The Sweet Smell of Excess

So, hard on the heels of wrapping the shooting, I now have a rough cut of the film. Woop, as the youngsters say. (No, I am pleased, really. And excited.)



Gypsy is also excited

So how long is it, do I hear you ask?



Weather’s turned nice all of a sudden, hasn’t it..?



Traditionally, it’s supposed to time out at a minute per page of script. I had 82 pages of script, but I knew it would turn out longer than 82 minutes, with some lengthy speeches by Isabella and party sequences which were a short paragraph on the page but need comparatively longer on screen to make their point.



Hazel and Jill. To love is not to look at one another, but to look together in the same directi- oh dear



However, I was hoping for a slightly shorter running time than 105 minutes. Better to be over than under, of course...

...providing you can cut. I’ve already excised bits of scenes during the assembly of the edit, cut lines, trimmed shots, and so on. I don’t know how much more can go.



Peanut

It may not be a problem, of course. I have yet to watch the film through as a complete narrative, and it may be that it will feel exactly the right length. But 105 minutes feels a little too much for a film with no money on screen. There are cars (well, one) but no chases, and explosions (two or three), but only emotional ones, and chatter the likes of which has not been seen on the silver screen since the 30s. Will a modern audience be able to stand it?



Gypsy and Hazel have stopped being excited

I shall, as we oldsters say, keep you posted.

Short Trek to the Light

Whisper it.

It’s a wrap.



No! Sound this barbaric yawp across the rooftops of the world:

IT’S A WRAP!

Well, ok...I may re-record one of the interviewees (who had four words), and I may take a couple of shots to cover the other end of a short phone call, but these are luxuries. Everything I need for the film is now shot, thanks to the lovely Sarah Gillett, actress, singer and choreographer at Fight or Flight Productions, who stepped into the breach and made an admirable job of her first ever bit of film acting. She was also a good audience for the small segments of the film I showed her as context for her role – her reactions were very encouraging at this stage of the lonely editing process.

Hazel has no idea that Gypsy has plans to divert her

Other than that, I have been working non-stop to cobble together a rough cut to take and play on my brother’s swanky TV set-up in about ten days’ time. Work on the score is progressing, though I haven’t had time to check out too much of what Luke and Joe have been producing. I have encountered horrendous continuity problems, sound problems, coverage problems...there has been much gentle bumping of forehead on desk.

Sabrina has problems...and she's not the only one

But everything has just about hung together, and along the way I have renewed acquaintance with some lovely, all-but-forgotten moments of great acting and comic timing. It is also, um...pleasing... to discover that two actresses playing a romantic scene do seem to have more than a soupçon of chemistry, something I was far too preoccupied to appreciate when we shot the scene.

Gypsy has something to confess...

Putting together a soundtrack for the party scene it’s also pleasing to report that so far all the musicians I’ve contacted are more than happy to allow their music to be used for the film. (It probably doesn’t hurt that half of them are IN the film...)

The cover star of this mag may also be spotted during the film

So - onward. And today I even have a new photo that isn’t just grabbed from the footage, for a change…

Sarah looking a lot more approachable than her character...

The Way We Were

Three lovely ladies and some middle-aged git

It was January last year that I sat down to write the script for my first feature-length film. After a dozen or so short films and with the prospect of passing the personal half-century mid-year, it seemed time to do something a little more ambitious.

Talia on the very first day of filming - oddly enough, the opening shots!

I’d made films as long as 25 minutes, so in theory a 100-minute film should only be about four times as difficult, right? Wrong. There were times I regretted even starting. There were times when it seemed the project was doomed. But somehow, despite delays, mistakes, equipment problems, unavailable performers, injuries, the British weather, repeat injuries, last minute-allergy discoveries…despite all this and more, it somehow got done. (Well, I say 'done'…almost, almost…)

Jess, almost upstaged by Megan's hair dye

I recently had a chuckle to myself recalling the two weeks I booked off work for July, thinking ‘that’s when I’ll be editing the film’. That was actually when we shot most of it, due to delays in finalising casting. But it’s clear to me now, with the perspective of hindsight, that with ANY other combination of performers in the lead roles, the film would never have been completed at all. After what seemed a calamitous start, we were quite ridiculously fortunate. If Talia had not brought Jess to the first read-through, if another Jess had not had to drop out, necessitating the last minute casting of Megan, if both Megan and Jess had been just a fraction less reliable and considerate, everything would have come unstuck during those two crucial weeks in July.

Megan as Faith, in hunting gear

And now here we are, a year on from the first tentative notes I jotted down – How to break up the filming so I wouldn’t be scheduling loads of people together? How to give as many people as possible an opportunity to appear? How to get a head start before I could afford to buy a DSLR? (all of which questions were answered by the same idea) – and I have just one character still to film. (Ok, I’ve been in that position for nearly 2 months, but I’ve been waiting for an actress to get better. I’m nice like that. (Should vegetarians be film directors, do you think…?))

Lizzie in place (but not in character) for Jill's interview scenes

So now seems a good time to look back and thank everyone involved; too many to name individually (30+ speaking parts, for a start!), but from the top: Talia for her enthusiasm and (mostly!) unflagging energy, as well as for all the people she brought to the project, and for her amazing, almost machine-like ability to perform in the most trying circumstances; Jess, for rescuing the entire production and for being always cheerful and reliable despite giving up two weeks of her life at a time when she was also moving house – and of course for giving a perfect performance in a role I thought I couldn’t re-cast; Megan for stepping into the breach and also rescuing the production, and for being steadfast, thoughtful and adaptable (being far more used to theatre performance) throughout; Caron for agreeing to take part before even finishing the script, and sticking with us through all the subsequent delays; Sharon, for mastering by far the most involved dialogue of any character, and for cheerfully winging it when she hadn’t had time to master it – and for AD’ing one evening and saving me from a breakdown; Miranda for braving unimaginable pain to make sure we got shots of her and Jess together, and for giving a great performance whether in agony or pushed for time; Chloe for her patience with scheduling and for coming all the way from London and helping to make sure Thea’s scene had the right impact; Lana and Lizzie for personifying their characters perfectly and for making the trip up the Devil’s Dyke twice so we could get it right; and Jo Maultby for her amazing musical contribution and her acting debut as the busker.

Chloe (a doubtful attendee for the premiere, as she's now based in New York)

Others who deserve a mention; Chris Andrew for great stills and other duties, Jenni, for a perfect location and another acting debut; all the interviewees, Literary Ladies and party extras; Hulya for the use of her spacious flat; Joe and Luke for the score, still developing excitingly as I write – and a special last thank you to Sophie Groome, production assistant extraordinaire (script prompter, boom operator, camera operator, and briefly onscreen as ‘begging student’) without whom so many shoots would have been much more difficult.

Interviewees. Left to right: Leah, Sam, Vanessa, Veronica

The film is currently on schedule for a showing around Easter 2013. No doubt there will be more problems to wrestle with along the way, but for now, it doesn’t seem too indulgent to sit back and say – Thank you everyone, and well done.

Everyone likes the sea shots. Shame they're only in it for about three minutes...

The Road Goes Ever On (to give me an excuse to tag this with 'Tolkien')

Lots of interesting thoughts have occurred to me in the last few weeks - but damned if I can remember any of them now...

Editing is a lot less stressful than organising people to get together and shoot.

Sometimes the above statement is true.

Most times it's true. But just occasionally I would cheerfully swap 30 minutes at the computer for six months of production hell.

However, I am not here to complain. Since my last post, 6 or so weeks ago, I have managed to shoot the final two interviewees who had remained uncast (thanks to the unexpected drama backgrounds of supermarket employees!), and am now waiting for one actress to recover from a fairly serious bout of illness in order to shoot the last half page of script. Mayan Calendar notwithstanding, I feel reasonably confident of finishing the film. I've even remembered to back up the the editing project as well as the footage...

Faith (Megan Bay Dorman) in pensive mood

Editing is a curious, absorbing business, and it has one thing in common with filming; with every scene I work on, I find myself losing sight of the rest of the film. The characters who are not in that particular scene leave my mind, and the whole story, the whole film, seems to be what is depicted in those few minutes of screen time.

The scene(s) I'm working on at the moment feature a total of nine characters, but there are four other significant speaking parts that have not entered my mind since I began this sequence (three weeks ago - it's a complex scene).

Louise (Christabel Cossins) and Kimberley (Tessa Cushan)

If you've visited the blog before you may recall me talking about the shoot that nearly went awry at the last minute due to a cast member injuring her back. This is the one. We ended up having to shoot on two different days.

Happily the vastly different light on the two days has turned out to be possible to match using the editing software, and the various I'd-tear-my-hair-out-if-I-had-any problems that have surfaced due to lack of coverage (we shot about six minutes of screen time in about four hours) or continuity blunders seem to have resolved themselves satisfactorily. And I haven't screamed too often.

Bizarrely, in regard to some aspects of the scene the problem has been that I have too much choice - many lovely shots of the cast that I've had to discard. There may still be shots in the edit that I should be cutting. It's not easy to throw away beauty.

Philippa (Philippa Hammond)

The other thing I've done is to put together a second trailer, this time a little more focused on Hazel and her dilemma, as some people felt the first trailer was a little...diffuse, shall we say.

I've also shown some more or less completed scenes to a select audience and had a generally favourable reaction, which is heartening considering the scenes were from the middle of the film and therefore apt to be confusing...

One thought I had gave me pause. I recalled that I booked two weeks off work in July, thinking that was most likely when I'd be editing the film. Well...do I need to tell you how that worked out..? Just as well I booked a lot off time off around Christmas, too...

The Lives of Others

Want to hear about more hassles? No?

Thought not.

Tough.

How about the rehearsal for a crucial and complex scene for which I could not possibly procure all the cast involved so I had to make a choice between two dates and as soon as I did and told everyone, two of the people who could make that date suddenly couldn’t? How about…

But no.

I have been reminded lately how remarkably precious life is, not least by the extraordinary blog entry of Jessica Ghawi (writing as Jessica Redfield), killed at the Dark Knight Rises shooting in Aurora. I urge you to read it; if it doesn’t make you acutely aware of the life in you right this moment and how fragile it is, then I can only assume that you are some kind of alien. Or that I am.

It is too easy to forget how lucky we are, simply being comparatively free and not lacking for warmth or nourishment. And those of us who have the opportunity to breathe life into a new creation - whether paid for it or not – are thrice blest. I must remember to be grateful.

Although… I do wonder how many filmmakers are pondering their vocation at the moment, and suddenly feeling doubts about it. Not because entertainment may deprave or corrupt or send signals to a sick mind, but simply because something like the Aurora shooting, and in particular the intensely personal angle on it provided by Jessica Ghawi's writing would surely make anyone wonder about what they’re doing with their life.

Martin Amis said that the writing of fiction seemed redundant – trivial - after 9-11. He recovered his perspective, but now, with this, with this indelible link between a film and an atrocity, the contrast between the absolute preciousness of life and the utter triviality of a blockbuster film could not be starker. In a world where such things can happen, what are we doing – what am I doing – to make them less likely?

Regret calamities, Emerson wrote, if thereby you can help the sufferer. If not, attend your own work and already the evil begins to be repaired. I can spend time asking unanswerable questions or I can get on.

Perhaps the best a film (or a book, or a play) can hope to achieve is to open the heart of one or more members of its audience (or, indeed, one or more of its makers). If, by presenting fictional people, a story can facilitate understanding of some aspect of real behaviour or make a previously misunderstood or unappreciated state of mind more real and more graspable to someone, then perhaps it is not quite a waste of time. If it can make other people more real to us, then in some ways it is not fiction at all, but something truer than reality. That would seem to be reason enough for it to exist.

I make no such grand claims for my own film. I merely hope it looks at life and human beings compassionately, without judgement. There are no villains in this film. There are only misunderstandings and fears. And I hope that every character in the story ends with greater understanding and little less fear. That seems a passage worth charting.



Sorry - this was not what I intended to write. Have a little production diary to wash away the seriousness. Some of Chris Andrew’s pictures of our party shoot:

Wanna be in pictures...?

Okay, so we're underway and I'm too completely frazzled to write at any length, so...

Jess, Gemma and Chloe

Megan ('Faith') and Talia ('Hazel')

Gemma booms Jess; I appear to be about to punch the camera

Chloe ('Thea')

I have absolutely no recollection of what I was doing here

Thea meets Gypsy - neither knows what to make of the other

And that's how I spent most of my 50th birthday...

Inherit the Wind

When asked what he looked for in a script, Spencer Tracy, star of the film referenced in the title, simply said: 'Days off.' I understand how he felt.

It has been a busy and tiring week. We still have no one for the part of Faith, but another readthrough, although slightly shambolic because everyone was coming at different times, did manage to secure us an Isabella. We filmed another couple of the interviewees, with an excellent performance from Kim Head, who prepared by herself and needed scarcely a note from me at all. There were hiccoughs, of course, the main one being the discovery by one actress that she needed to be somewhere an hour earlier than she'd thought, and a chance meeting resulting in another actress being late, which eventually meant that something for which I'd originally allowed a leisurely three hours had to be shot in 45 minutes. Quelle surprise. Such is filmmaking.

Talia gives Kim her cues and eyeline

And in between all this I had been trying to find a Faith, trying to schedule future shoots, thinking about tidying up the two films I want to submit to Glimmer 2012, worrying about whether to fully charge part-used batteries and risk shortening their life (I decided no), trying to keep track of what information I had sent to which cast members (and typing this has reminded me of something I'd forgotten), and trying avoid the thousand unnatural crocks that filmmaking is heir to.

But Friday (yesterday) was supposed to be the big one. We had scheduled the whole day to capture a number of transitional scenes (protagonist Hazel travelling back and forth from her interviewing and in the process revealing more of her character) and then the evening for the climactic scene of the film, a real watershed moment for Hazel involving the busker she passes at various points during the story.

The daytime scenes should have been simple. No dialogue, two or three shots each at the most, all day to do it. The weather forecast was actually promising inasmuch as it promised changeable conditions, useful when you're shooting scenes that are supposed to take place on different days.

What I hadn't noticed about the forecast was the prediction of wind.

None of us could remember such a windy day in central Brighton. In one or two cases it enhanced the effect of a scene, but in others...due to previously touched-on financial woes, a decent tripod was beyond my budget, so at some stages I was reduced to holding it as firmly as I could to prevent it shuddering in the wind. And the first outside sequence we filmed was a textbook example of how many things can hold up a simple shot.

People come by. That's fine, we were shooting at a University, that's expected. The placement of dropped books is not quite right; either too far forward, too far back. That's corrected. Heroine's feet not visible when she walks off. Sorted. Battery in one (sound recording) camera, being run down, runs out. Replaced. Heroine's tripod (carried because she is filming interviews) not visible when she drops books. Sorted. Dropped books skid into bottom of filming tripod, causing judder. Heroine's tripod visible but feet not. Feet visible but tripod not. Everything perfect, except books skid into filming tripod again. Battery in other camera, also being run down, dies. Replaced. Sound assistant unfortunately unfamiliar with eccentricities of sound recording camera. Further delays. Sunlight appears, disappears, reappears. And so on...

Talia and production assistant Sophie take a break

Why do we do it?

Because, I suppose, despite it all, it was still fun. You're making an entire alternative world come to life when you shoot a film, in a way that's not possible in any other medium, and what could be more exciting than that? It's the most comprehensive form of creation I know (and not being a musician or having written for theatre, the only collaborative one I've experienced).

I hate sound men (and they are, nearly always, men). You just want to get on with it and shoot something - but no, they insist on that ridiculous, overrated, elusive thing called 'quality'. After the fourth or fifth aborted take you want to say 'Who cares if no one can hear? At this rate there won't anything for them to see, either!' But of course, they're always right, and we were hoping to shoot a scene with some absolutely crucial dialogue. And as you can imagine, if the wind was not our friend for most of the day, it was our deadly foe for the final part of the shoot. We had a tiny earlier scene featuring the busker, Jo Maultby, which we needed to get out of the way first - and even that proved impossible. The wind gusted and crept around all means of protection we devised, and eventually we had to simply postpone for another day.



Talia and sound assistant Leon await Jo's return

Truthfully, it was hard to feel it as too much of a defeat, as the dialogue scene was so important and we clearly had less than ideal conditions. But there was another small thing that happened that made me wonder about what I was doing.

My greatest fear had been that, it being a Friday night, we would be subjected to harrassment by passing young men (face it - wherever you are and whatever you're doing, packs of young men are THE ENEMY), but in fact the only person who approached us was a woman whom I can only describe as not quite in possession of a full deck. She stood a little way away and watched us, and made a remark, but because of the wind it was difficult to communicate without leaving the camera, and the pressure of time was mounting. She moved around and stood to one side, but kept speaking intermittently, and I had no confidence she would respond to a request to be quiet, so although I barely looked at her, trying to concentrate on working out where I wanted the focus of the scene and where Talia should stop, etc, I was no doubt emanating 'fuck off' vibes in waves. After a bit she moved away, saying she only wanted to watch but she didn't feel welcome. I tried to tell her then that she could stay if she was able to keep quiet, but of course it was too late.

It's said one of the true tests of character is how you treat people who can be of no possible use to you. I feel that in a small way I failed that test yesterday - and I wonder if that isn't one of the hidden costs of filmmaking...that we become so focussed on what we have to get done that we forget that none of it is real. That woman was real, and if the film caused me to treat her with less than total respect, then I had better make damn sure the finished result is worth it.

If anything can be worth that.

Raindrops Keep Fallin' (except when the shoot is cancelled)

As this entry will be something of a catalogue of setbacks, I thought I should start with some good news.

I have some footage in the can. True, it will amount to about five seconds of screen time once edited, and true, there is a slight imperfection in the shot, but the latter can be put down to it being POV of an amateur's camera (in the context of the film), and I'm going to celebrate the former anyway...

Vicky (Victoria Smith) in relaxed pose during the otherwise tense and exhausting 15-minute shoot

This was supposed to happen over a month ago. I needed a new camera for the bulk of the film, but a chunk of it consists of interviews filmed by the protagonist in the service of her academic work, and I reasoned that it would fine for those shots come from the kind of camera she would actually use. This was another of my cunning ploys to spread out the workload and get ahead of the game while I was waiting to accumulate enough cash for my Canon DSLR.

Except in the middle of March I got a letter telling me there'd be extensive work going on around the building for 5 weeks. (I am using my flat for these shots as they all have to be in the same place and I have around 30 'interviewees' to shoot - and nowhere else would be readily available at short notice) So - scaffolding blocking the light and men conversing loudly about football a mere five feet from my desk. Not ideal. Scratch getting ahead of the game.

So, as well as working towards shooting a short that had already been postponed once and was due to act as a warm-up/dry run with the DSLR, I pursued the main casting for the feature. The casting had been done while I was writing the screenplay; that is to say, I knew exactly who I wanted and I wrote with those actors in mind. Obviously there was the strong possibility I wouldn't get everyone, but I had lots of good second choices.

My first choice for the lead was an excellent actress who had a background in stand-up comedy, who thought when I first (very vaguely) mooted the idea that she would be pretty much free after the Brighton fringe. As this is my first feature film, it seemed somehow inappropriate to offer the lead to someone via an email or a phone call, so I tried to set up a meeting.

And tried. And tried.

It wasn't anyone's fault. She just got suddenly very busy with comedy bookings, and did try to keep in touch and make it to the appointments we arranged, but...anyway, I lost three weeks with this running around before it became clear she was just going to be too busy until at least the end of August.

So I approached another actress, who turned out to be embroiled in theatre work for the summer, and spoke to another, and emailed another (and another), and found one on Casting Call Pro who was very excited about the project and all ready to go when she got some call-backs and some regular corporate work (it's very unfair having to compete with people who can offer money).

I could go on. The upshot of it is that as of today I still don't have a leading lady, although (not crossing my fingers because then I couldn't type) I feel confident that I will have one by next week, based on the events of the past few days.

Why not take full advantage of Casting Call Pro and other sites (even Gumtree) I hear you ask? Well - my first priority in casting this film was to give back something to those who had worked with me before, a chance (however slim) for the extra exposure a feature-length film can bring. And the second factor that influenced me was the matter of trust - it's no easy thing to approach a stranger who may have professional credits behind them with the line 'Look, I've got no money...'. (You may take it for granted that, except for the cameo interviewees, I wasn't approaching anyone whose acting hadn't already impressed me).

Well...among the performers of my acquaintance, an unfeasibly large number seemed to have work in the Brighton Fringe, which was another delaying factor. One actress whom I was desperate to get for a key role couldn't find time to read the script for 5 weeks - then turned it down. (And this on the same afternoon that my Casting Call Pro find said she couldn't do the lead.)

Add to this that it was becoming clear that £500 I was owed for a video job (that was going to pay for the body of the DSLR) wasn't going to materialise, and that the short film, after much buttock-clenching over the unreliable weather, was called off 16 hours before shooting because of cast illness. I had already express-ordered memory cards and batteries and borrowed money from friends to make sure I had the DSLR fully kitted up in time. I had been wrestling with the complexities of shooting 14 pages out on the Downs in just two days, and was confident I'd worked out a realistic schedule. After all the setbacks in getting the feature film up and running, I was raring to go. When it didn't happen, I comforted myself with the fact that weather forecast was terrible for the weekend, anyway.

It rained twice, on the Saturday. Lightly, for about 15 minutes each time.

It probably doesn't sound like much, told like this. But then there was the very talented actress who expressed an interest in the project and loved the script, but then said she wasn't sure she could commit to the time, being in London, despite her previous avowal that her work was very flexible. I'm not blaming anyone; at every stage people have been concerned that they might let me down, which is commendable; I just wish it hadn't kept coming after such enthusiasm and assurances that they'd be available.

And then there was the excellent, previously always-available actress who just a month ago had to get full-time corporate training work to cover her mortgage...

But enough.

Two of the most important people I wanted said yes immediately, one without even finishing the script, I have lots of free music from local musicians as well as a talented duo up for composing a score, feedback for the script has been overwhelmingly positive...it could all be a lot worse.

Except my sound equipment has started to play up. So (until I got an incredibly generous offer from a work colleague) I was facing a stark choice between getting new gear or eating for the next month...

I can only imagine how low my stress levels might have been the last three months if I hadn't been engaged on this project. This is what I mean about the cost of this work; for me, the most important thing is that people are happy, and while I'm struggling to cast the remaining roles I'm aware that some people have been waiting for weeks for something to happen, that I need the best possible performer for the lead but I also need someone who's got a lot of time, that one of the roles is such that there appear to be no candidates left to fill it...

I brought it all upon myself. Fair enough. But, for a project conceived as a reason to celebrate, to make me feel I wasn't just wasting my time, I do feel the universe could have been a little kinder...

To finish, a shot of lovely Lucy Shaw, in the initial test for the interviewees, which will have to be reshot due to the ureliable sound equipment, in order to match the way I'm going to have to shoot everything from now on.

Moan over. Next time; sets, locations...and a shorter post, I promise.

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...

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.