A tricky one last Friday. Attempting to film closeups to slot into a scene shot three weeks earlier...
I 'd already had one experience of this that made me decide 'never again', but faced with the prospect of getting the same seven cast members together again, this was most definitely the lesser of two nerve-shredders.
The shooting went well enough except for the inevitable weather problems (since I was relying on natural light); it was far too bright - and consistently so when on the previous occasion the sun spent the morning playing peek-a-boo - and having had problems with a discrepancy between the image as it appeared on camera and the image that presented it self to me in the editing software, I was reluctant to take the exposure too far down. But a swift experiment with the footage when I got home seemed to (mostly) allay fears of incompatibility.
A slightly more serious issue was when I realised there was a very simple, wordless shot I could have got which would have been ideal for establishing Caron in the scene. Would have taken fifteen seconds. (Well, okay, this is filming - it would have taken three minutes, but still...)
However, absolute despair being the mother of sleight-of-hand, I then realised that if I order the shots slightly differently I can achieve the same effect with a different shot. You can save almost everything with some thoughtful editing, as long as you have a good cast and you can see them - hear what they're saying (the last being particularly important in my films. What, a visual medium? Where?).
And of course, since I so am dead set against reshooting parts of scenes to fit in with earlier shoots, any rumours that I might have reshot another bit of another scene in the afternoon are totally unfounded abd both actresses involved are mysteriously unavailable for comment. But had we done that, I'm sure it would have worked out fine - even if the location I described as lovely and quiet (oh, why did I open my mouth?) did suffer from low level machinery rumble most of the afternoon...
Anyway, it occurred to me after the last post that I was so wrapped up in the actual shoot, I completely forgot that we now have a trailer online. It was warmly received at the Brighton Filmmakers Coalition One Shot Challenge Screening, but will likely be slightly revised to incorporate some of the reshoot footage.
Oh, and speaking of reshoots, of course I never do them, but if I had decided to reshoot a bit of the countryside footage because we were completely screwed sound-wise by the wind, and if I had been unable to organise it until a month later, we might have had a slight flora-based discrepancy:
So, it's a really good job we didn't have that to contend with, eh...?
Showing posts with label brighton filmmakers coalition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brighton filmmakers coalition. Show all posts
Sunday, 19 August 2012
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Worth a thousand pictures..?
"The three most important things about a film are the script, the script, the script" - Oscar-winning director Fred Zinnemann
I am that oxymoronic creature, a filmmaker who's not particularly visual. I suppose many if not most filmmakers get started through a love of images; personally, what really interests me, as Tom Stoppard once said, is "what people say to each other", and why they say it - or in some cases, don't. My scripts are dialogue-driven - and my films are character-driven.
I lean too far in that direction, I realise; I am gradually learning how to say things without words. Often in a readthrough of a script it becomes clear that some of the words are unnecessary. But I suspect that what actors look for in a script, initially, is interesting dialogue that is expressive of interesting character - acting, at root, is surely about exploring the human condition. And even if verbal communication does in fact constitute a fairly small percentage of how we actually express ourselves, it's the means that most people use to present their chosen image of themselves. That image can be contradicted by their body language, or their actions - but that's only interesting if we have the words to compare.
And if this was a script, I'd cut everything above and start here...
In writing short film scripts, often in my case for film challenges, you work within certain parameters; you write for the people who are available, you limit the locations and characters (er, except when you don't because everyone you ask says 'yes' and you feel bound to include them...) - in short, you work with what you've got, and you use your limited resources in such a way that they become strengths.
I approached my feature script in the same way. I was - so I thought - ferociously cunning: I came up with a format that would involve a number of scenes (interviews direct to camera, phone conversations, bridging shots) that needed only one character onscreen, and thus could be shot at almost any time, contributing to the running time without involving major scheduling headaches. The interview scenes were also conceived as a payback for performers who had worked with me before - there were obviously a limited number of featured/leading roles, but this way everyone got to have the screen to themselves, if only briefly. If you're working with no money, goodwill is your strongest currency.
Oh, and a decent script, of course.
My first thought was - 'Keep it fast-moving. Don't give the audience time to even consider whether they might want to look at something else.' But then it struck me that many films I have found utterly compelling do things in exactly the opposite way; they take their time, allow the audience time to really empathise and feel with the characters. One of the most gripping things I've ever seen is the initial meeting of Cynthia and Hortense in Secrets and Lies, and far from being a succession of quick dramatic cuts and intense close ups, it's pretty much all one shot. It's the acting (and the writing) that draws you in - so much so that I didn't even notice it was a single shot until I'd seen it a couple of times.
I didn't quite go that route. After all, if you have no money, and you are your own art direction department, you have a duty to entertain. The script I wrote is romantically-comedic in tone, if not in actual subject matter - make people laugh and they will forgive a lot. (At least, that's the theory)
Which seems an opportune moment to insert my joke:
How many writer/directors does it take to change a lightbulb? One, because 'This is my project, damnit!'
(One can imagine a slightly more Zen-like variant: insert the word 'auteur' instead of 'writer/director' and there's no need to even answer...)
So: I wrote a script, thinking carefully about how to minimise scheduling nightmares, utilising sets/locations that I knew I already had or could easily get, and creating characters for performers which played to their personalities and/or individual acting strengths. I worked over the script, editing and rewriting much more than I ever had time to do for a challenge film, and even deleted a sub-plot, something which cost me a lot of funny lines. I went over and over the script; I submitted it to about ten readers to get feedback, which was pretty much uinversally positive. In the meantime I was working on pre-production. I had my own flat as location for the to-camera interviews, with a plan to start them ahead of the main shoot, I had a large pool of interested potential cast members, I was buying a new camera and had a postponed short film slotted in as a good warm-up exercise. I was ready to go.
Of course, that's when things started to go awry. But I need to fortify myself before I can endure going over that...
p.s. It occurred to me only after I nabbed the quotation for this post that Fred Zinnemann is responsible for one of my favourite dialogue-driven films of all time. Adapted from a play, of course. I do sometimes wonder if the theatre would be a better home for me...
I am that oxymoronic creature, a filmmaker who's not particularly visual. I suppose many if not most filmmakers get started through a love of images; personally, what really interests me, as Tom Stoppard once said, is "what people say to each other", and why they say it - or in some cases, don't. My scripts are dialogue-driven - and my films are character-driven.
I lean too far in that direction, I realise; I am gradually learning how to say things without words. Often in a readthrough of a script it becomes clear that some of the words are unnecessary. But I suspect that what actors look for in a script, initially, is interesting dialogue that is expressive of interesting character - acting, at root, is surely about exploring the human condition. And even if verbal communication does in fact constitute a fairly small percentage of how we actually express ourselves, it's the means that most people use to present their chosen image of themselves. That image can be contradicted by their body language, or their actions - but that's only interesting if we have the words to compare.
And if this was a script, I'd cut everything above and start here...
In writing short film scripts, often in my case for film challenges, you work within certain parameters; you write for the people who are available, you limit the locations and characters (er, except when you don't because everyone you ask says 'yes' and you feel bound to include them...) - in short, you work with what you've got, and you use your limited resources in such a way that they become strengths.
I approached my feature script in the same way. I was - so I thought - ferociously cunning: I came up with a format that would involve a number of scenes (interviews direct to camera, phone conversations, bridging shots) that needed only one character onscreen, and thus could be shot at almost any time, contributing to the running time without involving major scheduling headaches. The interview scenes were also conceived as a payback for performers who had worked with me before - there were obviously a limited number of featured/leading roles, but this way everyone got to have the screen to themselves, if only briefly. If you're working with no money, goodwill is your strongest currency.
Oh, and a decent script, of course.
My first thought was - 'Keep it fast-moving. Don't give the audience time to even consider whether they might want to look at something else.' But then it struck me that many films I have found utterly compelling do things in exactly the opposite way; they take their time, allow the audience time to really empathise and feel with the characters. One of the most gripping things I've ever seen is the initial meeting of Cynthia and Hortense in Secrets and Lies, and far from being a succession of quick dramatic cuts and intense close ups, it's pretty much all one shot. It's the acting (and the writing) that draws you in - so much so that I didn't even notice it was a single shot until I'd seen it a couple of times.
I didn't quite go that route. After all, if you have no money, and you are your own art direction department, you have a duty to entertain. The script I wrote is romantically-comedic in tone, if not in actual subject matter - make people laugh and they will forgive a lot. (At least, that's the theory)
Which seems an opportune moment to insert my joke:
How many writer/directors does it take to change a lightbulb? One, because 'This is my project, damnit!'
(One can imagine a slightly more Zen-like variant: insert the word 'auteur' instead of 'writer/director' and there's no need to even answer...)
So: I wrote a script, thinking carefully about how to minimise scheduling nightmares, utilising sets/locations that I knew I already had or could easily get, and creating characters for performers which played to their personalities and/or individual acting strengths. I worked over the script, editing and rewriting much more than I ever had time to do for a challenge film, and even deleted a sub-plot, something which cost me a lot of funny lines. I went over and over the script; I submitted it to about ten readers to get feedback, which was pretty much uinversally positive. In the meantime I was working on pre-production. I had my own flat as location for the to-camera interviews, with a plan to start them ahead of the main shoot, I had a large pool of interested potential cast members, I was buying a new camera and had a postponed short film slotted in as a good warm-up exercise. I was ready to go.
Of course, that's when things started to go awry. But I need to fortify myself before I can endure going over that...
p.s. It occurred to me only after I nabbed the quotation for this post that Fred Zinnemann is responsible for one of my favourite dialogue-driven films of all time. Adapted from a play, of course. I do sometimes wonder if the theatre would be a better home for me...
Monday, 14 May 2012
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.
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.
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