Why do we enjoy film shoots so? Why do we bond with our fellow crew and cast and feel depressed when it’s all over, even if it’s been hell?
I asked myself this question last week, when I found myself on a major downer after coming home from Shelf Stackers, a three day short film shoot with Light Films in Derby. This is the fifth short I’ve done with Light Films and although I’ve greatly enjoyed them all, I’ve never had a downer like that at the end of the shoot before. Normally I only get that feeling after feature shoots, when I’m thrust cruelly back into the real world after three or four weeks of eating, breathing and sleeping film.
I think the common thread is adversity. Shelf Stackers is set in a shop, but – not for the want of trying – the producer was unable to secure a location, so the art department was forced to build a set. I don’t think any of them really had any prior set-building experience, there was no money to speak of, and a supermarket is a pretty tough thing to replicate anyway, so it was an uphill struggle for everyone. The day before the shoot started, they had nothing but a few bags of recycling to use as products on shelves, but when we came to shoot the shop – there it was. (Well, one aisle of it anyway.) As if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, we ended up shooting until 1am one day after falling behind schedule.
It seems a fact of human nature that we bond in the face of shared adversity. That’s why many of the cast and crew who’ve worked on my films say they really enjoyed it – even though (let’s be frank here) the shoots were complete cluster fucks.
Well, that’s my thought for today. There’s nothing tangible to report. We wait with bated breath for developments on Dark Side. We wonder whether I’ll be able to get financing to go to Cannes. We speculate on the possibilities of a Dark Side TV mini-series. We debate how best to fend off 3D with a stout stick. And we write abstract blogs.
Directed by Neil
Blog posts from when Neil used to produce and direct his own micro-budget movies (2001-2014).
The Dark Side of the Earth: March 16th, 2011
Technology. On and on it advances. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until… well, you get the idea with that.
In the earliest years of my filmmaking career, you could safely say I was filled with fear, but after a while I could film anything you please – some shirts, some trousers and a few LPs. (Arrrggh! Stop quoting things and get to the point.)
In the earliest years of my filmmaking career, I kept up-to-date with all the latest techie developments. Ironically, from today’s viewpoint, there was barely anything to keep up-to-date with. Mini-DV and Final Cut Pro hit in 1999, the year I got into the industry, and for about a decade the low-end video world stayed the same. You shot on Mini-DV; you edited in FCP. The only real development in that time was the shift from VHS to DVD as the final delivery medium.
But lately things have gone nuts. HD arrived in all its various flavours. For a while it seemed like things would continue much as before, with HDV replacing Mini-DV in a fairly seemless manner, but no. The unstoppable T-800 of technology marched on.
Web-based video was becoming more and more prevalent, holding off the desire for HD in many corporate jobs, but bringing various format compatibility issues until Flash won out. At the same time, tapeless shooting was becoming a reality, again with a confusing array of formats and settings. Tapeless still scares the hell out of me whenever I have to delete my rushes during the shoot, an action which every nerve in my body screams against. And then there was the DSLR hybrid revolution, and now 3D is becoming affordable (though, I suspect, extremely poor-quality 3D).
This whole subject has been occupying my thoughts a lot lately, as my current camera is nearing the end of its natural life and I’ll soon have to invest in a new one. The first two cameras I owned for professional use, a Canon XM1 and XL1-S respectively, both seemed like the perfect cameras for me at the times that I bought them. I can’t say I’ve been as happy with the next camera I bought, a Sony A1, but I chose it mostly because it seemed like clients would all be asking for HDV very soon, but six years later this still isn’t the case. At least it was a fairly straightforward decision; back then the only options in my price bracket were Mini-DV and HDV. Now the choice is bewildering.
My ideal camera has recently been released – the Panasonic AF1 – but unless there’s a major change in my finances, I won’t be able to afford it. A number of the DSLRs appeal, but there are issues: the rolling shutter effect, the audio complications, the need for accessories like viewfinders and shoulder braces to make it practical to shoot moving images with.
Last weekend I DOPed a short film using a Panasonic DVX110 and a Red Rock adaptor which allowed me to use Nikkon 35mm lenses. The results were beautiful, my sole regret being that the chip at the back end of the rig was only standard definition. The experience made me keen to ensure my next camera is capable of using 35mm lenses. After all, with the DSLR explosion currently going on, footage shot on tiny chips with a huge depth of field is soon going to look as cheap and old-fashioned as analogue video.
I’ll keep you posted on how my camera choosing develops.
The Dark Side of the Earth: March 9th, 2011
Only those of you with long, white beards will remember my journal for The Beacon. (Maybe I’ll re-upload it some day.) Running from spring 2001 to summer 2002, it followed the making of my first “professional” feature film, a UKP3,000 actioner which essentially took the plot of Michael Bay’s 1997 Alcatraz romp The Rock and transposed it to the Malvern Hills. While trying to find a suitably ridiculous action sequence to cap the third act of the script, I was given some typically sage advice by my friend Rick: “You don’t need lots of fast vehicles and things blowing up if you have stuff going on with the characters.” And I thought then, as I think now, how great it would be to have stuff blowing up AND things going on with the characters.
Well, if you DO have a long, white beard and you DID read that journal, you’ll know that the finished film had nothing going on with the characters anywhere in its 75 minute running time. The Dark Side of the Earth, I hope, does. Today I wrote a new scene where two characters are arguing as things blow up in the background. Conflict, character and action all in the same frame – I’m living the dream. Well, not quite, because the dialogue’s a bit rubbish at the moment. But in theory the dream is being lived.
Other things are happening, besides me just sitting at my computer and bashing the keys until a line of Shakespeare comes out, but I can’t really talk about them. Not the positive ones at least. I don’t think there’s any harm in saying that a couple of companies that attended last week were impressed, but won’t consider getting on board until we have a cast attached and a detailed budget – a.k.a. “The Package”.
So we just need to hire a casting director and a line producer and get those done, right? Well, yes, but we don’t have any money. We need development financing. Hence the many applications to public funding, and we all know how those turned out. Although you might not know how the Screen South one turned out, because I didn’t mention it. They gave us UKP1,000, most of which is already gone. And you definitely didn’t know how the John Brabourne Award application turned out, because I only got the email the other day. I did not get it.
D’oh.
The Dark Side of the Earth: March 2nd, 2011
Yesterday was a big day for Dark Side: the day the pilot got screened to potential producing partners. With such things there is always the foolish hope that the screening will end with one attendee leaping from his chair and demanding to know immediately who he should make the multi-million pound cheque out to. This did not happen. Shocking, I know.
But it went well. Most of the people who said they would turn up did indeed turn up (which doesn’t always happen with these things), and they all seemed to enjoy it. We ended up running the lovely 35mm print four times, spilling out of our allotted timeslot at both ends. (Incidentally, the first run was at 24 frames per second, and the others were 25fps. As many times as I’ve seen it, I can’t tell the bloody difference. Carl detected some slight flickering in the highlights on the 24fps run, but honestly, listen to the advice of the Guerilla Filmmakers’ Handbook and always shoot at 25pfs. 24fps just isn’t worth the hassle.) Big thanks are due to the staff of Soho Screening Rooms for accommodating those extra runs for us.
Before the screening we met with a producer who gave us some daunting information about film marketing. To reach the sort of audience Dark Side aspires to would cost around UKP5 million in UK advertising, he reckoned, and over UKP20 million in the US. Ouch.
Afterwards we met Quay and discussed the last few niggling niggles in the script. I really can’t describe how nice it is to be left with such trivial changes to make after all that brain-mangling plot fiddling. It’s best summed up in the words of a character from Tamara Drewe who’s just finished a productive day of writing: “I feel like a man who’s just passed a gargantuan stool.”
Stop press! This morning a few emails have flitted back and forth in response to yesterday’s screening containing some very good news. I’d better say no more at this point, except that I feel we’ve taken a great step forward.
The Dark Side of the Earth: February 23rd, 2011
As you probably know – and if you don’t, just flick back a few years in this blog – I have been working on the Dark Side script for a LONG time. And what I’ve battled with most is the complexity of the plot, both in elucidating it sufficiently for an audience to follow, and in making the internal logic work (i.e. eliminating plot holes). Given that the film deals with time travel, parallel universes, mythical creatures, fictional period technology and an apocalypse, this was a tall order. And over the years it’s caused many a hair on my head to be torn out, many a strangled scream to escape my tortured lips and many a murmured prayer for the blessed release of death to be uttered as I tried desperately to make it all work.
And finally it does!
Hallelujah!
Two news readers have been over it and haven’t batted an eyelid at the temporal twists and turns. That’s music to my ears.
It doesn’t mean it’s finished. There are still tweaks to be tweaked, but the worst is over. Touch wood.
The Dark Side of the Earth: February 18th, 2011
With the Dark Side Guides series complete, you may be wondering what will be next. If you visit this website with any regularity you will have realised that I’m addicted to making behind-the-scenes featurettes. It’s mainly because I love making films, and making dramas, even short ones, costs money that I don’t currently have, whereas documentaries are cheap (particularly when the footage has already been shot).
So what will be next? Well, fifteen years ago I was in the middle of making the original amateur version of The Dark Side of the Earth. This April will mark the fifteenth anniversary of the shoot wrapping, and I plan to commemorate this with a special documentary, reuniting the original cast and revisiting the Malvern Wells back garden where much of it was shot. I’ve already started trawling through the ridiculously over-long bloopers video that I made back in ’96 to accompany the film and have found plenty of humourous moments to include, from Matt’s infamous face-first fall into a fire, to a great bit of dinnertime footage where Chris’s mum walks in just as he’s viciously punching a baked potato.
Chris is currently away travelling, but I hope we can get everyone together in late March or April to shoot it. Whether you’ll get to see the full doc on this website, I’m not sure at the moment, but I promise you a clip or trailer at the very least.
The Dark Side of the Earth: February 11th, 2011
Today, ladies and gentlemen, I shall discourse upon a matter I like to call “Doctor Who Science”.
I have always described The Dark Side of the Earth as a fantasy film, but technically it’s science fiction because it purports to provide scientific explanations for all the extraordinary goings-on. Some science fiction, typically “hard” sci-fi, as it’s known, is fairly realistic in this regard, basing its technology on projections by futurists. At the other end of the scale comes Doctor Who Science. Don’t get me wrong – I love Doctor Who and have done since I was eight – but the technobabble rarely stands up to any scrutiny. Commonly the Doctor uses a metaphor, ostensibly to clarify things for the companion, but the real purpose is to say, “Here is a chain of logic which you know from your everyday lives. Since it works in your everyday life, it must also work when applied to a random bunch of crazy space things.”
The Dark Side of the Earth, for better or worse, subscribes to this methodology. It’s a delicate balancing act, trying to come up with science which you know is bollocks, but has just enough truth in it to (a) suspend the viewer’s disbelief and (b) help the viewer understand the rules of the world you’re creating. You’re relying on people’s ignorance to a certain extent, which is something that can work both for and against you.
Way back in my very first posting on this blog I talked about the popular misconception that gravity is caused by the earth’s rotation. I have no doubt that, if the film does get made and widely released, many ignorant people will brand it unrealistic because gravity doesn’t disappear when the world stops spinning. (Indeed, one script report has already done exactly this.) So there it’s working against me.
But in other places it might be useful. For example, the script offers its own explanation of why the earth spins. In reality, it spins because of the way gravity drew the cosmic dust together when the solar system formed, but a lot of people don’t know that, and I think I’ve put just enough real science into my fake explanation that those people will buy it, and hopefully everyone else will suspend disbelief enough to accept it and enjoy the film.
And as for the people that think time will stop if the earth stops turning, well… you really didn’t understand Superman: The Movie at all, did you?
The Dark Side of the Earth: February 3rd, 2011
It’s that time of year again – Cannes is on the horizon. If I’m going to go this year, I need to do it for less money than it’s cost me in the past. If you saw my Cannes vlogs last year, you may recall I said it costs about UKP1,000 to attend the festival: UKP100 for your flight, UKP400 for your hotel, UKP250 for your Market Pass and the rest goes on food, transfers and incidentals. So how can I get these numbers down?
Well, the first thing I can do is not be an idiot and misunderstand the differences between market and festival passes, like I did last year. There are several ways to get into the Cannes Film Festival – and I mean ways that you, as a person, can get into the festival, not your film – but the main two are the Market Pass and Festival Accreditation. (I’ll try and go into the others at some point in the future.)
Before I go any further, let me remind you of a key point in understanding Cannes – it is actually two separate events that happen in the same place at the same time: the Cannes Film Festival and the Film Market, or Marche Du Film. The first is the one you will see in TV coverage – the red carpet, the stars – but it’s also a film festival like any other, to which you can submit your film and if you’re extremely lucky it will be selected and screened, and if you’re preternaturally lucky you’ll win an award. The second event, the market, is just like a trade fair or a convention for films. It’s where most of the world’s sales agents and distributors go to buy and sell movies – most of them really, really terrible, as indicated by the thousands of appalling posters which assault your eyeballs when you enter the Riveria building at the heart of the market.
So back to accreditation. I always thought that Festival Accreditation would only get you into the festival areas, not the markets areas, but I was wrong. It gets you into both, just like the Market Pass does. So what’s the difference? Well, one difference is that with the Market Pass you get the Guide – a massive and very useful book containing contact details for all the companies attending.
But the most important distinction is HOW you get these two types of accreditation. For a Market Pass, you cough up your 286 Euros and – bingo! – it’s yours. For Festival Accreditation, you fill in an on-line form, attaching evidence that you are a working filmmaker, and if the panel is convinced by this evidence, and if they have not used up the limited number of passes they are able to give each year, you get accreditation – completely FREE. This shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone who’s been to Cannes before, but somehow I’d got it into my head that it cost about 150 Euros for Festival Accreditation, plus of course the erroneous belief that it wouldn’t get me into all the necessary areas, so I was very pleased when I finally got the facts straight.
I’ve heard a lot about how picky the panel can be when deciding whether to give Festival Accreditation or not. I know that your IMDb page is quite important, and that your credits have to be recent, so I applied in the film technician category, since I have plenty of recent DOP credits. I applied on Tuesday morning – the first day registration was open – and received an email a few hours later saying I had been accepted. And there was me thinking it would be weeks before I got a decision and that they would ring up and interrogate all my referees and I would have to supply more evidence. But no, it was easy peasy. I think this was largely due to me probably being one of the first people to apply, so my advice is to get in there on the first day registration is open.
So that’s UKP250 slashed off my Cannes budget already. We’ll see what else I can squeeze as the festival approaches.
The Dark Side of the Earth: January 29th, 2011
I was interested to read this letter to US uber-critic Roger Ebert about why 3D cinema is doomed to fail, written by Walter Murch. (Most know Murch as the master sound designer from Apocalypse Now, but to me he’ll always be the director of the brilliant Return to Oz.) Although I agree with him entirely, all the evidence is that the format is here to stay. Every single genre film that comes out now is in 3D. For me this is heart breaking, because it means that the profession I’ve always wanted to work in – making 2D fantasy films – no longer exists.
Better change the subject, before I get too depressed.
Last weekend I uploaded the last in the series of Dark Side Guides: The Dark Side Guide to Digital Intermediate – check it out.
The Dark Side Guide to Digital Intermediate
Here is the last of the Dark Side Guides: The Dark Side Guide to Digital Intermediate. I really had to muddle my way through post-production on the pilot, wishing there was somewhere I could get all the information I needed, but there wasn’t – until now!
This step-by-step guide takes you through the complex post-production route known as DI, whereby footage shot on film is transferred to the digital domain for editing, FX and colour grading, before being recorded back to film for distribution and exhibition. Invaluable tips on everything from telecine of your rushes to Dolby authorisation for your soundtrack are complemented by a sample budget laying out all the costs.
As always, if you have any questions that the guide doesn’t answer, please feel free to ask me.