in so doing he has added to false perception that the SP Casting list is full of men desperate to cast naked women and that it doesn’t contain gem jobs that will open up an actor to some new and brilliant creative partnerships.
The biggest problem with an online service like Shooting People is that contributors often forget who they are actually writing to. In your room, at your computer, the delight is how personal and chatty a service like SP can be. But don’t forget that it is read by thousands of people. Advertising a job on Shooters is not something you should do in a hurry because, as we have seen, it is all too easy to create a very false impression as to the nature of the project you are embarking on.
Equally, I have long thought that many of the actors who attack the jobs on SP do so without a full understanding of what is going on. The fact that Mark has turned out to be such a genuine and thoughtful person rather proves that point.
17.02.10 Rocliffe – Call For Scripts!
Regular readers and obsessive bear stalkers will remember that at the end of November last year Chris and I were lucky enough to have our feature script “Hallo Panda” performed and scrutinised as part of the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum.
Better still the doors are now open for your script to go through the same rigorous but vital gruelling… your script, brought alive by an amazing cast, at BAFTA, in front of one of your all time film making heroes? Why are you not clicking on the link below already…?
MAY 2000 to MAY 2010 – 10 YEARS OF ROCLIFFE FORUMS – CALL FOR SCRIPTS
The BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum invites submissions for its forthcoming 10th anniversary events in Nottingham and London. Over the last 10 years our BAFTA-supported initiative has connected scores of aspiring British writers and filmmakers with BAFTA Award-winning talent including Mike Newell, John Madden and David Parfitt. Deadline for submissions for the 10th Anniversary forums is 17:00 on 8 March 2010. For an application form and more information log on to www.rocliffe.com/scriptappl.php
16.02.10 Not A Good Casting.
Subscribers to Shooting People’s Casting Network will probably still remember the nasty taste left in the mouth by the recent volley of bitter recriminations about low and unpaid work. Always keen to take an unpopular route I wheezed on loud and long about the value of such work and why Shooting People should still offer its acting members the chance to make their own minds up about what they turn down or follow up.
There are caveats to this of course. No one supports productions that don’t share their resources equitably and with respect for the work of all involved. No one is suggesting that actors shouldn’t be paid – only that sometimes no one earning any money is not a reason for a film not to get made.
However the biggest problem I find with repeating this argument is the postings that then come in from directors looking for actors to collaborate with. My girlfriend is an actress and so I generally skim over the casting bulletin each day and recommend to her anything I think she’d be amazing in. She is definitely castable as “…late 20’s/early 30’s – well spoken – attractive – height between 5′6″ and 5′10″…” so my fingers hesitated over yesterday’s casting call from Mark McDermott about his feature film project “Silent Terror”.
I’ve never met Mark and I don’t think I’ve seen any of his previous work, I have no personal vendetta against him and I am definitely not accusing him of any short practice, unfairness or anything other than crass stupidity. Equally I am in no way intending to attack his feature project, just the way in which he is pitching it to his would-be collaborators. This is not the worst casting call I’ve read on Shooting People but it does contain some of the regular flash points that always stop me forwarding things to my girlfriend so I thought I’d take a moment to explain why, expressed like this, actors have good reason for feeling like we’re treating them like idiots.
“Hi, I am currently casting for my second low-budget feature film Silent Terror, a suspense driven psychological thriller….”
Mark’s opening sentence at least sets out a clear genre and he goes on to give useful and concise information about shooting dates, location and format. However whilst “second low-budget feature” may sound like a step up from your “first” low-budget feature just have a think about what message this is actually sending. Of course it is good to let your prospective cast know that you have experience and we all know how hard it is to make films so no one will hold it against you that your first low-budget feature clearly vanished without a trace. But is this the first thing you want to tell people?
Because the simple fact is that if this is your “second low-budget feature” that generally means the first didn’t enable you to secure a better budget for this film. Again I must stress that I’m not trying to say Mark is a bad filmmaker, I’ve not seen his first film and I have no idea what he was trying to achieve with it. Neither does the average reader of this casting call. All they have is the information he has given them, so, like me, their first thought should be that rather than promoting his credentials, a man directing his “second low-budget feature” is not actually showing a glowing track record. This is probably an unfair assumption – but there is nothing to stop us leaping to it – especially when we later read:
“We are evaluating distribution opportunities at present and are considering a self-distribution strategy, along with film festival submissions.”
Come on, we are all grown ups here. No one considers a self-distribution strategy. You are forced to accept a self-distribution strategy because distributors don’t yet trust you to back you. This is fine. This is your second low-budget feature after the first one did nothing – of course you’re “considering a self-distribution strategy”. No one will think you’re a failure for this state of affairs, what erks the reader is the attempt at spinning it.
Mark is clearly an ambitious young filmmaker who has yet to receive any real support from within the industry. He is getting off his arse and defying their lethargy by making a film to prove that he has a talent with story telling. He is exactly the sort of person that Shooting People was set up to support and exactly the sort of person that actors should want to meet and possibly work with. Yet because of the way he has presented his past record and place within the industry he makes himself look like a conceited fool who doesn’t yet realise that his films suck.
However the real problem with this casting call comes when he pitches the story and the involvement he hopes his actors will have.
“The film is far reaching in its scope, with a large meandering story. Therefore, the parts we are looking for are significant and pivotal, but will only be required for a limited time in production.”
This blew me away. Who pitches a film with the word “meandering”? I mean I find a lot of Robert Altman’s work to often be meandering but I bet he didn’t try and raise the finance like that. Meandering means dull. Meandering means listless, directionless, rambling tedium. You don’t mean meandering you mean, I don’t know, far reaching or complex or many layered or multi-faceted. OK it’s a mistake and we all make mistakes but a pitch is a pitch and it should be cared about and if you say your film is “meandering” then even if I’m being charitable I’m thinking you’re going into this project without a clear idea of what you’re doing – an idea backed up by the next sentence…
“There will be opportunities for improvisation of performance and dialogue, so you have the potential to bring your own elements to the roles.”
Doesn’t that just mean that you’ve not written a good script yet?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m neither being purely sarcastic or anti-impro. Trust me, my girlfriend is a gifted and experienced improvisor and thanks to her I’ve been lucky enough to see some of the best practitioners of the craft in the world (genuinely). I love impro. Which is why it makes me cross when filmmakers reach for it unknowingly, when they assume that it’s a simple case of letting the actors say the gist of the script rather than being word perfect. Again I’m not accusing Mark of this, rather I’m hoping to point out that expressions like “opportunities for improvisation” are meaningless, foggy and suggest that he is not being rigorous in his approach. Perhaps improvisation is a key creative tool in his production, if so, say so. This reads like you’re hoping your actors will save you from the still unresolved problems in your script.
“All travel and food expenses will be covered. A DVD of the finished film will be provided, along with a digital file of your scenes if required for your showreel.”
Hooray for this, the bare minimum requirements of getting strangers to work on your project. But lets just skim over the story to the character breakdown…
“Jane – late 20’s/early 30’s – well spoken – attractive – height between 5′6″ and 5′10″ – partial nudity required. She has dark hidden secrets.”
And there it is. The ever present bugbear of the Shooting People Casting forum. “Partial nudity required”. How come nudity is “required” yet everything else has “opportunities for improvisation”? I mean, what if, using her impro skills, the actress decides to leave her clothes on? Is that ok? As a piece of impro?
Again, don’t get me wrong, as a filmmaker I’m all in favour of nudity in films. Story telling is about drama and I can think of plenty of dramatic situations that are heightened by everyone being actually physically naked. Not a problem. However that’s a general point about cinema. Let’s just think what you are asking your actress to do in this post. You want her to improve your script with her impro skills and get her tits out. For this you will pay her bus fare, buy her a bacon sandwich and send her a DVD of another low-budget film which you will then send to film festivals because no distributor will touch it.
This is why actors get pissed off.
Again, don’t get me wrong – I am merely talking about how Mark has sold this project, not the project and not Mark. I can think of many situations when a gifted young director will inspire his cast to give astonishing performances because they believe totally in his creative vision. This could turn out to be one of those situations… but you can’t introduce yourself to people like this – you can’t just expect people to get naked for the price of a train ticket because you’ve already made one low budget film that has flopped.
I fully support the right of people to seek collaborators for low and unpaid films – but if you are forced into taking this route think about how collaboration actually works before you start demanding your cast get naked.
15.02.10 Life Is Not Like A Box Of Chocolates.
Eating chocolates has been slightly ruined for me by everyone who has ever quoted Forrest Gump’s mum at me. I’ve not seen the film because everything about it made me want to kick a window but there was a short time following its release when you couldn’t turn for people quoting Ma Gump’s sage wisdom that “life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get next”.
This has stuck in to my brain like anti-climb paint and consequently every time I open a box of chocolates and am faced with the small guide which clearly tells you what each glossy brown surface conceals, I am struck with a twinge of needless rage. Life is not like a box of chocolates. Unlike life, with chocolates you do know what you are going to get next and you generally get to choose. Had she said “Life is like a box of chocolates because it’s generally over too quickly and contains too much marzipan” I’d probably have gone to see the film but as it is I’m just left bitter and angry.
Apart from that I had a lovely Valentine’s day.
14.02.10 The Genius
A short talk on the nature of creativity which manages to be down to earth and uplifting all at once…
Come to http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog if you can’t see this video…
11.02.10 Let’s Not Twist Again.
An old friend of mine recently joined Shooting People and sent me a link to his short film. As those of you reading this blog in its original form will know, my virtual doors are always open to new films and I do my best to watch everything that comes my way (I am quite behind though…)
My friend’s film is only two minutes long, and for that I thank him. He also had the good sense to upload to the Shooting People Watch Film site meaning all I had to do was click a link and I could watch it. It also features a brilliant use of shadow from a large fan which adds a great layer of visual interest and character. I make no bones about the fact that I intend to someday steal or “homage” this trick – that, after all, is the joy of filmmaking. The whole beauty is not to work in isolation but to take ruthlessly from all other films that have ever been made – reusing what works and abandoning what doesn’t. And in most cases what doesn’t work in a short film is a twist.
This is quite a bold statement since most short films are little else. However it makes more sense if you think about feature films and all other forms of story telling. Twists are, of course, an integral part of the story teller’s armoury, but whilst there are many great twists in the history of story telling there are very few great stories that don’t exist beyond their twists. In feature films I can only think of one and it’s not Fight Club.
Fight Club is the story of a man falling apart. The great big jaw dropping twist is a sublime coup de cinema but it is just a very elegant way of letting you experience the world in the same way that the main character does. Fight Club is not about the twist, it’s about the consequences of it.
This is the problem with twists in short films; by dint of being short it is far harder to make the audience care enough about what they are seeing that they are sufficiently affected by the surprise when it comes and harder still to say anything of meaning about the consequences of that surprise. The film becomes about nothing but the surprise and that is very unsatisfactory.
My friend’s film is a good example. Here it is:
And don’t worry, I checked with Paul first that he was OK with me ripping into this in public. He is far from being either the only or the worst offender; I wanted to write this blog because I see this device backfire time after time and I just want it to end.
And like I say – that fan is brilliant.
Anyway, my problem with this film is that the twist structure hides the active dramatic question of ‘why’. The point of the piece is that you are drawn into believing she is reliving her own childhood trauma, only to find that she is in fact reenacting it. But that means for most of the film you think she is just reliving her own childhood trauma which is quite a passive situation. Without knowing more about her as a character what can we feel except sympathy? With no dramatic question the poor actress has to do all the work, the ratio of sympathy to apathy that you feel is entirely down to how affecting you find her performance is – stuck in the dark, on her own in a virtually empty, characterless hotel bedroom – she has her work cut out and I think she does a sterling job but it’s all up hill.
By revealing that abuse is actually happening in this scene and not just in her memory, all the director does is show that he can surprise the audience – an easy task since as director he holds all the cards. To create this easy surprise he’s had to rob us of any reason to keep watching in the first place.
Imagine this film the other way round, without a twist. Because whilst watching an unknown woman apparently relive her childhood trauma is not dramatically interesting – watching a woman abuse her child is (horrible but) inherently dramatic as it forces you to ask “Why is she doing this?” To then reveal that what we don’t know is the truth about her own abuse is much more powerful because rather than being a twist for twisting’s sake, it is answering a question that has already been asked.
Rather than leaving the actress to emote in an empty room she would be an active character, actively doing something, albeit something awful. And the resolution, rather than being merely a twist that leaves you feeling “Oh I see, so she’s actually evil”, would be a revelation that answered the dramatic question of ‘why’ whilst leaving open the moral issue of ‘how’.
Startling people is easy, making them think about something is far harder. The twist may leave your audience reeling but it evaporates quickly on the tongue. The only feature film I can think of that is built entirely around a twist (in the way that so many short films are) is “The Usual Suspects”. Here the whole point of the story is that it’s being made up by Kevin Spacey. As the credits roll you realise that pretty much everything you’ve seen has been a lie. It’s a cheap trick, a smug trick, and, as Kevin shakes off the limp and straightens his posture you are supposed to feel utterly cheated but be warned – this is the only emotion that a twist without a story can provoke.
10.02.10 Star Wizard.
There are a few of these doing the rounds on the internet and in someways it’s a bit unfair because, as we all know, there are only seven stories in the first place… however…
Can’t see the picture? Come to http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog
10.02.10 Hoorah and Trumpets.
Tanya Seghatchian is Queen of the UKFC.
I don’t think anyone guessed that was going to happen. No one at all. Anywhere.
Still, surprises are overrated and I for one am well chuffed. Long live the Queen.
09.02.10 The Superbowl.
OK I’m well past time here since the event has been and gone but I’m the half of the Blaine with no understanding of this game and no idea as to why it’s called football since it’s about guys carrying and egg. Handegg. American Handegg. Surely?
But anyway, the Viking’s supporting half of the Blaines found this and it made us both laugh so I hope it has the same effect for you (the first one’s not up to much and the Lynch makes more sense apparently if you follow the sport but the Wes Anderson is one of the most perfect pastiche’s I’ve seen… hell it brought a lump to my throat…)
Can’t see this video? You’re probably reading this on Facebook then aren’t you? Come here: http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog.
08.02.10 I Love Audiences.
So on Friday I was in an actual cinema with an actual audience of other people. It was the late afternoon and we were an odd bunch but never the less an interesting cross section of the ticket buying public and this trailer was one of the many to crash off the screen at us…
And with perfect timing, just as it comes to the quiet bit at the end, the unnervingly loud voices of two middle-aged women broke through the theatrical gloom:
“Oh that’s that book isn’t it? Have you read it?”
“No. I started it but in the end I couldn’t be bothered.”
Coming so balloon burstingly soon after the bombast of the trailer with its heaviest of heavy bread voice overs, this brief conversation gave me an oddly giddy sensation of pure joy. Though actually I think I was just reacting against the increasingly naggy pre-movie sequence of commercials and trailers.
Preparing to watch a film in the cinema used to be a relatively painless process of being sold at, something that generally acted as a helpful way of tuning out reality in preparation for the movie. Like milling around in the departure lounge before a flight, the ads and trailers were at worst bland but at best felt like the start of a holiday, the commonplace commercialism made strangely exotic.
However, rather like trying to get onboard an aeroplane, the lead up to a film is now bogged down with dire warnings and security checks. I was ordered three times to turn off my mobile – once by Nanny McPhee and once by yet another iteration of the Orange advert, plumbing new depths of tedium in what seems to have strayed even from their grim determination to kill a once funny joke and now seems to be a one brand campaign to make me pull out my own teeth in bitter irritation.
I was then given a brief, uplifting lecture on how watching a film anywhere other than a cinema was a rubbish thing that only an idiot would do. It was then further pointed out to me that this particular cinema chain was probably the best and that, in case I hadn’t noticed, going to the cinema was, by the way, the best thing I could ever do and much better than watching stinky old tv.
I was warned that if I was found to filming this movie I’d be fined or jailed or both (and please would I turn off my damn phone so I don’t use it for this purpose) and then to cap it all, someone actually came on and begged for the lives and jobs of the entire British Film Industry, like we’re all inmates in asylum and these are the baskets we’ve spent the past month weaving. As I left I half expected to stumble over Tim Bevan slumped in the doorway rattling coins in a cup.
As you can imagine I’m a fan of the cinema. I like going. I like watching films with other people. Hell – I was even in this movie on my own because I enjoy the experience so much I have no shame or dignity. But rather than celebrating Cinema, these ads feel like they’re all telling me off. As if Cinema were a grumpy wife furious with me because I’d spent all my time down the pub with my mates the laptop and iTunes. “Where the hell have you been?” She shouts, angrily slamming the door much louder and in 3D. “And the least you could do is turn your bloody phone off now you’re here!”
Firstly what is the point of advertising the concept of cinema to people who have already paid to come and sit in a cinema? It’s like buying a pint and having the barman shout in your ear as your drink it “Wow – a pint of beer, have you forgotten how good a pint of beer tastes? I hope you’re not one of those idiots who sit at home drinking tea and then having to urinate in a normal household toilet. Why are you doing that when you could be sat here on this stool like you are doing drinking beer exactly like you are doing and then you can go and piss next to a whole load of other people who understand the great taste of actual beer in a pub! Wow, I bet you wish you were drinking beer in this pub right now just like you are.”
But actually what annoys me is the idea that we have to “thank everyone who helps make this possible” (other than by paying them a wage) tacitly creates the idea that cinema is basically already dying and needs to be protected. Worse these adverts perpetuate the myth that cinema is merely “a great experience”, as if all it offers is spectacle and 3D specs. Sure a cinema can deliver the kinds of bangs and crashes that only a lunatic would wish to have access to in their own home but that’s a pretty hollow trick. If that really is all the reason for watching a film in a theatre then they might as well turn the lot of them into bingo halls right away.
After all the begging and lecturing was over I watched “Up In The Air” a well crafted and compassionate film that is absolutely at its best when dealing with the minutiae of American corporate life. I can’t believe I’m even bothering to write this down but the obvious fact is that on the big screen the tiny takes on a power and importance that it lacks when watched on your phone. George Clooney – and even more so Vera Farmiga – build their performances around tiny delicious details and half glances that help to raise this above some pretty obvious stuff about the importance of family life.
You don’t need 3D glasses to see it and you probably don’t need to see it in a cinema – but if you do you will appreciate it more and find it easier to enjoy it. You don’t need to beg for cinema – cinema rocks. And you shouldn’t beg for it either because it just makes people question why you’re bothering. Like selling a film by saying the book it’s based on is “an international publishing phenomenon” when everyone can see it’s just another airport novel…
07.02.10 The Morgan Freeman Chain Of Command
Can’t see the picture? Come to http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog
05.02.10 Sundancing.
Obviously I’m massively behind the times but hopefully some of the previous entries will explain why that is… however I’d just like to extend massive and belated congratulations to two of my favourite people who both find themselves in the Sun.
Brilliantly my mate Cath has been awarded the Sundance/Alfred P. Sloan Commissioning Grant to fund her to write a film called Beds about five strangers who come together in a ‘bed-rest’ experiment to aid astronauts in space.
Equally brilliant my mate Jim was not only the director of the only British short to play at the festival this year but he got a Mention, which is Sundance for shortlisted, which is filmmaker for awesome because it effectively makes his film “Can We Talk”, a past Shooting People film of the month, one of the 7 best in the world.
Massive thanks to the folks at MovieMaker magazine who have included this virtual tome in their list of the 50 Best Blogs for Movie Makers. And if you’re here as a result of that article then – gosh – hallo – hope this lives up to whatever expectations you may have…
Oh and, if you are new, then I’m one of the people in the picture at the top of this page and the other is my brother Chris. Unless of course you’re reading this item via an RSS feed in some other location like Facebook, in which case, you know, like, get with the programme and do like all the cool kids by visiting http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog.
04.02.10 So That Was January…
I generally find January to the be slowest, longest, coldest month of the year. Whilst technically no longer than most others it usually seems to persist for half a year before finally succumbing to February. However this year it seems to have trotted past in a twinkle of snow storms and sleeplessness and already the Oscar nominations have been announced to my usual utter indifference.
It’s all proof that I’m as busy as a monk in a plague. My brother and I are about to embark on the first draft of a new feature script, not merely a new draft but a new idea – the first time we’ve done this for over a year. This story, provisionally entitled “I’m Going To Kill You” is also the quickest that a thing has ever gone from an initial conversation between us to a serious effort to sit down and write it out in best. Could be that the draft will serve to show why we normally let things simmer but again it seems proof that for once we’ve started the year on a thaw rather than a freeze.
We’re also quietly developing something funny for a tv company as well as starting to put flesh on the bones of a film we want to make with a friend who’s a stand-up. Add into this the new recordings on my band’s myspace and an upcoming reading of a play I wrote and I can only see that it’s going to be March before the end of the week.
All of which is by way of a slight apology if I blog a bit less as this place tends to have the odd reverse life of being mainly written on when I have less to write about…
27.01.10 Buy My Bumper Cars!
When I first started making films I made it a habit to come home with some small item from the production as a memento. I’m sure you’ve all done it. Like a cricketer snatching a stump or a footballer taking his opponent’s shirt. Those first films were all so hard and so beautifully enjoyable that it felt vital that I clung onto some small piece of the divine wreckage. A crumpled envelope addressed to “no one, nowhere” from our film “Crowd Scene For Existentialists”, an empty milk bottle from the still almost entirely unseen “Cold”, the gorgeous, battered, tube map of the soul from “Russell Square”. As time passes these talismen lose their power and importance and I’ve parted company with pretty much everything, even the hangover from filming “If Looks Could Kill”. However one pair of props seem reluctant to leave me.
In 2006 we shot a music video for the sublime and deeply missed indie band “Special Needs”. They were newly signed, we were newly inspired to make music videos and we were all the best of friends. The result was this gorgeously silly Monkees-ish chase video. The coffin is lost in the loft of the Brixton house where my brother used to live (God knows what the current occupants think of that), the Spitfires are back in Duxford but the free-wheeling, battery-powered Dodgems are still in my garage.
And last in my round-up of current competitive delight… the grand daddy of them all… the superb MO FILM competition which, being good members of Shooting People, is enhanced for you by the additional chance to win a Canon 5D.
International, serious names attached and offering a seriously career changing prize… if you’re entering one competition this month or next then it has to be MO FILM. Doesn’t it?
Well how about cutting together a teaser for your feature debut and sending it to The Trailer Festival?
Styling itself bluntly as “an event for the entertainment industry” this has a deliciously unflirty approach to attracting your submissive dollar. (thirty if you do this before the end of the month…) Here’s the pitch:
The Trailer Festival will take place on April 29th, 2010 at the ICM Screening Room in the MGM Tower, Century City, Los Angeles. Only trailers will be screened and the audience will be exclusively entertainment professionals.
This is an opportunity to get your work seen by companies like HBO, Universal and producers who have made hits such as ‘40 Year Old Virgin’ and ‘Lost’. A complete list of attendees is on The Industry page.
You can submit your sizzle reel whether you have just the script or if you have produced your entire film. Projects will be selected on merit alone and we will not ask for this information until after the selection process.
There will be a promotional DVD of the selected trailers which will be marketed for a year.
Neither hipster, nor fox but happily a hedgehog? Delighted that the world is full of many different ways of retelling a story but chiefly interested in telling your story on film?
Well, in that case, why don’t you send your short films to a competition run by Aesthetica magazine?
Founded in 2002, Aesthetica Magazine is one of Britain’s leading art publications. Exploring the varied nature of the arts and recognising the dynamics of contemporary culture, Aesthetica pushes the boundaries and evokes debate around today’s most important topics. Bringing a fresh perspective to the national forum, Aesthetica is at the forefront of contemporary arts by critically engaging with visual art, film, music, literature and theatre.
Better yet it is widely distributed throughout the UK and Ireland in WH Smith, Borders, galleries, and independent newsagents… that’s a lot of intelligent beauty loving people who will hear about your film when you win their Short Film Competition about which more here…
Aesthetica is looking for filmmakers who are driving the genre of short film forward through inspirational and innovative works. Whether you are fresh out of film school or have been making films for years, we want to hear from you. Accepting films in all genres: drama, documentary, music video, satire, comedy and artists’ film.
This award offers the winner and runners-up a fantastic prize package, which will bring your films to a wider audience.
Winner – £500 first prize.
Screenings of your film at: The National Media Museum (Bradford), Rushes Soho Shorts Film Festival (London), Glasgow Film Festival, Kerry Film Festival (Ireland) and on the Aesthetica website.
12 months membership with Shooting People.
Collection of film books from Wallflower Press.
Inclusion on a DVD that will go to all Aesthetica readers (45,000 viewers).
£250 for the runner-up and all the finalists will be included on a DVD that will go to all Aesthetica readers (45,000 viewers).
Fans of Isaiah Berlin will be well aware that the creative world breaks down into foxes and hedgehogs. Those of you who bound through this world with a foxlike approach will doubtlessly adore the upcoming YARN festival, which offers us yet another chance to get multi-disciplinary.
Or to lazily assemble the rest of this post by hacking about their press release…
YARN is a brand new festival celebrating story and storytelling – showcasing film, theatre, music and literature and providing a platform for mixing them all up! It’s all about fun and exploration, devoted to letting the imagination run wild.
The first YARN festival will take place 20 – 24 Feb 2010, across The Book Club and The Queen of Hoxton venues in East London.
YARN will include Literary Death Match – The Paper Cinema – Short Film Programmes and most interestingly for YOU sat there reading this – 4 Stories High.
4 Stories High is one of the key events for YARN.
Take Homer’s Odyssey, divide the story into 12 sections; 3 x filmmakers, 3 x theatre groups, 3 x novelists/storytellers and 3 x musicians to take one section each and tell that section of the story in their medium.
Put them all back together in story order, and let a terrific evening’s viewing unfold.
What’s in it for participants?
You get to champion your medium, pitting it against other storytelling forms. You get to tell a section of one of the greatest stories ever written, but in your own voice and style.
At the end of the night the audience will be asked to vote for their favourite section. The makers of that section will walk away with the door money for the event, a guaranteed minimum of £200.
How does it work?
• We will give you a one sheet which will give you a brief synopsis of the story that we’d like you to cover; indicate the section of the original story your section will cover (so that you can bug up on the original and find any elements that you’d like to bring back into your own retelling!); and the beginning and ending that will need to be covered so that it will slot in perfectly with the sections that come before and after!
• You make your section any way you see fit! It needs to be between 30secs and 8 minutes but that’s pretty much it! You can bring more story elements to it, or keep it very simple and to the point; you can set it now or way back when; you can make it with just one person or thousands! The only thing we asked is stay focused on the story, that’s the important bit. YARN would like to keep in touch with you during the process, but the creative is your bit, not ours, so we promise not to interfere.
• Sections ready by Friday 12th February.
• Be around to see it all come together on Tuesday 23rd February at the Queen of Hoxton, and hopefully walk away with some tasty prize money!
Tomorrow I will turn my attention to Yarn but first in my inbox is Remix which promotes itself as, frankly, the coolest thing a hipster can do beyond actually hanging outside a brownstone and waiting for Lou Reed’s man. So if you’ve ever drawn a triangle on your wrist or actually own a tumblr then here is the Remix press release and contact details…
Are you a poet/novelist/songwriter? Maybe you’re in a band? What about a fashion designer? Are you a graphic artist? A filmmaker? A photographer?
Yes? Keep reading.
Are you emerging, fearless and enquiring?
Yes? Pull up a chair. Let’s talk.
REMIX is fascinated with the idea of adaptation: in how content transfers but also how forms and skills translate. Why do we, as practitioners, choose the mediums we do to tell the stories we tell?
REMIX is looking to bring together a creative team of exciting emerging practitioners who have asserted themselves as innovators in film, theatre, fashion, music and the digital arts but who have never created a piece of theatre before. We’ll collaborate and communicate, creating a live performance with an ensemble of actors. It doesn’t stop there. Each creative will be tasked with adapting the play into a bespoke adaptation for their own specialism. The REMIXes – the play in its five incarnations – will be launched at a live event on 29 and 30 April 2010 – alchemizing the theatre, visual art, virtual media, fashion, music and literary industries.
REMIX will steal all the best bits of all the mediums whilst leaving behind the constraints/rules. Where do you sign up?
If you want to play your part in creating 21st century multi-disciplinary performance for the iPod-listening, Vogue-reading, blog-writing, YouTube-watching generation then email Natalie Ibu : Artistic Director at natalieremix@googlemail.com
In your email, detail
• Who you are and what you do.
• What you’ve done and what you want to do.
• What and who you like.
• Attach an up to date CV and portfolio.
• Include details of where and when we can see you doing your thing – whatever it may be.
January seems to be submission time. Clever competition and event organisers must have twigged we’re all waking up from our festive slumbers and starting to panic about where the hell our lives are going… making us vulnerable to submissaphilia.
I’ve been a victim of this cruel complex myself in the past, it drives the weary artist to reach out at any deadline they see advertised in the hopes that if they enter everything then they will at least get something. I am here to counsel you against this. Like taking pointless, creatively barren unpaid jobs, entering film competitions or multi-media showcase events which do not actually suit your style or workable ideas is a fruitless and thankless task.
However the myriad beauty of existence hinges on precisely the fact that what for one person is a pointless, desperate, self-indulgent waste of a stamp is, to another, the opening of a doorway to a paradise of excitement, fulfilment and delight. Consequently over the next few days I’m going to bring to your attention some of the cool sounding competitions that I’ve heard about recently. Don’t try and enter them all – but perhaps do try and enter some of them.
More in a moment…
(just in case the Carry On stamp wasn’t geeky enough for you…)
18.01.10 Life Beyond Film.
The magnificent seventh London Short Film Festival drew to a close last night with an event called Filmmakers In Bands in which… ok, I’m going to talk up to you and just expect you to work out what happened.
I’ve played this night before at previous LSFFs and it was a joy to do so again with my current musical squeeze, the Glue Ensemble (of whom there is more here http://www.myspace.com/theglueensemble).
In order to keep life simple you tend to introduce yourself as one thing or another. There are times when even saying I’m a writer/director feels like I’m giving the impression of being horribly unfocused. The truth is that, with my brother, I write, direct, edit and where necessary he’ll also shoot, grade and even handle all the tricky encoding and uploading that comes with most modern filmmaking. That’s a horrible bundle of ideas to throw at someone so we generally say that we’re filmmakers. It feels like somewhat of a treat then to be allowed to out myself as a filmmaker who also plays instruments and writes songs…
Likewise my friend and cohort the filmmaker Lee Kern has recently outed himself as filmmaker who is also a stand-up comedian.
For proof of this come with me to a gig Lee’s playing this Tuesday at the Green Man, Riding House Street, Fitzrovia. He’s sharing the bill with the brilliant Robin Ince, Nick Helm and Richard Sandling and, just in case you’re reading this and thinking “but Ben, I have no life outside of filmmaking, unlike you and Lee I’m totally dedicated to the one true craft”, well, to you I point out that all the comedy will be themed around films and the film industry.
It’s £6 to get in and the show starts at 8 and doors open at 7.30 so get there early to get a seat.
03.01.10 Phantoms.
Happy Two Thousand and Ben…
And so here we all are in crisp cold blueness of the future, struggling to re-engage brains still fuzzy with festive coziness and ticking off our list of resolutions as they shatter around us like writing deadlines.
I thought I’d kick off the new decade with the following little film about why the Phantom Menace is rubbish. If you’ve not seen this video review of the first Star Wars prequel then it’s worth watching for its warped hilarity alone. However I’m offering it to you less because it’s funny to laugh at how bad the Menace was and more because beneath a layer of Family Guyish comedy schtick this is actually a rather fine little seminar on the narrative role of the protagonist and the basic rules of the “Heroes Quest”.
Or at least part is 1. By part 7 it has gone quite odd. But yeah, laugh and learn…
16.12.09 The True Meaning Of X-Mas.
You can tell it’s nearly Christmas because the arguments in the Shooter’s bulletins have descended to a seasonal lull of point scoring and scruffy logic. Glancing through today’s arguments about the National Minimum Wage and Rage Against The Machine was like trying to eat a massive fatty dinner whilst three generations of the same dysfunctional family squabbled over the party hats and who’s go it is with the remote control.
I thought Rage Against The Machine had split up and become Audioslave. Even if they’ve got back together the idea that a song from ten years ago going “head to head” with the X-Factor winner represents anything other than the height of banality leaves me baffled. As far as pop culture goes this is about as incendiary as Jon Lydon’s butter adverts.
What does pain me though is the suggestion that the reality TV show the X-Factor has anything to do with filmmaking. Just because they make it using cameras doesn’t mean it falls within our world. Granted if it stopped being made then camera hire companies would lose revenue, in the same way that if no one got married for a year the slump in the wedding video market would lead to a glut in the Z1 category on eBay, but please don’t imagine either impossible event would cripple the British film industry. We may not be in the rudest of health at the moment but we do not live on Simon Cowell’s table scraps.
Even more horrifying was the attempt to draw a parallel between aspiring filmmakers and the programme’s contestants. True, at first glance, both wannabe filmmakers and wannabe singers are chasing what for most will be impossible dreams. But the dream on offer in the X-Factor is always the same dream. The hopefuls compete not for their chance to share their unique gift but for their chance to have their unique gift homogenised into something that sells. Is that really all we’re trying to do? If it’s fame you want then making films seems like a funny way of going about it, at least not without first moving to LA and getting your teeth fixed.
Shocking as it may seem but some of the people I know still do things for reasons other than fame and money. For instance, tonight one of my bands, The Glue Ensemble, are rehearsing and we’ll be playing the closing night of the LSFF in a few weeks time. None of us are being paid for tonight’s rehearsal, nor for that gig (though we do get paid money at times…) and yet none of us seem to mind because we’re all doing it for… what’s the word… love.
Similarly when my friends and I went to Jersey a few months ago to make a film we didn’t do so for profit but for the sheer crazy pleasure of doing something difficult and beautiful. We didn’t sleep, we froze, we climbed hills, we made a film that tried to capture some thought about forgiveness and all just to make our lives both harder and more enjoyable. This is what the past ten years of my life has been about. Telling stories with pictures because me and a bunch of other people I like wanted to and slowly finding out that a bunch of other people want to watch those stories, often time and again.
So as a final sprig of holly on your christmas puddin’, can I respectfully suggest that you shut the fuck up about the national minimum wage.
The decade long campaign to grind Shooting People into the dust for its support of creative work where no one gets paid comes from a good hearted place but is fundamentally wrong headed. I am completely in favour of being paid and completely against people engaged in someone else’s commercial activity not getting a fair recompense for their work. However a great deal of the work that is created through Shooting People is not a genuine commercial activity because, no matter how much the creators may wish otherwise, there is no market for it. Does that mean they should be banned from making it?
In a world driven entirely by commerce it is right that we protect jobs and wages. A world driven entirely by commerce gives us the X-Factor and a constant repackaging of the same tired idea. Thankfully, even at Christmas, we don’t have to live in that world.
05.12.09 Guiding Lights.
Many years ago I was drunk in a pub in Hatfield. There was no particular cause beyond being in Hatfield which is usually reason enough. However the prospect of another night of not very much suddenly seemed more than any of us could bare so we decided to go to the cinema, which meant trekking across the very unpedestrianised part of town to get the Hatfield Galleria. Drunkenly we picked a film almost at random. Adam had seen the poster for Regeneration and thought it looked kinda cool. I was just in a mood for something to fill my eyes and so, despite not being a massive fan of war movies or war poetry, I agreed.
Regeneration sobered me up and blew my mind. It was beautiful beyond compare. The horror of the situation was realised with a simple humanity that breathed new life into poems I had studied into meaninglessness at school. A world I had not understood suddenly made sense to me.
Jonny Lee Miller in Regeneration
As you may have gathered our script “Hallo Panda” was recently given the once over by the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writer’s Forum and it’s toughest and fairest critic was Gillies MacKinnon who directed Regeneration. This was, I’m glad to say, not our first encounter with this passionate and, though it may sound odd in the context of filmmaking, honourable man.
Gillies MacKinnon helping us out once again at BAFTA last Monday.
Photograph by Mat Ricardo
A few years ago Chris and I were lucky enough to be accepted onto the first ever year of Guiding Lights, a mentoring scheme run by Lighthouse with Skillset and the Film Council. We were given Gillies as a mentor. At the time we were working on a thriller script which we thought was brilliant and ready to be released on the industry but Gillies pretty quickly put us straight. His notes were brief, to the point and painfully accurate. The story we’d told him we were making was great but it was not what we’d written.
This was the year that we made the short version of Hallo Panda so we were very much under the kosh and whilst Gillies had hoped to give us a chance to shadow him on set, instead we got to see the slow and frustrating side of the industry as various projects stalled. As a result we didn’t see as much of him as other mentees did of their mentors, one of the many mistakes we made that year. However we did meet up and get drunk and learnt a great deal more from him than he’d probably imagine.
At BAFTA on Monday he repeated something he said to us once. He’s lectured at the NFTS in the past and has often said something along the lines of “I can’t teach you to be a director, I can’t teach you to be me, I can only help you think about what you need to do in order to make the films you have to make”. This is precisely what he did for us and it is precisely what Guiding Lights is set up for.
The deadline for this year’s scheme is 1pm on Wednesday 23rd December and I strongly recommend that you apply, it is one of the most positive things I’ve been involved with in the film industry.
I’ve been meaning to let both my regular readers know how it went on Monday night at BAFTA but it went well so I’ve spent the past days nursing a hangover whilst trying to sort out a proposal for iFeatures. So basically I’ve been just like every other aspiring filmmaker in the UK… (Is there anyone out there not currently researching the history and street layout of Bristol? Show of hands please…)
Anyway, on Monday night excerpts of our feature length version of “Hallo Panda” were featured as part of the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writer’s Forum. I’d heard from my mate Claire that the event was brilliant and something that was worth our time submitting stuff to, but I have to admit I did so with a degree of trepidation. Now I’ve been through the process I understand it and it’s smarter and harder than you think…
Photograph by Mat Ricardo
The basic set-up is quite straightforward. Ten minute extracts from three scripts are given a rehearsed reading in front of an audience and an industry figure who then gets to question the author.
Naturally a great deal of attention goes on the reading. Each script is given a director used to working in the Rocliffe way, each is also given a composer, an expert casting director and an artist to create a mood-setting back drop. Though the actors are not expected to be off the page, the extracts are not merely read but acted out. In our case, director Paul Cavanagh also used a couple of chairs as a very flexible piece of scenery which morphed seamlessly from the back of a bus to a tree branch as the story progressed.
TOM WU as Panda and CHRISTIAN CONTRERAS as Mark Photographs by Mat Ricardo
But despite all the effort and energy going into the reading I still had my concerns. Could ten pages really give a full insight into the script? Would this semi-theatrical approach obscure the cinematic element of the script? Paul had convinced us to change the extract and though I trusted him, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that in giving the audience the start of the story we were really just repeating what we’d done with the short and not quite showing off the real depth of the story.
However I had overlooked the impact of the Q&A session with the industry chair. In our case this was the magnificent Gillies MacKinnon who, after all three projects had been given their turn, gave a brilliant and concise run down not only of the twists of his career to date but also of his creative philosophy which feels something like “never the mind the bollocks, what’s it about?”
Having read our extract before the evening started, Gillies had, not being a man to mince his words, crossed out large sections of our dialogue which he felt were redundant. He’d even, apparently, toyed with the idea of bringing along his own version of the script to give to the cast instead… however, after watching it performed he was magnanimous enough to admit on stage that he’d happily eat his words. It worked. It was funny. It has a natural rhythm and flow that the cast really got hold of and, thanks to Paul, the piece leapt off the page.
Gillies did have concerns though and asked us (as usual) a series of painfully searching and accurate questions that got to the heart of what will make this film work or fail. And this was when I realised how Rocliffe really works. Of course the extract is not enough. Of course performing it on a stage with a couple of chairs does not paint the fullest picture. Instead it gives you no hiding place. It forces the audience not to enjoy it but to question it.
It’s ordeal by fire, especially as this court marshall is taking place in front of an audience and at BAFTA. However if you have a clear sense of what your story really is, the questions soon stop feeling difficult and just become opportunities to get the film across.
Chris, Me and Gillies
Photograph by Mat Ricardo
On stage Q&A kept in check by Farah Abushwesha
Photograph by Mat Ricardo
We submitted to Rocliffe a first draft we finished a few months back and we’ve been working on the second ever since. Already the story has progressed and our thinking about it has clarified. Besides, in one form or another this film has been in our lives for four years or more. We know this story. The rehearsed reading grabbed everyone’s attention, made them laugh, made them engage, but it was the Q&A session that then enabled us to really explain the film. Which just shows we were right to trust Paul, not only was direction smart and sympathetic but most of all, his choice of extract set up the Q&A perfectly.
Paul asks us a helpful question, cheers Paul!
Photograph by Mat Ricardo
I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. Their next submission deadline is Spring 2010. It’s a great platform… just remember that it’s the Q&A that really counts. The extract should engage but it should also create questions for the audience. What matters is that you can answer those.
The brilliant Ingrid Kopp has just written an fantastic piece about the arts economy on her blog (always just a mere click away on my blogroll in the corner….)
So if thoughts of Art and Survival are weighing as heavily on your mind as they are on mine – take a moment to read this:
I was recently told a story which goes, in some small way, to lead ones thoughts toward the differences between short and feature length narratives.
I met an old friend of mine and conversation turned to a mutual acquaintance we both still held in some passing contempt. Though nothing but a decent human being, our acquaintance was also, the last time I saw him, the sort of smugly high achieving young go-getter that brings out the worst in me. He was, once upon a time, going to be a major brain surgeon and I had since heard conflicting rumours that he had either failed completely or succeeded almost to the point of revolutionising brain care.
My dear old friend was able to tell me what had actually happened. It turns out that our past acquaintance has not ended up specialising in brain surgery. (And no he’s not a rocket scientist either, don’t run ahead). He is a doctor and a specialist of, apparently, no small accomplishment. He is an arse doctor. A bum doctor. A successful man whose triumph is built upon bottoms.
I find great humour in this. Both as I write this and when my friend told me, at which point I laughed uncontrollably for roughly four minutes. Speechless and convulsing I temporarily forgot all of my mundane troubles and just shook from side to side with filthy, ruthless guffawing.
I take no great pleasure or pride in this fact. My laughter is in part, utterly puerile. I’m laughing about the phrase “bum doctor” which is funny only because it includes the word “bum”. My laughter is also cruel and bitter. I am laughing at the fact that someone who doubtlessly leads a more comfortable, more respectable, more successful and more useful life than mine never the less does so via the medium of arses.
Wiping away the tears from my eyes it strikes me that, though I don’t make short films anymore, this story would make a good one. It would depend upon the vicarious enjoyment of watching someone else laugh uncontrollably for four minutes and you’d need a very good performer to pull that off, but were you able to find someone to do that then it would be both funny and oddly compelling. Especially if you were able to convey the pathos of the situation, the laughing man is only laughing because he knows the butt of the joke is a better person than he is. The depth of the laughter is a bitter acknowledgement of his own hopelessness.
Then my friend told me that, oddly, now he is a successful doctor our old acquaintance is “actually a really nice guy, apparently he’s no longer such an arse.”
And in an instance I saw an entire perfect feature film pitch. A man is an arse. He is an irritating, self assured, annoyance who thinks too much of himself and is going to be a brain surgeon. However when instead he finds his career drawn to the study of arses he becomes a nicer human being. By studying arses he stops being one. Ricky Gervais could play him. Or Simon Pegg. “The Arse Doctor”. “Dr.Bum”. “Top to Bottom”.
I’m not going to write it, but as I say, I thought it an interesting working example of the difference between short and feature length narrative. Paralysed by laughter a man is never the less confronted by a realisation of his own short comings – short film. A man who used to be an arse finds redemption through his study of arses – feature film.
Here endeth some sort of lesson.
22.11.09 Indian Graves.
Been pretty wrapped up in writing for the past few days which not only takes most of the energy that I otherwise spill in blogging but also reduces the amount of stuff I actually have to write about. Don’t get me wrong, the stuff Chris and I are doing at the moment is better than good and were you to read the pages you’d think us a pair of swells, but the actual creative process is just a pair of guys sat in chairs thinking about lunch.
However recently we took a break to venture forth into the real world and ended up in Elstree studios, the oldest purpose built film studios in the UK. Though sadly half the original site has since been sold and redeveloped. That’s right, studios 1-4, where, amongst other things Stanley Kubrick shot “The Shining” is now a branch of Tesco.
That must be the most terrifying supermarket in the world. Can you imagine doing a night shift in there? Wrong.
Would Jack Torrence please come to the biscuit aisle, would Jack Torrence please come to the biscuit aisle. Thank you.
13.11.09 The Number Two.
Now annoyingly I’ve not yet managed to get a photograph of this (maybe you can help me with that) but I have a new favourite piece of graffiti.
The London Underground, like most of the rest of the world, is currently plastered in adverts for the forthcoming Twilight sequel, New Moon. One such poster, common on the tube, pictures all of the main players in a line staring with moody beauty at the passing commuters.
If you are travelling North through Euston tube station on the Victoria Line then you should find a poster similar to the one above (I don’t think it’s quite this one though) upon which someone has very carefully drawn the number two in black marker on the foreheads of everyone involved.
What I love about this is that whilst clearly not being exactly complimentary it’s also not actually offensive. In fact, as this is the second of the four books to be released as a film it’s nothing but factual. It’s also neat and whilst it is defacing the poster it’s not making the people look ugly it’s, well, it’s just the number two.
It’s just the number two.
It’s quite unanswerable.
I absolutely love it.
It’s just the number two.
12.11.09 I was RIGHT about Dirty Dancing.
Thanks to the amazing Ms.Jack for bringing this to my attention and sucks to youtube for not letting me embed this but you have to go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjvuCOlkO4E#watch-main-area so you can see that I’m not the only person to sniff a distinctly Lynchian undertone to Dirty Dancing…
12.11.09 Just The Few Spoiling It For Everyone Else…
Please don’t think any the worse of me but I’ve just lost my bank card. I wasn’t drunk, using it to cut coke, or wafting it alluringly around a strip club. I was just a bit tired and a bit forgetful and somewhere along the way, the card and I parted company. I have a feeling it was at precisely the point that I made a joke to my friends about how I worry that my PIN is too obvious, that the pattern my hand makes whilst I hammer out the four digits must make it suspiciously obvious what they are. This was just me making a joke, it’s not really true, just paranoia true, joke true.
Whether by natural justice, inherent irony, mercury in retrograde or sheer dumb clumsiness I have lost my bank card which obviously means I’ve just had to call my bank and apologise to them. Brilliantly they seem to employ a gruff History Teacher to take these calls.
“Hallo, yes? Are you ringing to report a missing card? Is it lost or stolen?” he said with an audible twitch of his bushy moustache.
“Erm, it was lost,” I say, realising that this makes me a time waster.
“I see,” says Mr.Cardrecovery, making it plain that he sees me as a time waster. “And do you have a record of the number?”
“No” I say, which probably isn’t completely true. I don’t have a record of the number to hand but I imagine it must be one of the many strings of digits I pay little or no real attention to on the electronic card statements that the bank allows me to download each month, you know, like the ones that say how much I’ve spent. I haven’t thought to fish out one of these electronic card statements, I’ve just gone online, found the number I should ring to say my card has been lost and dialled that.
“No?” says Mr.Cardrecovery a distinct edge coming into his voice. Were this the staff room this would have been the point where he put his coffee cup back down. “Yes I see, you’ve lost the card,” it’s fine, I’m not in trouble, he does understand “but do you not have a card statement to hand?” Oh, I am in trouble.
Before I can defend myself he plunges straight on with “Nevermind, I’ll see if I can find you, name…?” and there we go, he’s marching down the corridors leafing through his massive leather bound ledger and I’m racing to catch up, my embarrassed trainers squeaking on the polished floor beneath us.
“…and the post code of the business…?” I tell him “Ah yes, good, and the day and month of your birth?” I tell him this also, remembering to say the 8th of October which is the only way I can remember it correctly. Years ago I got into awful trouble failing to remember my own date of birth whilst trying to prove to a ticket inspector that was I was still eligible for cheap train travel. I blame the Romans. Once upon a time October was the quite sensible name for the 8th month of the year. Then Julius wanted a month and because he’d done it Augustus had to have a go as well and suddenly I’m being born on the 8th day of the 10th month but it’s called October despite being the 10th month. This has troubled me all of my life. It’s not just me, my girlfriend contends, perversely, that I don’t suit the 8th and she always thinks my birthday should be the 10th. 10th of the 10th would work ok but, frankly, I still think I should be the 8th of the 8th and I always want to say that but least this time, I don’t.
“And do you have a middle name?” Says the teacher in that perfect teacher way which says “I know you do have a middle name, I’m now asking you a question and the whole class is listening to see if you were paying attention or were actually asleep like I think you were.”
“Timothy” I say.
“Yes, that’s right,” he says as if he thought I’d get it wrong. See, I think, I wasn’t sleeping and if I was it’s only because this lesson is really dull. Not that it is a lesson, I remind myself, this is a perfectly normal business transaction that is being oddly skewed by his tone of voice… get a grip, you’re a customer not a pupil, you have rights…
“And what are the first two letters of the password?”
“I’m sorry sir? I mean, sorry?”
“The password you gave when you first set up this account?”
“Is there…? Is there one?”
“Yes. You set it up when you first created the account.” I can just see the chalk dancing irritably through his fingers. “It’s you’re own time you’re wasting…” he didn’t say that, he said “It could be your mother’s maiden name.”
“Oh right.”
“Or a country.”
“Oh right.” Now I’m completely lost. Trying to keep this circumspect in case you ever happen to want to try and steal my identity (though frankly, should you, good luck to you, you’re bound to do better as me than I am…) but my mother’s maiden name is not a country. I have no recollection of setting up this password and am struggling to imagine what word could be on the screen in front of him that he thinks could be both a maiden name and a country. I find myself thinking how it must be tough for anyone going through life with a geographical maiden name because it must constantly create in people about to meet them the expectation of the winner of a beauty contest. “Who’s the next candidate for the job?” “Oh it’s Ms.Brazil” “Oh really?” “Hallo, sorry, I’m not late am I, I’m Ms.Brazil” “Oh.” Thinks, wow, must have been a bad year when they gave out that prize…
“OK, right, well, you’ve given me the correct name and postcode I’m sure that’ll have to do” says Mr.Cardrecovery in a tone that suggests that quite frankly it won’t do but he’s got no intention of wasting anymore of his lunch break on the matter. “I have a last transaction here on the 9th of November for £42 does that sound right?”
“Um, when was the 9th?”
A strained silence “Two days ago Mr.Blaine.”
“And who was it to?”
“Let me see…” and he starts to leaf through the ledger just as I remember “.. it just says HAMBURGER. £42. HAMBURGER. Does that sound right to you?”
“Yes,” I say, limply, aware that the whole class is laughing at me. Again. “It’s hamburger union.” I add pointlessly “there were three of us.”
“Sit down boy.” he doesn’t say.
10.11.09 The Time Of My Life.
There are more films made every day than anyone could ever hope to watch. Mostly they are not even really worth the effort. Consequently I tend to operate quite a strict policy of avoidance, which means that there are a far few modern ‘classics’ that, much to the horror and amazement of my girlfriend, I have never seen.
For instance, up until recently, I had never actually seen either “Pretty Woman” or “Dirty Dancing”. My reasoning was clear, both films were obviously awful. One of them stars both Richard Gere and Julia Roberts and the other features that song. Besides, clearly, neither of them were aimed at me so surely, even if they were good for what they were, they were designed to be films I hate. However circumstances have lately conspired against me and I have now watched both films from start to end. Both surprised me.
In concept at least “Dirty Dancing” always made more sense to me. Before watching it my understanding of the thing was that it was a film about two people doing dancing together who find the whole sweaty hands on throwy about nature of the process leads them to have sex and fall in love and then sing that song. Musically horrific but otherwise understandable. I had always assumed that my idea of what “Pretty Woman” was had to be in some way mistaken. Before watching it all I knew was that she played a hooker, he played a rich man and there was the bit when he snaps the box shut on her fingers and she laughs and this apparently signifies romance. But I also knew that this was nominated for four BAFTAs, four Golden Globes, winning one and also nominated for an Oscar. Julia Roberts was nominated for an Oscar for this role. On top of this I had heard it regularly cited as one of the classic romantic films. As much as I’d mentally written it off as trash I had also accepted that I was being unfair and obviously there was much more to it than the bit when Richard Gere snaps a box shut on her fingers and she giggles apparently signifying romance.
Astonishingly, I was completely wrong. There is nothing more to it than the bit when Richard Gere snaps a box shut on her fingers and she giggles apparently signifying romance. It is entirely vacuous, astonishingly miscast, patronising and tedious. Apart from the box moment I struggle to remember a single actual event. There’s something about her driving his car which I presume indicates his emotional problems. There’s the bit when the lady in the shop is a bit offish. And there’s the frankly terrifying bit where they finally do get it on, in which Gere’s waxy hairless chest and her waxy expressionless face makes it all seem like a pair of shop dummies getting fruity after hours. I expected this scene to end with the pair of them looking confused and lost as they strip off to reveal, instead of sexual organs, a rounded nub with a trade mark stamped on it.
Oh and there’s the annoying bit about spoons. This bit is especially bollocks because let’s face facts here, the rules of posh cutlery are only terrifyingly complex if you have a severe learning disorder. As the man says in the film, you start at the outside and work in. That’s not hard! That’s surely what you’d expect to do. At the very most you could only possibly have imagined you went the other way because there might be a spoon at either end of your meal but your man in the wig has just pointed out that it’s outside to inside so surely that’s the subject done? Why are you still looking worried about your cutlery? You start at the outside and work your way in! How is that complex? Why is this being presented to me as a turning point in the drama! OH MY GOD WILL SHE USE THE RIGHT SPOON? Probably yes.
However, the really odious thing about “Pretty Woman” was that the story hinges on the idea that Julia Roberts deserves not to be a prostitute because she likes opera. Her friend doubtlessly finds opera dull so is therefore trash and it’s basically ok for her to stay on the streets. I mean, she probably couldn’t cope with the complexities of life as a rich person, what with all those spoons to work out. You see, it’s not that all people are equal and deserving of respect. No, the message of “Pretty Woman” is that if you like opera you should also get spoons and bubble baths and big shoes and white gloves and the hairless, expressionless Richard Gere and if you don’t dig opera then frankly you should just be grateful for whatever venereal disease eventually kills you off.
Much to my surprise “Dirty Dancing” is also entirely focused around class. I suppose this is because the structure of a romance requires the central love affair to be placed in peril by some larger social conflict. Warring family’s, warring nations and previous marriages had all been done to death and race and religion tend to stop things being light and frothy. Never-the-less these films do give the impression of Americans as utterly obsessed with class in a way they tend to loudly deny at any given opportunity.
Anyway, more surprising was that I found “Dirty Dancing” was not only frighteningly engrossing but at times rather beautifully shot. The best surprise was that the bulk of the soundtrack was not that song or anything like it, but a fantastic bunch of tracks from the sixties, which apparently is when the first ten or fifteen minutes of the film are set before everyone stops bothering to pretend. Of course that song does creep in around the corners, like someone passing wind at a wedding, the queasy sense of it occasionally snaking into the sound mix every time Patrick Swayze shakes his locks and looks moodily into the middle distance. However for the most part I forgot it was there in much the same way one forgets about Richard Gere when he’s on camera.
What I really liked about “Dirty Dancing” though was the way in which it was quite unable to control its own weirdness. Oh sure, on the surface its a frothy piece of nonsense about a child with a big nose falling in love with a man in his late thirties who can dance on his knees and is oddly massive compared with everyone else in the world. But this is a film with a disturbed id screaming beneath it. A film in which, rarely for a movie romance, it is apparent that almost every character is almost constantly turned on, or, in the case of the mother, stoned off her tits. Is it just me or is her husband medicating her into a stupor? Then there’s the odd threesome dance sequence where what should be an ordinary piece of teacher/student romance is made weird by having his skeletal ex-girlfriend hanging about, her eyes fixed on him, her hands glued to the hips of the new girl. Or the bit when the sisters make up and hug in a way which frankly just feels inappropriate. It’s like David Lynch’s remake of Greece.
What is particularly enjoyable is the sense it shares with “Casablanca” that the whole shoddy edifice is basically being made up as they go along. Both films are full of edits that work despite not really working, edits of salvation which were surely a desperate attempt to remove stuff that really didn’t work. Both are riddled with subplots that are astonishingly dark and yet are treated with a carefree shrug. Best of all, both films are built around romantic figures who, by the standards of film, frankly aren’t all that pretty. Humphrey Bogart is one of my favourite actors of all time and he has a screen presence that remains utterly mesmerising, but he still looks like a crumpled paper bag in a hat. Jennifer Grey spends most of “Dirty Dancing” looking disquietingly like Snoopy and Woodstock’s lovechild and yet in both films it is their emotional life that forms the heart of the narrative. Both carry a romantic charge that just shows up the Gere/Roberts coupling as the freakish plasticised nightmare that it is.
Best of all, despite an avowedly ludicrous ending “Dirty Dancing” doesn’t leave you with the sense that the characters are embarking on any sort of happily-ever-after. Again, like “Casablanca” and unlike “Pretty Woman”, this is romance as a passing, fleeting spark that disappears but remains forever in the memory.
I still hate the song though.
30.10.09 Dr.Gadyukin.
I’m not sure if I caught it in the autumnal draft of Cheltenham or earlier during a weekend crawling around London but the source is immaterial – I’m ill. Properly head spinning, bone aching, sleep all day, fry-an-egg-on-my-forehead ill.
Or least I was yesterday. I’m feeling slightly more compos mentis after clocking up an impressive fifteen or sixteen hours sleep. I’m still exhausted but at least I’m now slipping into the enjoyable part of flu where the discomfort is offset but the excuse for sitting around and doing nothing but watch the classics. That’s right, to “aid recovery” I’m spending a day in the company of the genius of Yuri Gadyukin.
My afternoon is laid out before me on a pair of battered and deeply treasured VHS cassettes which date back to the late 1980s when my Mum taped two of Gadyukin’s films which were screening very late one night on BBC 2. The first tape is incorrectly labelled “Godot” though this is in fact “Waiting…” Gadyukin’s retelling of Beckett’s play which according to Wikipedia was done without the author’s permission. It’s an astonishing film and it’s hard to believe that it was made in the 1950s. Sadly not only has this tape not worn well over the years, but, thanks to my Dad, the last twenty minutes or so were lost to the 1989 World Snooker Final. One minute the heroes are arguing over the bottle in the wreckage of the factory the next, with a ghastly flicker, Steve Davis is licking his lips like a pensive fox and preparing to pot. It is a narrative leap that the Master might have enjoyed and, if I’m honest, I think I find it strangely comforting that I’ve never actually seen the end of this sublimely dark and disconcerting film.
Next though is my favourite, thankfully far better preserved. “The October Wedding”, Gadyukin’s other completed “London” film has to be the overlooked classic of British cinema. Moving away from the narrative experimentation of “Waiting…” towards what I suppose is a sort of “kitchen sink” drama, Gadyukin never the less loses none of the poetry or compositional elegance that marks out his previous film. Ian Hendry just eats up the screen as Kirk and if Molly Hewitt is at times a bit irritating with her wide-eyed broken doll schtick, I can forgive her anything for the scene on the beach. The doomy sea side resort where the two families gather for titular wedding has to be one of the most beautifully decrepit film locations in history and the whole film is such a powerful conjuration of late 50’s Britain that it seems astonishing that it was made by a Russian.
The chance to watch these two films yet again and not feel guilty about it is a rare treat. As Kirk himself says “It’s a sickness, but I welcome it. Dear God, do I welcome it.”
28.10.09 Thank You.
I’m now back in the warm and ready to catch up on my sleep but I just wanted to round off my thoughts on the Cheltenham Screenwriter’s Festival with a heart felt thank you to everyone who admitted they enjoyed reading this blog. It’s an honour and a pleasure to bring some pleasant distraction into your lives.
Now get back to work.
x
28.10.09 The Red Queen.
As you may have gathered from my previous two posts, I went to the Cheltenham Screenwriter’s Festival expecting to find encouragement and people bursting to champion the craft and skill of the screenplay. I was disappointed since time after time the message was more that none of us were trying hard enough. I found self flagellation and tighter belts and writers almost apologising for their ideas before they pitched them.
This is a personal opinion. It was not physically possible for me to attend every session and I spoke to many people who had spent their time differently and come away with a very different attitude. However it was a delight for me to start Tuesday morning listening to Tessa Ross talking about her continuing work with Film 4. At last, someone who doesn’t see a challenge as a financial faux pas.
Film 4, like the Film Council and the BBC is one of the great bastions of British cultural life and our film industry. You can spit out your tea all you like, I mean that. Twenty-seven years after the birth of Chanel 4 it is still at the forefront of innovation and quality in film and television drama and is one of the key sources of support and funding for creative minds working with moving pictures.
Consequently most people seem to either quietly resent or openly hate it.
This is a typically English response and though perverse it is not completely bad. There is a defiance and clarity forged by opposition to opposition which often marks out the truly great work that the organisation has supported. Tessa Ross was not only the first person I heard at Cheltenham who had courage to encourage writers to not simply bow to the demands of the market, but she also scythed down a disgruntled voice from the floor which began to lead the discussion down the tired old path of “well why don’t you support me…?”
She sees her remit in clear terms. To use money from future TV broadcasts to support the work that the market does not yet know it wants. To do this effectively she can only back projects that mean something to her and her team. She defended her right to make mistakes and pointed out the depth of support for the projects she has believed in (like fourteen years trying to get “The Devil’s Whore” on television).
In recent years the Film 4 reel speaks for itself, however the terrifying truth is that the astonishing success of “Slumdog Millionaire” rather than opening the door, has merely prevented it from slamming shut.
Cheltenham in autumn is a very beautiful place but stood at the bar of the screenwriter’s festival it is easy to hear that winter is coming and it is going to be long and very cold. Come April we could well have a Tory government again, one that already is making contemptuous mutterings about the BBC and its license fee monopoly. With the UKFC starting to restructure and C4 still struggling to secure a place in the multi-platform digital future, things could get very cold indeed.
People love to knock these institutions but we will miss them if they go… wrap up warm.
28.10.09 Running To Stand Still.
One of the things that drew me and Chris down to the Cheltenham Screenwriter’s Festival was the prospect of the “speed dating” sessions which sought to borrow the lonely-hearts format to bring together writers with agents and producers. It’s a good idea, especially in England where most people still feel the need for some sort of ice breaker before they can just march up to a total stranger and start trying to engage them conversation, even if that conversation could have a mutually beneficial result.
Through nothing but my own stupidity and laziness I misread the registration information I was emailed and consequently missed my slots, though in the end I was not too upset at having made this mistake. A tweak to the format, presumably to allow more people to pass through the room, meant that rather than having a chance to talk to all the producers and agents who had turned up, each writer was instead given three five minute appointments. I think it might have been possible to express a preference for who you wanted to grab in these slots but in my overly relaxed manner I had left my meetings to chance, or at least to festival to organise as they saw fit. This turned out to be a mistake since I had been given two appointments with different people from the same organisation. Granted it was shoddy of me not to turn up on time but this doubling up of a supposedly precious meeting does make me wonder if I’m the only person not quite putting my heart into it…
However I tagged along with my brother and sat in the corner whilst he flitted bee like between his three appointed blooms. It was a grim spectator sport. Such events must be complicated to manage, especially when a proportion of your participants are, like me, idiots who can’t read a time printed in bold letters. I’m sure that many of those who did remember to take their seats will have arrived with clear goals and gained much. However as I watched the writers nervously jitter their introductions as they stumbled into their seats I couldn’t help but daydream about an event run in the opposite direction.
Of course it could never work. The producers in the room were a good handful of some of the best in the country. Even putting aside their own often impressive creative credentials, they were all gatekeepers of real money to make real films. This puts them in a massive minority compared to the row upon row of unfunded, unrepresented writers, drying their nervous palms on the backs of their legs. However it is a truth not universally acknowledged that the real strength of a creative industry lies in the creative minds that fuel it. Without the thoughts in the heads of the nervous and hopeful this industry has no future. So I sit in the autumn sunshine and daydream for a moment about an Alice Through The Looking Glass session in which it is the writers who remain seated whilst the agents and producers scrape back the chairs to sit and smile and repeat their over practised pitch. A bell rings and my brother the march hare shouts “Move Round! Move Round!” and onwards we roll…
27.10.09 The Hare And The Minotaur
On the way from the hotel where I’m staying to the Cheltenham Ladies College which is hosting this year’s Cheltenham’s Screenwriter’s Festival, there is a large and beguiling brass statue of a hare and a minotaur. They sit side by side on a brass bench, about two or three times the size of people. The minotaur has his arm around the hare and though the hare’s gender is left to the imagination of the viewer, the minotaur has an unmissable if not massive penis to prove his. Though public decency has ruled that the minotaur is unaroused by the romance of the clinch on the bench, even flaccid a naked penis adds a certain other dimension to the statue which makes it linger in the mind.
If any theme emerged from the first day of the festival then it was that the market for screenplays is exceptionally hard and as a result we should all do our level best to please it. The overall impression was not unlike sharing a bench with a massive brass minotaur, who, whilst clearly trying to engage with the romance of the moment was never the less making clear his plans for later… He means well, he even likes you, but don’t be confused, the night is only ever going to end one way.
Things are tough, though I do think that too many speakers today were confusing the problems of the industry with the problems of writers. Looking around at my fellow delegates I can only feel that, great as this event is, it is over subscribed when you think about the number of paid writing jobs going in film and television. The real reason is not that we’re all writing the wrong thing for the current economy, nor that too few writers read the trade press and know the twists and turns of industry opinion. It’s just that mostly what we write isn’t good enough.
26.10.09 Cheltenham.
Apparently in order to get to Cheltenham for the Screenwriter’s Festival tomorrow I have to wake up at half past five in the morning. This seems like bad plotting.
16.10.09 Piano Spam
Spam fascinates me. This blog has various spam filters to prevent all but the cleverest of spambots from leaving junky comments at the ends of my post. Today four had managed to slip through the electronic defences and were offered up for my human last say.
Three of these were the usual suggestions of places on the internet we could all visit in order to see naked photographs of people I presume someone else has heard of. However one was a link to this website about pianos: http://www.en.Grand-Pianos.org/ and don’t worry those of you reading this at work or not wishing to pollute your browser history with filth, that genuinely is just a website about pianos.
Normal spam is irritating but I can roughly understand the logic that it tends to advertise those under-the-counter services (porn, erectile drugs, knocked off prescription happy pills) that many people want but wouldn’t want to ask for. How has the pianoforte fallen among such company?
12.10.09 Meanwhile – Back In The Future.
A brief pause from my Branchage recollections to draw your attention to a screening coming up this Thursday 15th October. That’s the future.
WMD is a British political thriller written and directed by David Holroyd set during the lead up to the Iraq war. It is being released this Thursday simultaneously via iTunes and theatrically at the Shortwave Cinema in Bermondsey, where David and producer Christine Hartland will be giving a Q&A.
I’ve not seen it yet but it’s high time someone in this country made use of the natural drama of the past decade and the thought of a film that’s both dramatically compelling and politically turned on leaves me itching to get hold of it. Tasty tasty tasty.
20.09.09 England’s Glory.
I recently had a bonfire. As I built the pyre I was irritated to find myself mithering on about some of the recent comments in the endless debate about the “state” of the “british” “Film” “industry”. I’m trying to keep out of it now because I get the impression I’ve proved my point to anyone who is actually reading the words I’ve spilt on the subject. However, as I lit the match I noticed the branding printed across the box in my hand; “ENGLAND’S GLORY” written in a bold and nostalgically patriotic script which tipped a sulphurous hat brim back towards Victorian Britain which I guess was high summer both for the Empire and the match sticks upon which it later it turned out to have been built. Above the brand was a line drawing of a battle cruiser and in smaller letters “MADE IN SWEDEN”. I laughed until the burning match caught my fingers.
I can understand why people worry about the state of the “British” film industry. For a whole myriad of reasons I love living in this country and I love making films and I love the idea of continuing to do both for the foreseeable future. Consequently it is my dearest wish to live in a place where it is not only possible for me to make the films I want to make but where my work fits into a larger and creatively alive film culture. However, further than that I don’t think I give flying fuck whether a film is “british” or not.
All the way through the debate upon which I’m no longer commenting, there has been a quieter argument about what defines a film as “British”. For tax reasons the government and the Film Council operate a clear set of guidelines of how a film qualifies for this distinction. However these include a bunch of successful films like “Harry Potter” and “Mamma Mia” and that, it seems, won’t do.
To an extent I can understand why. These films, funded by the big American studios, feel American. Even though both the examples I’ve given are adapted from the work of British authors (the Book for the original stage version of Mamma Mia is by Catherine Johnson, I’m not claiming Abba though I doubt the makers of my matches would have any qualms about that) and have largely British casts, these and many of the other bigger names on the British list feel transatlantic. They are not us but us sold back to us.
However, “Harry Potter” may not be an accurate representation of boarding school, it may be that the distortions inherent in all story telling are now nuanced for America not Britain, but does this really mean we’re sinking below the waves? I feel quite secure in my cultural identity and a collection of glossy films about a wizard don’t feel like a threat to that. I accept that even though it makes no real sense, national pride is powerful and important but I would rather live in a country where these films were being made than one where they were not.
So the more persuasive argument I can see for grumbling Nationalism is that films funded on American money produce profits in dollars. “Harry Potter” may be a triumph of British imagination, British craftsmanship and British performance but the real magic has been performed by American accountants who build these astonishingly successful films here yet keep the lion’s share of the money on the other side of the sea.
However, who does this really affect? It’s not the cream of British actors who regularly take the best roles. Nor is it our best technicians who are in high demand. Neither is it the masses of eager runners and assistants who get to work on projects vastly bigger than anything they’d otherwise get a chance to see. Nor is it actually british writers, directors or producers because there are plenty involved in all of these qualifying British films. They’re not ’special’ either, Potter’s David Yates is a classic example of a man working his way through the ranks of British TV and film and reaching a position of fantastic success through dedication and hard work.
No, it strikes me that the only people who really feel like they’re suffering are those who secretly don’t think they’re good enough to get a job. I think Mr.Yates has the rest of the Potters sewn up but big American films will continue to be made here after that. They underpin our industry, they mean we have an industry rather than a back room. They bring opportunity, resources and experience. The only thing that stops you from getting a piece of that is yourself.
What matters is that a diverse list of good and great films are regularly in production on this island, after that it’s all details and the sort of bogus nationalism that we really should have grown out of when the Empire splintered into matches.
04.09.09 The Ultimate Panacea – A Good Script.
For those of you reading my blog in sources other than the original (http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog) you may not have realised that my recent thoughts about Jason Solomon’s Observer attack on British Film actually came in response to Colonel Mullighan’s highlighting of the article with this Shooter’s poll – http://shootingpeople.org/poll/britishfilm – which pulls a few of the more contentious statements out for the general examination of the Shooters community.
One that has been nagging at the back of my mind all day has been number five which ends “…producers … should not go into production unless the script is strong enough…” There have been a fair few comments to the poll agreeing with this, as indeed any right thinking person must since to argue the contrary would be barmy. Which is precisely why it annoys me.
I am sick of hearing people chucking around the idea that we need to ‘focus on writing’ and talking about ‘good scripts’ as if they were as easy to pick out as good shoes or good wine. As if a script were like a loaf and bread and turned a conveniently delicious nut brown colour when it was ready. The awful truth is that very few producers have ever gone into production without thinking their script is ’strong enough’, but most of them were wrong.
Wrong not because they are idiots. Wrong not because they are uncreative. Wrong not because they are not writers. Wrong simply because knowing a good script when you read one, knowing what will still feel like a good script once it has been shot by a particular director and cast, that is as hard as finding a lover who will not break your heart.
03.09.09 The Judgement Of Solomons.
Ah the autumn. Children trudging back to school. A chill creeping over the grass in my garden. The leaves not quite turning yet are never the less clinging with less lustre to the branches than they did a few weeks earlier. And someone is moaning about the state of the British Film Industry.
Like the first cuckoo of spring I have come to appreciate the sound of the first journalist’s moan of the autumn as one of those beautiful natural markers of the ever present motion of the seasons, change unchanging and both as ephemeral and eternal as the cries of a new born.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Jason Solomons ever since he was unwittingly a key factor in the humiliation of an irksome acquaintance of mine in Le Petite Magestic some years back. He has also been a stout supporter of the UK’s film culture for many years and is clearly someone passionate about his work. I too have done my stint of watching acres of mediocre crap in the search of pearls and have also found myself sharing his mantra about watching the nominated films for the Michael Powell award “…please don’t let them all be crap.”
I have also felt that ghastly sting of failure by association as a freshly calamitous piece of British cinema unfolds before my eyes. I remember watching the Edinburgh premiere of “Lucky Break” and almost crying at the humiliation of it. I can only compare the sensation to a dream a friend of mine had before Lewis Hamilton finally won the drivers championship. He dreamt the all important race started as motor races used to with the drivers running to jump into the vehicles. Whilst the other drivers had formula one cars, Lewis ran over and jumped onto a large orange space hopper and a commentator in my friend’s dream shouted “There we go, whatever colour he is he’s still English.”
However, whilst I share Jason’s regular feeling of dismay I think we do need to take a more measured approach to the problem. For starters I’m not really sure who is blaming.
It’s not the filmmakers, or at least not all of us. He goes to great lengths to point out that we do have some exceptionally talented people working both in front of and behind the camera in this country. He does wave an angry finger at the faceless hordes of “rubbish people” but since he refuses to name the culprits I’m not sure where this leaves us. Especially since he includes Nick Love on his list of talent.
Now I know it’s generally bad form for me, a struggling, aspiring filmmaker who has yet to make a feature film to say rude things about another more successful filmmaker but I’ve seen “Outlaw” so all bets are off. “Outlaw” is the eighth worst film ever made by anyone ever. If I was to diagnose a problem with the quality of British films then I would start with a big x-ray picture of Nick Love and say that this needs to be removed before it turns sceptic.
However, that’s just my personal taste in films and dim-witted right-wing vigilante politics. I can completely accept that on the back of the commercial success of Nick’s previous work it made total financial sense for Vertigo films to make “Outlaw”. I don’t know the business that the film did but I’m sure that, after DVD sales, it will have made money for all concerned. I’m not for a moment suggesting that profitability should be the only measures of success or worth of a film, but if we are to have an “Industry” it has to make money and if that means Sean Bean shouting in a gym then hand the man his kit bag.
Or am I wrong? One of the biggest targets for Jason’s bile does seem to be the British cinema audience. (So I guess, as a filmmaker not on his list of angels and a paying member of the general public I’m really persona non grata, at least I’m neither lonely nor living in Hackney…) We like theatre. We like television. We don’t like the films of Thomas Clay and Sally Potter (that’s a general ‘we’ not my personal opinion, unlike the bit about me actually hating Nick Love). Aren’t we awful? Why can’t we be more like the French?
This is nonsense and to be fair he knows it is, later modifying his argument to blame ‘the Industry’ for not having ‘educated’ the audience into liking what it makes. So don’t worry all you morons queuing in the multiplex, you’re not stupid, you’re just wrong. So the problem is not that we have awful filmmakers, it’s that our brilliant filmmakers are working to please an audience of idiots who haven’t been successfully house trained by… who? The Film Council? Oh of course…
Personally I hate the Film Council for the simple reason that it has become a handy thing that we can all blame so that none of us need to actually change anything. Anything that is wrong with the film industry or your career or the film you just saw – that’ll be the Film Council. Damned for making risky films, damned for making safe ones, damned for making British films, damned for drawing international projects to the country. I imagine if someone in the Film Council accidentally sketched out a plan for solving the Israel/Palestine problem they’d be furiously derided for depoliticising zionism.
The central mistake that I think Jason has made is in forgetting how hard it is to make an amazing film, and how rare they are. Sure a lot of failure comes out of this country and he has to watch it all. But a lot of failure, vast steaming piles of failure, spew from every other film industry on the planet. I’ve just been strapped in a plane watching some of the astonishing crap that comes out of America. Perhaps it is differently bad to the crap we make but that’s hardly a recommendation. Equaly, I’m a huge fan of French cinema and like Jason I think there are some things we could learn from their system and their national approach towards the movies. However, as a fan I have sat through more than my share of astonishing dross. Again bad French films are differently bad to bad British films but if I had to choose between “Outlaw”, “A Girl Cut In Half” and “Taken” I’d chose to tear out my eyes and stuff them in my ears so as to deaden the sound of my own desperate screaming.
I also don’t understand why so many people, Jason included, insist on diminishing the successes we do have. Why are some British films more British than others? And why is it only the successful ones that get discounted? Why is “Pride And Prejudice” an American film that made money and “The Boat That Rocked” a bad British film?
If any other sort of British company built a global success on the back of American finance everyone would rejoice… but Harry Potter, directed by a British director, staring British actors, based on a book by a British writer and set in an intrinsically British landscape – oh no, that’s basically evil because it’s got American money involved. What? Yeah, and we didn’t win the Ashes because Jonathan Trott and Andrew Strauss were both born in South Africa…
I quite agree with Jason, if you ignore the most successful films that get made in this country and point to the fact that only a minority of the home audience go to see the minority interest films that get small releases, then yeah, we’re pretty much up shit creak without a paddle. I however prefer to think that in an astonishingly difficult global market we are still somehow managing to regularly punch about our weight.
It is important that critics push for higher standards. It is important that audiences are encouraged to not think of “British” as synonymous with “worthy” or “well meaning”. It is important that we don’t simply become a back lot of Hollywood. But it is also important that we celebrate the successes we have had and stop constantly flagellating ourselves for not currently being in either the French New Wave or the Golden Age of Hollywood.
