Last weekend was fun. On Saturday Col, Ian, Katie and I shot a trailer for some sort of 80s rockumentary starring the Wooden Swordsman, and on Sunday we were joined by Johnny and Therese to shoot my Virgin Media Shorts entry. Both projects were recorded on Super-8 using an old Bell & Howell camera of unknown reliability (and on HDV as a back-up).
We started at Col’s flat in the late afternoon on Saturday. Shortly after Col had picked Katie and I up, I realised I’d left the film stock at home and we had to go back. I cringe in shame at this rookie error. Once at Col’s flat we set up the Swordsman in the middle of his living room, backed by black weed-blocker sheeting from B&M. The poor puppet was then dressed with a leather jacket, a blonde curly wig, shades and a bandana. Col had storyboarded a series of amusing cliches from 80s promos, including foreground candles, power fists and lots of smoke.
Since we had limited stock we had to be very disciplined. Determining when we had reached the end of the cartridge proved much harder than anticipated, however. The manual said that a pink lever would appear in the top right of the viewfinder as the end drew near, and that when it reached the centre the cartridge would be spent. But instead of moving steadily towards the centre as I continued filming (I was DPing while Col directed) after making its initial appearance, this lever jumped about all over the place and occasionally disappeared altogether. The footage counter on the back of the camera was equally inconclusive, but since the motor seemed to be running just the same as ever, we decided it was safe to carry on filming.
We headed out onto the road, getting shots of the Swordsman from behind as he sat in the passenger seat – portrayed by Katie in the wig, jacket and bandana, with her face hidden. Then at a location by the Roman Road overlooking Hereford we took one of the Swordsman’s spare heads, dressed it in the wig and so on, and Ian puppeteered it, much to the surprise of a passing family. Sadly we didn’t get the lovely sunset Col was hoping for. (We wish we’d shot it the previous evening when we scouted the location).
It was a wrap, but it had become clear that there would never be a change in the running of the camera’s motor, not unless we’d bought a magic film cartridge that lasted ten minutes instead of the usual 3’20. Possibly the cartridge had already reached the end when we switched to exteriors. We won’t know until it’s processed.
Sunday dawned grey, wet and chilly. Typical. The weather had been lovely for several days previously, and has been pretty good ever since, but on Sunday itself it rained for most of the day. Since my film was entirely set outdoors – in the ruins of an old monastry over the road from my flat – this was a major problem. (By the way, I’m deliberately not mentioning the title of the film because I’ve decided it gives too much of the plot away. Must come up with a different title…)
At 9:30am we all walked over to the location. I spent an hour with the actors working through the script, establishing motivations and figuring out the blocking. Meanwhile, Ian and Col picked up all the empty beer cans and broken glass that were lying around and set up the picnic props – a wonderful 70s spread that upped the production values quite a bit. Then it was time for Johnny and Therese to go into costume and make-up courtesy of Katie, before returning to the location to begin shooting.
By this time it was raining steadily, albeit lightly. Although the falling rain was clearly not going to show up on camera, the dark rain spots on Johnny’s hat were a dead giveaway, and it didn’t make sense story-wise for the characters to be meeting for a picnic in a downpour. We waited at least half an hour in the hope it would ease up. It did not.
I made the executive decision to go ahead anyway. Shooting progressed at a good speed, even with umbrellas and plastic bags over everything, delayed only by me having to go back to the flat and get into costume as… well, to say who I was getting into costume as would give the whole game away. The whole thing reminded me of making films as a kid: the small, fast-moving crew, the low shooting ratio, the lack of equipment, me being in it. It was good fun, though as always there’s the lurking stress beast in the form of the ticking clock. We didn’t know what time the park would be locked up and we would be chucked out, so we couldn’t count on working too late.
The rain did eventually stop. In some ways it’s good that the weather wasn’t nicer, because then the park would have been busier. As it was, the only other people we saw were a bunch of stoners who didn’t stay long. The other stroke of luck was that the gate of the ruin’s only tower, which is normally locked, was broken – granting us illicit access to the tower and adding another dimension to the visuals of the movie.
We wrapped at about 6:30pm, not only just as the second of my two planned 50ft cartridges came to an end, but also just as the security guard arrived to lock up the park. All in all it could scarcely have gone better. Big thanks to everyone who helped out. I just hope that the camera isn’t faulty and that the film comes out, because it would be a real disappointment to have to cut the movie using the HDV footage.
I didn’t find it as hard as I expected to keep my shooting ratio on target. We rehearsed carefully before each shot, and got the majority of our set-ups in one take, shooting a total of less than seven minutes for what should turn out to be a 90 second film. Having this discipline really focused me, and I’m determined to shoot more stuff on Super-8 and maybe also 16mm over the next couple of years in order to cement this focus.
The Picnic: June 3rd, 2011
Super-8. No, not the upcoming and very-exciting-looking Spielberg/Abrams collaboration. I’m talking about the format. Can you believe, in this digital age, that our parents and grandparents shot home movies on genuine film? Ah, the glorious luxury. Actually, it’s getting hard to believe that everyone used to shoot holiday snaps on 35mm film just a few short years ago. The extravagance!
I’ve wanted to shoot something on Super-8 for quite some time. Colin has been collecting the cameras from bootsales for a while and we kept talking about using them, but it was only last week that I got the kick up the arse that I needed to get on and do it. Katie and I had a conversation about where we wanted to be in two years’ time and it became clear that I really need to start making more films. I’d had a 90 second script kicking around for years and that seemed like a good way to get back into shorts. When I remembered that Virgin Media Shorts is currently accepting entries it all fell into place and I decided to shoot this script on Super-8 and enter it.
Looking at the deadline (July 7th) I perceived a hitch. I was going to be away in the States for three weeks, returning on that date. Although this necessarily accelerated my production schedule, it turned out to be very convenient for post-production. Because nowhere in the UK still processes Super-8 reversal film. So my well-timed trip means I can take my exposed stock to the US with me, mail it down to Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas for cheap processing and telecine, cut it on my laptop when it comes back and upload it to the competition site.
The shoot’s on Sunday, with Colin as Director of Photography, Ian on Production Design duties again (though these duties are considerably less arduous than on Dark Side) and Katie as costume designer. Johnny Cartwright and Therese Collins, actors I’ve worked with on numerous shorts and participatory films over the years, take the lead (and indeed only) roles. We have no idea whether the camera works properly, and there was no time to test it, so I’ll be shooting everything on HDV too as a back-up. I’ll let you know how it goes.
In the land of Dark Side, there was another screening and a meeting in London on Tuesday. Amongst the attendees were the team from Underwater Realm, an exciting short film currently in development and set to take place entirely beneath the waves. And I thought filming exclusively at night was a pain! Thanks for coming guys and good luck with your project – it looks intriguing.
Pirates of the Caribbean at the Barrel’s Bottom
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – was the trilogy really crying out for an extra installment, minus the original director and plus a third spatial dimension? Jerry Bruckheimer obviously thought so. Sort of. As usual Katie and I travelled to Malvern cinema in order to be spared the eye-aching party trick that is 3D, but I hear that this film’s 3D was fairly shallow to the point where you wonder why they bothered. I was unable to observe any difference in the camera and editing style from what I’d expect in a 2D movie – there was just as much handheld material and quick cutting in the action scenes, so I can only conclude that watching it in 3D wouldn’t be very pleasant. Honestly, watching it in any format isn’t very pleasant because Jack Sparrow has been transformed into something approaching a heroic romantic lead, thereby robbing the character of at least 50% of what made him so great in the original trilogy.
But that’s enough of that. In other news, I’m making a short Super-8 film next weekend… that is, if I can sort out an actress and a location in time. Watch this space.
The Dark Side of the Earth: May 21st, 2011
Okay, for any of you contemplating a future visit to the Cannes Film Festival, here is the cost breakdown of my trip this year. Did I manage it within my UKP600 budget? Let’s see….
Flight: 76
UK transfers (train & EasyBus): 58
Subsistence en route: 9
Laptop insurance: 3
Phone credit: 10
French trains (paid for by card): 15
Festival accreditation: 0
French hotel (4 nights): 288
Luton hotel (1 night): 28
Euros for petty cash: 73
Total: UKP560
So I came in under budget, and I’m sure you could do it for even less than this if you lived closer to the airport and were prepared to live off canapes and crisps all week.
The UKP73 for petty cash got me 80 Euros, of which 8 were spent on bus fares between my hotel and Cannes, 4 went on hotel tax (sometimes charged separately in France) and the rest went on food and drink.
Cannes 2011 Video Blogs
These video blogs include discussions about the development of The Dark Side of the Earth with producer Carl Schoenfeld and script editor Quay Chu, plus an interview with some other filmmakers attending the festival.
The Dark Side of the Earth: May 19th, 2011
Palais des Festivals, Cannes, Wednesday, 5:10pm
A quiet day. A lot of people have already gone home.
The issue of TV vs. film was raised again at a meeting this afternoon, the point being that I might get far more control over the project if I’m making it for a TV channel than if I have a bunch of production companies and distributors to satisfy.
A living statue on the Croisette was balancing cats on his head. Real cats. I guess the French aren’t big on animal protection.
UK pavilion, Cannes, Wednesday, 5:45pm
When I’ve got home and the dust has settled, I’ll break down what my final costs were for attending Cannes this year, but right now it looks like I’m on budget. I allowed myself a 20 Euro per diem, which was fine until I went out to eat with friends twice on Monday and racked up a 30 Euro total for the day. That means yesterday and today I had only 15 Euros each day. Hence the MSG last night. Plenty of people just live off canapes at the plentiful Cannes parties, but that’s not for me. What you can definitely do is avoid buying drinks, since these are all overpriced. Take a water bottle and keep filling it up from the coolers downstairs at the Palais.
Le Chateau des Artistes, Ranguin, nr. Cannes, 9pm
I bumped into Michael Booth, a filmmaker I’ve seen every time I’ve been to Cannes. His debut feature Diary of a Bad Lad was completed around the same time as Soul Searcher and we briefly shared a distribution company. The difference is: he’s made two more features since and I’m still stuck in No Man’s Land.
Carl and I went to a reception at the Luxembourg Pavilion. I made the massive faux pas of mistaking a Belgian producer for a Frenchman, to match with the one I made on Monday where I asked the Canadian Elliot Grove which part of the States he’s from. We talked to a woman who develops iPhone games and I realised again how technologically out of touch I am. There’s no getting away from it; I’ve reached the point in my life that we all reach some day or another when we regard everything invented after that point with a mixture of disinterest, contempt and/or suspicion. This is probably why I don’t want to make 3D films, why I can’t get my head around which hybrid DSLR or HD video camera to buy, why I don’t own a phone capable of taking pictures or accessing the internet, and why I prefer the soft, flickering images you get on a CRT television to the harsh, pixellated ones a flatscreen delivers. It also explains why I worship eighties cinema and loath CGI with a passion. I’m a grumpy old fart at 31.
So Cannes is over for me for another year. We’re unlikely to be back next year. Either we’ll be too busy making The Dark Side of the Earth, or we’ll have put it on the back burner. We have made progress over the last few days, but as always with Cannes the proof is in the pudding, the pudding being whether people follow up positively in the coming weeks or not.
The Dark Side of the Earth: May 18th, 2011
UK Pavilion, Cannes, Tuesday, 11am
Found time for a quick dip in the hotel pool this morning before heading into Cannes. Missed the train in so had to get the bus instead – demonstrating the value of picking accommodation close to multiple travel options.
Our first meeting was a no-show.
Le Chateau des Artistes, Ranguin, nr. Cannes, midnight
The end of another day. As a filmmaker, eventually all this sitting around talking about making films but not actually making any films becomes annoying.
Went to a talk about co-productions. What is a co-production? Well, if you have a script about British people going on holiday to Spain and you shoot it in Spain then it’s not a co-production, it’s just a British movie shooting on location. But if the script deals with Spanish issues or characters, or some key cast and crew members are Spanish, then you could legitimately set up a British-Spanish co-production. The benefit is that, providing you jump through certain hoops, you can theoretically access the public funding and/or tax incentives of both countries.
Co-production has been a major theme of our meetings this year. What’s quite unique about Dark Side in this regard is that it would be shot mostly on stage, so we can choose any country we like to shoot it in, based solely on the incentives and resources that country has to offer, without having to worry about whether it has suitable locations.
Carl and I had dinner at a cheap Chinese place he introduced me to last year, Delices Yang. Probably loaded with MSG, but very tasty. No-one knew of any good parties going on, so we decided to go see one of the films. (I don’t have a good track record of actually seeing films at festivals.) We picked what turned out to be a documentary about a bunch of young people digging up some old punk rocker and having long conversations with him about the changing music scene, intercut with archive footage. We left halfway through and found the Cinema sur la Plage screening of an old Titanic film (possibly A Night to Remember) much more entertaining. Imagine Cameron’s Titanic in black and white with locked-off cameras, without all the screaming and panicking, and people with very clipped accents saying “Let’s have a nice cup of tea” while the ship sinks and you’re pretty much there.
The Dark Side of the Earth: May 17th, 2011
Riviera Building, Cannes, Monday, 10:30am
Free breakfast this morning courtesy of the Mandarin Hotel Group. Benefits to me: pain au chocolat, bread, cheese, fruit, yoghurt, OJ, coffee. Benefits to Mandarin Hotel Group: Er… well, they got mentioned on this blog.
The UK Pavillion hosted a talk on 3D. As you all know by now, I hate 3D. Increasingly this opinion is making me feel like a freak and a luddite. When I say I want to shoot a fantasy film on 35mm and in 2D, they look at me like I want to throw out my flush toilet and started crapping in an outhouse.
Anyway, here are some interesting things I learnt from the talk:
1. Because kids’ eyes are closer together than adults, the depth in 3D films appears greater to them, unpleasantly so in some cases.
2. It can take 45 minutes to changes lenses on a 3D shoot.
3. 3D adds 30-35% to your budget.
4. 3D technology that does not require glasses will likely be a reality in cinemas in about 12 months.
5. An associated sea-change in the industry that is just starting to appear is shooting higher frame rates. The Hobbit will be the first film distributed at 48fps, with Avatar 2 following.
One of the speakers argued that if you don’t like 3D, you should wear an eye patch, since real life is in 3D. My response is that interlaced video has more life-like motion than 24P, but very few people would argue that the former looks nicer.
One thing that’s worrying about 3D is how it encourages other traditions to be undermined. Shooting celluloid in stereo is prohibitively expensive, so 3D means shooting digitally. But that’s not the end of it. Take set building. Imagine a scene in a room that has a window. If shot on a set, unless what’s outside the window has to move or is important to the scene, on a 2D film you would typically put a painted backdrop out there. But in 3D you can’t do that, because it would have no depth. The only real choice is to bung up a greenscreen outside the window and put the backdrop in digitally. So now all those fantastically talented scenic artists are out of jobs. This is not cool.
Okay, enough about 3D for today. Gerard told me yesterday that he saw the Soul Searcher poster in the Riviera building, so I went in to have a look and, sure enough, it’s up on York Entertainment’s stand (the US sales agent). Sadly it’s the same crappy artwork as the US DVD release, with a random hooded guy and a disgustingly misleading splatter of blood.
Palais du Festivals, Cannes, 6:15pm
Had lunch with Gerard and co. Mostly we talked about how much 3D sucks.
Had a meeting that involved talking about sets, and the large shopping list thereof. Got shown a photo of a soundstage in Hungary bigger than Pinewood’s 007 stage. That will do nicely.
Wandered around the town for ages looking for shops selling postcards, then at last three came along at once. As I was sitting by a fountain eating a delicious brownie ice-cream I got a text from Carl containing excellent news of a significant person who has just jumped aboard the good ship Dark Side.
Bumped into Richard Cambridge, who was cast as the lead character Joe in Soul Searcher when it was due to be shot in 2002. He’s now running a company hosting indie films online.
Bus station, Cannes, 8:40pm
Went briefly to a low-rent party, then to a much swankier one. Carl unplugged the fridge so I could plug in my laptop and show someone the pilot. Then we went for pizza with Elliot Grove of Raindance, amongst others. Someone (possibly Elliot himself) made a remark about Elliot, then someone else joked I should put it in my blog. But I can’t remember what it was now. This is his seventeenth Cannes. That’s a lot of bullshit and canapes.
It was brought to my attention that there is no Kodak pavillion any more. A sad symbol of the decline of celluloid.
The Dark Side of the Earth: May 16th, 2011
Luton Airport, Sunday, 6:10am BST
I’m experiencing that peculiar sensation, that unique feeling-like-utter-crap that you can only feel on an international journey. I haven’t even flown yet. Perhaps it’s something they put in the air conditioning at the airports. Perhaps it’s in the shampoo dispensed from the box on the wall in the hotel bathroom. It can’t just be lack of sleep, because I don’t feel like this if I don’t get a full night’s kip at home. I feel like my ears need to pop but can’t. Like I haven’t showered in days. Like I want to take my eyeballs out for a bit to give the sockets a rest. Ughhhh.
Does anyone else think those rolly suitcases that have four tiny wheels on so you don’t have to tilt them back are against nature?
Small triumph: got my empty flask through security despite the signs saying no containers over 100ml were allowed. Funny how putting stuff inside your bag hides it from the security guys. Even though they have DIRTY GREAT X-RAY MACHINES. Maybe x-rays don’t really exist. It’s a con. They tell us they exist so you don’t think you can hide stuff from them, but really they’re just watching the football at that little monitor and they can’t see into your bag at all.
My gate just opened. Time to go.
Le Chateau des Artistes, Ranguin, nr. Cannes, Sunday, 8:00pm BST
The journey was smooth and uneventful. I got to Cannes at about 11:30am local time, collected my lovely free festival pass and soon went into a series of meetings Carl had set up with various international folks. I had forgotten how busy Cannes gets, and how knackering it is to slog up and down the Croisette in the hot sun with a heavy Powerbook in your backpack.
My one observation so far about how Dark Side is being received this year versus last is that the involvement of Benedict Cumberbatch is much more exciting for people now that he is on the brink of stardom. Ah, the industry is so fickle.
I bumped into Gerard Giorgi-Coll, lenser of many of this site’s behind-the-scenes videos. He and his friends had come to experience their first Cannes and were just as shocked by the cynical commercialism of the market as I was on my first visit. You can find out all about Gerard and co’s own film projects on their website, www.fascinationpictures.co.uk
My hotel is a considerable improvement on last year’s dive, being much quieter and cleaner (though still a bit manky in the corridors) and blessed with a swimming pool. Hope I get time for a dip this week….
UK Pavillion, Cannes Film Festival, 8am BST
Finally got onto the internet so I can upload blogs and vlogs! Yay!
The Dark Side of the Earth: May 11th, 2011
At the weekend Tess Berry-Hart turned in the first draft of her sample chapters and synopsis for the novelisation of The Dark Side of the Earth.
It must be nearly a year since Carl first introduced me to Tess as a potential author for the tie-in novel. We immediately discovered a shared interest in period literature, particularly the works of Jules Verne and P. G. Wodehouse, and I hugely enjoyed her teen sci-fi novels Escape from Genopolis and Fearless. In January we gave her the go-ahead to produce the sample chapters and synopsis, as part of a cross-media package we are trying to build around the film.
Reading her material, I was delighted to find she had got the tone spot-on, interpolating a conventional third person narrative with first person diary entries by the heroine, Isabelle. The fantastic details Tess has introduced fit perfectly with the world I envisaged; in fact, more than one of them will probably find their way into the next draft of the script. It’s great to see that she really understands and appreciates the underlying mechanics of the story to such an extent. It made me realise just how compressed everything has to be in a film, whereas a novel can give the characters and storyline much more room to come to life.
So many talented people have worked on this project now. I really hope we can get somewhere with it in Cannes and introduce a worldwide audience to their wonderful work. Carl flies out tomorrow and I follow on Sunday morning. Like last year, you can expect daily vlogs, but maybe this time I’ll drag some other people in front of camera rather than just rambling on by myself.
See you at the weekend.