I keep forgetting that I had something to do with this.
Made almost two years ago to promote a forthcoming feature,Chamber is a psychological horror feature film which is currently in development under Workshop Productions Ltd film production company, Lock & Key Pictures. This is a trailer for a viral about one of the characters that you don't get to see, only hear in the film itself.
I acted as boom operator and also tried my hand at directing the actor during the voice over recording sessions. It was amazing to see how the set was lit by the very talented Director of Photography Mark Rickett, and to see all the elements come together to form the finished product.
Once again a great opportunity bestowed upon me by Workshop Productions.
Short film 'Faith', made over two years ago, has just sprung up in competition at the Portobello Film Festival! (http://www.portobellofilmfestival.com/index.html)
Had an incredible few days making this film with Workshop Productions. Acting as 1st AD it was a huge learning curve of an experience, and to see it have some success is quite humbling.
As pocket filmmakers are becoming like spare change, the mobility of technology becoming available is on the increase and the demigods over at Apple have jumped on the bandwagon with the release of their iMovie app for the, ‘this changes everything. again’, iPhone 4.
I have the new iPhone. I love the new iPhone. I like to consider myself a filmmaker, or a fledgling one at least. So the arrival of this app to accompany the iPhone’s dazzling new HD video camera made me a bit weak at the knees.
The main purpose of this app seems to be to create a video postcard for you to send to a friend/relative, not to edit any sort of narrative video. With options to choose a theme, including; Modern, Bright, Travel, Playful and News, each theme includes a matching set of titles, transitions and its own soundtrack. There is barely any room for tinkering with these set themes, pretty much destroying any glimmer of creativity for the end-user. The actual ability to ‘cut’ footage is a fairly simple touch and drag technique that compliments the phones multi-touch technology, but this can become quite fiddly. The best feature comes in the shape of the export feature where you have the choice of Medium, Large or HD video sizes, and from there one can go on to upload to Facebook or YouTube or just simply email the video to a friend.
Although never blown away by the features of the full iMovie in OSX, I can appreciate its use in the right hands, hands ranging from beginners to parents wanting to chop together ‘home movies’ of their offspring taking their first steps.
So I can only assume that Apple are trying to cater for the same users, not those of us wanting a Final Cut Pro Studio in the palm of our hands. Which is fair enough. I just wont get my hopes up next time.
"Being surrounded by people who are creative makes you want to be creative" – Michel Gondry
Having been beaten up and ground down by the experiences of making short films, largely by myself but with the help of a few friends, I found myself at a loss about what to do next. I tried my hand at writing a short script which I stuck at for a few months, just to see if I could do it, and that was fun but I still had this thing that I sorta couldn’t shake off, just an urge to film something. I kept getting ideas for things that I just wanted to do, jump behind a camera and filmfilmfilm!
As anyone even remotely in the know about the film industry will say, its always who you know not what you know. So I get a message off a guy I know through a friend of a friend, he’s in a local band and he wants a video making to promote their latest song, SOLD!
….kind of, due to my inexperience technically, creatively and also in a business way, I offered to do it for free which in hindsight I shouldn’t have done, considering the amount of time, work and effort that goes into trying to make anything worthwhile. I should have at least covered my costs; tapes, travel expenses etc.
Then again, the members of the band have all become good friends of mine, I have something different to add to my showreel, the shoot itself was a great experience; it’s an amazing feeling when those who you’re collaborating with come to you with excellent ideas and you think “damn, why didn’t I think of that first”, but at least I get the credit for it, and having that sense that your all there for the same reason is inspiring, you all care about what the finished product will look like and you’re all committed to the same goal.
The YouTube channel I’ve had for several months with all my shorts on has had a total of 130 views, the trailer for the documentary I produced for the same band had a total of 300 views in 3 weeks (YouTube and Vimeo combined). Which made me think of record companies being another form of distribution for filmmakers, as most contemporary music videos are becoming more and more short film-esque in terms of narrative, character, length etc just look at the work of Spike Jonze and Romain Gavras, fans of the band will want to see them in action and your work will get out there and get seen.
There generally is no set way of making your way into the film industry, as the famous saying goes “nobody knows anything”, so try every route possible and remain flexible in your approach always keeping your eye on the goal. I’ve left this experience having learnt some valuable lessons and gotten myself known to the local music scene, just waiting for the offers to come flooding in now….
……is that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Yes, I will probably reference/quote/mis-judge/bum any number of films throughout my time writing on this here blog.
To give you a rough idea of the sort of person I am (or at least think I am, or at least want to be….i think) then I’ll give you the low down on how I came to make a film called Snakes & Apples – a poem about Love, Loss, Friendship & Ketamine, and all of the pretentiousness that comes with those umbrellaric terms.
I will keep this short.
I originally got the idea in September of 2006, wanting to tackle a religious film for a few years, obviously what I had in my head then is, for better or worse or lack of a better excuse, not a thing like what has ended up on facebook/youtube/vimeo today. After battling the elements of leaving full time education, getting a part time job and the general difficultness of having a social life and relationship(s) I began writing and re-writingand re-re-writing. And then gave up. for. a. long. time.
….but then I started again…
March 2007.
Got my shit together and then couldn’t make it. I was under the assumption that I wasn’t ‘ready’ to make it and needed more time to work on the script. I didn’t have enough money to make it either, so I copped out by making this little sandwhich-filler of a film called ‘925’ –
After that, I got back into ‘Snapples’ and found it near impossible to get all the people involved together at the same time for when I needed them, nevertheless I endured the process and eventually got the ball rolling on what would be a three year production on a script that wasn’t even six pages long, gaining over eight hours of footage and costing me about a grand (along with what little sanity I had).
My logic is pretty impressive, and I’ll tell you why. I waited to get a tax rebate that I would spend on equipment to shoot Snapples (in September 2007), then I would sell that equipment and use the money to go on holiday to Los Angeles (in February 2008). I wouldn’t bother telling you this if I didn’t think it was at least a tiny bit funny, and if you’ve read this far you’ll probably be amused by what follows.
So, come Feb 2008 im about a quarter of my way through snapples, which I thought would be done by October at the latest, and that’s shot, edited, equipment sold, holiday booked etc. No, that was not the plan for me apparently. I somehow managed to book this holiday on no money.
Karma exists.
My camera brakes due to having a fist fight with the dirty ground, taking along with it the lens and mic, lost about a grand in blood. Shit. I wont bore you with the trivial details of how I managed to sort that out, something to do with failed fraud and credit card bills too big to mention. Anyway I get a new cam sorted after my nice little trip to the city of angels.
And back we go, of course I had to wait till the summer holidays to get all the people back together. waiting. waiting. waiting. Now that I think about it I actually have no idea what I did during these months of stalled production….hmmm….
We get back on it and have a fucking amazing time, I remember the summer being incredibly hot, giving some great natural lighting for me and much needed enthusiasm for the cast J. So we get everything we want need….
That’s a wrap? Yea?
No. I wasn’t happy. So I designed some re-shoots. Having to wait for the lead to grow his hair back after having it cut cause he was going to some festival (), I decided to make another one of those sandwhich-filler films, like ‘925’. I think I had this idea of 925 being something to get me back into the swing of things cause it had been quite awhile since id picked up a camera, and this next filler was to ‘keep the juices going’, cinematically speaking. A way to not let motivation waver, and keep me on my toes, maybe. This film was compute –
Bad scheduling and just a general lack of knowledge led me to simultaneously be shooting Compute and what was left of Snakes & Apples at the same time. It gets better. I planned to sell my filming equipment to buy the editing equipment needed. I somehow managed to sell the majority of my equipment whilst keeping hold of my camera, lens and mic (the new working ones). So I could shoot these two films and edit them allllllllll at the same time. I subsequently dropped all filming aspirations as my new mac (final cut pro studio included) was an insane distraction that lead to the procrastination of my life, like this-
but also contributed creatively, like this –
Impressive? Not really, I wouldn’t say im massively proud of my failure to work properly, but its how I worked and to an extent it did work, at least I think so. I could just be so short sighted that im even using this video to justify my unprofessionalism....
Anyway, I finished shooting both films in march 2009, finished the edits around may, and that’s pretty much it. Im more than reluctant to get back into anything, in fact…to say ive ‘always wanted to make films’, that how-ever-many-years-long little episode has mentally scarred me, and probably crippled me as a film-maker for the rest of my life. I think I have my friends to thank for that.
Sticking to the safety of pen and paper from now on.
