Live Poets Society

It's actually easy to believe it's been over three weeks since I posted - partly because it feels like about three months.

It's not that nothing's been happening. Rather the opposite.

Talia says goodbye to filming

My leading lady has moved back to London after completing her final scenes in the nick of time, including the scene that we tried to shoot on the very first day of filming and have been trying to schedule ever since, the climactic encounter with the busker, played by Jo Maultby.

Racing against the dying of the light

Another crucial scene is (mostly) in the can, but not without several crises on the way; the date for the Literary Ladies had been set six weeks in advance, and principal cast members all managed to keep it clear, and I found four guest players to fill the small but vital roles of the ladies...and then one of them had to pull out due to illness four days before we were due to shoot. So, scrambled around, found a replacement...and then two days before the shoot discovered that an absolutely vital member of the cast was severely allergic to cats (of which there were two in the location we were using). By sheer luck the flat of one of guest performers was suitable and available, so after a couple of days of panic, it all seemed set.

And then on the day itself, less than two hours before lift-off, another vital member of the cast texted me to say she had aggravated her back injury (already responsible for one cancelled shoot) and quite literally couldn't move. In vain I pleaded that all she had to do was sit and speak in the scene - she was not risking further injury, which was fair enough. But what were we to do?

There was no way I would get that cast together again, so I did the only thing I could - I shot around the absence.

Literary Ladies and one interloping male; clockwise from left - Thomas, Christabel, Tessa, Sascha, Sharon, Philippa

It meant no really wide shots, which was a pain; the hole left by Caron/Sabrina was variously filled by Thomas Everchild, the ever-reliable Sophie, and even the director for the readthrough.

The talented Chris Andrew was on hand again, mostly to operate the boom, but he found time to play the role of 'Ninjacam' and take a few photos that nobody noticed him getting:

A shame there wasn't time for him to take individual portraits of the ladies - as it is, I turn up in far too many of the shots.

There is more - much more - to tell about the last three weeks, but that seems quite enough for now...

One thing I will add; the weather was like nothing I've ever seen. Relying as usual on natural light (if we had even tried a lighting set up we would have run out of time before we had even half the shots done), I watched the sun go in and come out about once every two minutes. I have several clips which have thumbnails looking completely different at the beginning and end of the clip on the timeline.

I may dedicate this film to the British Summer of 2012...as a sort of propitiation.

It may help for next time.

Oh, and that's another thing - a very scary thing. Despite it all, despite the never-ending hassles and the ongoing stress and the very clear memory of what this has cost me along the way in shredded nerves, I am already thinking about 'next time'...

Getting Closer...?

Caron, who plays Sabrina

So, how to start this post without seeming to whinge again? I can't tell you about the one cast member who couldn't make the date for a very important scene, which resulted in it having to be postponed for a full month because there was a different problem every subsequent week. I can't tell you about the second readthrough that was all over the place because we didn't have enough people. I can't tell you about the two-week silence from the provider of our most important location, despite my repeated entreaties for info. I can't possibly even mention that the one night I was supposed to skip down the block to check out another location was the night the occupant managed to get herself locked in, with a lock so badly damaged that help had to be sent to get her out...

No, I won't mention any of that. I won't even say that we had a decent amount of work lined up to do today, recording voiceover and interviewees, and that it virtually all got shelved because of a sore throat. I won't even speculate about the possibility of considering mentioning the fact that my original target for completing the filming is less than two weeks hence and we've shot about five minutes' worth...

No, I am here to celebrate. A friend said: 'Write about the wonder of filmmaking'. I'm assuming by wonder he meant wondering whether the thing will ever get into gear...



Talia with Lana, who plays Peanut

No, enough of that. Good things. We have a Faith! Ok, I stupidly forgot to take any photos because of aforementioned shambolic nature of the readthrough, but we have excellent actress Jessica Laity-Jones on board, fresh from triumph in Doctor Faustus in the Brighton fringe. In the meantime, content yourselves with the picture of Talia with Lana Harper, conveniently showing the upper and lower extremes of height among the main cast. Lana's readthrough went extremely well; despite having been busy moving she obviously grasped Peanut's character at once. I only await news of her availability on 29th June to see if we can go frolicking in the country for a few hours... (Er, that's the whole crew, not me and Lana...)

Anyway, the sole single solitary bit of filming we managed today was the short interview sequence with Kelsey Cameron, a pint-sized veritable embodiment of pure frolicksomeness. Despite not having acted for over a year and feeling nervous, she was just fine.



Kelsey, uncharacteristically still

And what awaits us in the week ahead? Actually, not very much. More interviewees on Thursday, but nothing else confirmed as yet. A location visit with the cast, I hope! Perhaps one end of a few phone conversations; perhaps even the other end, too. Hard to plan when your leading lady is ill!

I was supposed to write about wonder. But what can you say? It slips through your fingers - it defies definition. Kelsey will appear to interact with Talia even though she was looking at nothing, and somehow, with editing, in that and other scenes the shots, sound and acting will coalesce into some representation of a human experience, something that will perhaps make people laugh, or at least smile, and maybe even shed a tear. And they may finish the film having glimpsed corners of the human heart that they don't often visit.

That's where the wonder resides, for me - not specifically in filmmaking, but in storytelling; in bringing to life human beings who have no reality and making people care for them and want to see how their life will turn out. As Stephen King put it - telling us the truth about ourselves by telling lies about people who never existed. That's what it's all about, in the end - not budget or production values or even ideas. It's about people, and about empathy and compassion. It's about getting closer - to others and to aspects of ourselves.



Note: The title of this blog is in tribute to Paul McCartney, who reaches 70 in just five hours, and whose song of the same name I used to shape a tribute to him.

p.s. One utterly invaluable lesson I have learned from this post; don't try to write while cooking, or you may end up with soggy pasta...

Brother, can you spare a lifetime?

Just to be clear, from the start; the title of this blog does not refer to money. I came late to filmmaking as a vocation, but over the past 3 years, I've made 14 short films with the Brighton Filmmakers Coalition and been involved in a dozen more in one capacity or another. Most of these films have cost almost literally nothing and none of them have made me (or anyone else, as far as I know) any money. That's not what it's about, of course. To do this sort of thing the passion has to be there first - and I would guess that even for those involved in spending or being paid millions of dollars, the passion is what keeps them going, not the paycheck. (Maybe I'm naive.) And those of us who do it for no financial gain - what do we have except the passion? If guerilla filmmakers do often dream of mega-budgets or directing film stars, what lies at the root of that vision is surely a love of the process, the medium?

Bob Dylan said success is getting up in the morning and going to bed at night and in between, doing what you want. I spent my birthday two years ago up on a hillside directing the final scene of a film, and in some ways it was the happiest birthday I've ever had, simply because I didn't have a moment to think about whether I wanted to be anywhere else, or doing anything different. Happiness is absorption, someone else said.

It's a sad fact that money drives our civilisation and dictates so many of our life decisions, but the only thing money is really good for is getting you to the point where you can forget about its existence and just do what you want to do. The measure of how much you love something is how often you do it for no money - and how hard you'll work under those circumstances. It's beyond lovely to get paid for something you enjoy, but if it's a real passion you won't think about pay - only whether the work interests you.

All of which pseudo-philosophical rambling is really only a preface to this:

With my half-century looming, this year I decided to give myself something to celebrate, a solid, considerable achievement - a big target to aim at. So I decided to make a feature-length film for no money. Not that the complete lack of funds was a matter of choice. More accurately, I decided to make a feature-length film even though I had no money to do it.

Five months into the year, the project could hardly be described as being firmly on track, but it limps along. It is my constant companion, my greatest preoccupation and my most reliable source of stress. This blog is intended as a diary of sorts, charting the progress of the production. Since I've started this account rather late in the day, some sort of review of events to date would seem to be in order. It has been a bumpy ride.

But that's for next time.