New York, New York

I've spent this week in New York working on other projects that look set to span the next 18 months. It has been a mad week. It becomes increasingly obvious that I must finish "Rosie" off in order to concentrate on the other things in hand. Yesterday I went for lunch with Gary Hoctor and Richard LaGravenese and discussed the nature of our work, and it served to reinforce exactly why I love filmmaking. To watch Gary and Richard speak so passionately about French cinema and so dismissively about the meat-market of festivals gave me a great sense of perspective. WE DO THIS BECAUSE WE LOVE STORIES... NOT BECAUSE WE WANT TO BE FILMMAKERS. The challenge it seems, is satisfying ourselves as creative people and a need to survive in a material world. It reminds me of Scorcese's point in his BFI American Cinema documentary, where some filmmakers tried to "do one for the studio" and one for yourself.

Despite the energy of Berlin and New York, I'm looking forward to going home and seeing Birmingham again!!!

Last filming date

Such is the pressure upon Eeva's time, we look to have a very small window to film the last parts of the film. It has been a busy year for all concerned and a difficult one to fit the filming around. I think, with all things considered, this has been a particular downside. Whilst John and I have discussed the fact that the distance in time suits the 'flashback' sequences, it has always been a problem for focussing my attention. Still - this is what the project has been about - a learning curve. I have never shot a film this way before, I will always bare this experience in mind when preparing another project.

More reflections post-Berlin

I have just returned from a week in Berlin where I was with Fremantle and their various soap operas discussing the uncertain future that lies ahead for television. I was constantly reminded of how fortunate I am to work autonomously from these pressures. It was lovely to meet inspirational people like Neil McCarthy and discuss our projects.

One thing that dawned on me whilst in these meetings, and whilst touring the UFA studios, is that it is the soap operas' limitations that inform the production. In a bizarre way, I feel that Rosie has been without limitation (dialogue aside) and I wonder whether it is this freedom to take the project where ever I choose that has sometimes left me rudderless and without focus. I certainly feel a lot more 'connected' to my other projects, as if I am responding to a higher creative purpose. With Rosie I have felt as if I don't know what it is I am making, and that scares me in a way, but liberates me in other ways.

I discussed with John Bradburn the idea of simply editing the piece together without the structure of which I scripted it. It would be fascinating to see how the whole piece would come together in this way as opposed to 'forcing' it from my previous plans.

I'll get the final scenes shot in early June and we'll take it from there...

More filming

Today we shot more footage in and around Birmingham. I am happy that we have now fulfilled most of the project, but with a little more to pick up in June. The sporadic dates have meant the film has different seasons and haircuts etc... it really benefits from the time difference.

I find myself panicking about length (no puns please). I spoke to John about it today. Why am I worried about this nature of shooting a 'feature' film? 75 minutes or above please. It is a bizarre formality. You end in a halfway house if it isn't a short film or a feature. But why do I care? The chances of these things moving forward are that they should be a feature or they won't get seen in festivals. But I'm not sure I want to go down that route as I mentioned earlier. So it will just be a story. It may be a 40 minute story. It may be a two hour story. Let's not worry about the length.

Both John and I are just happy to be experimenting in our field. We are so often held up in development limbo waiting for projects to get started. Or on shoots and waiting around with the rigamarole of big crews. This is all about the fun and enjoyment of filmmaking. It is about exciting ourselves and remembering why we do this in the first place - telling stories with moving image. We are pigs in shit...

Another shoot looms

I can honestly say that the intermittent bursts of filming on Rosie have been harder than the long sustained effort on previous shoots. It is not so much the physical or organisational effort but the mental one. It is similar to when my friends have done part-time study. It doesn't operate in a prioritised area of my life. It becomes a secondary thing. This is a difficult thing to admit, but a natural one.

I don't believe this has led to a lack of quality or focus in this project, but simply lacks the creative emphasis that a short production window can bring. I found this similar to when I recorded a musical project called 'Sagittarius', where the recording was done in a week, but the mixing to weeks and (in my opinion) created a reduction in the 'timeliness' of the project, and made it relatively sterile. I am keen to see that this does not come to a similar fate. I don't think it will as there is an energy about the project and it's experimentalist approach that I think will keep it edgy.

I am aware that I am using very flowery and emotive language as opposed to the cold and scientific. I wish someone would create a formula for soul.

Filming dates

We have a very fine window with which to shoot the remainder of the film. The dates have now been set and we hope to complete filming with a couple more filming days. In my mind I have no idea of how this shooting ratio translates to minutes onscreen, but I am certain that this film will be around 60 minutes long. That is a horrible length, as it is neither fish nor fowl. But that may be one of the possible outcomes.

I have to keep reminding myself to be open to this process, and not try to predetermine it all. It is like trying to kick old habits!

The Boy Who Collected Sound

Such is the disjointed nature of getting films made, that I have been focussed far more recently upon finishing a 6th draft of a feature script called "The Boy Who Collected Sound". It has been a long slog and it is three months later than I thought it would be. But it is done now and my mind this morning shifted back to "Rosie", which we aim to finish shooting in early May. I've only briefly revisited the footage that we have already shot and it excites me to see it. I don't know why, but I am particularly excited about the editing upon this project in a way that I have never felt before. I guess it is all the variables that we have introduced.

On a different note, the observant amongst you will notice that there is now Google Adsense material all over the page. I'm experimenting with it out of curiosity as everyone always asks me whether the films make money (because we measure success upon profit don't you know?). Well, this seems like as good an income stream as any other so I thought I'd explore it. Apologies if you automatically think I'm becoming a corporate capitalist whore... I'm acutely aware that the polar opposite of measuring success by profit is measuring success by lack of corporate intervention. It's a continuum that I couldn't really care about, as long as I get to tell stories.

Rethinking The Screen

A time to reflect

It is strange for me to have this gap in production, but I am quite enjoying it. It has been allowing me time to reflect upon my process. Usually the production stage is a frantic experience hinged upon the adrenaline of shooting, but not so much this time around. 

I am meeting with Eeva next week to casually have a cup of tea and catch up. No doubt the film will come up as we have to schedule a time to shoot in May before I go onto other projects in Berlin and New York. 

The plan is to shoot the next sequences on the HPX500 as it is going to be static camera. I haven't yet discussed this is great depth with John but upon reading Mike Figgis' book "Digital Filmmaking" I really identified with the section upon Camera Motion. I similarly took great interest in his writing upon scoring music, especially in light of the Abaltat experimentation. In many ways, I thing that it is a great tool for scoring film as opposed to OVER-scoring the film with catchy melodies. I remember discussing with Miriam Allen about how Abaltat would not write my Morricone score, but then that isn't what I need. The score shouldn't be noticeable as it arguably would detract from the film itself. Alternatively, it shouldn't be filler either!!! This will be a great challenge.

This weekend I will be hiding in the countryside writing a feature script (the conventional way) for a project this summer. A busy year.

May day

As February was hideously busy, with me working in Berlin, London, Birmingham, Seville and Dublin, we couldn't shoot extra scenes. Although March is looking less critical for me, it is still pretty manic for John and Eeva, so we are looking at picking up filming in May. This is a great relief for me...

The balancing act..

This is the first film that I have made where the production is spread over a couple of months in different sessions. I'm finding it quite hard to keep the film at the forefront of my mind whilst life goes on all around it. In many ways I prepare the short sustained bursts of production, as the focus remains upon the film. That said, I'm liking the time that these breaks give me for personal reflection. 

To cram as many clichés in to one sentence - I guess it is a question of finding a happy medium, and creating a balancing act.

Some introductions...

 I guess I should put some names to some faces for you. 

 This is me, James Fair. I hate writing about myself in the third person. Sometimes I find it is easier, but from here on in you should know that it is this face that is writing this blog and directing this project:

 

Eeva Rautio  is playing "Rosie". She is Finnish and currently a student of optometry in university:

 

Raul Camacho Marquez is playing "Lars", Rosie's lover. He is Spanish and works as a pharmacist: 

John Bradburn is the cinematographer. I work with him at Staffordshire University where we teach Film Technology:

 

Hopefully these faces can bring a bit of humanism to this otherwise very literary blog. I'll endeavour to keep it visual. I like books with pictures as much as the next person...

Berlinale

No news for a little while... Gary Hoctor (producer) and I went to Berlinale to screen "Watching & Waiting", and mentioned the possibilities of screening Rosie at Galway Film Fleadh this summer with Miriam Allen, the festival director. Simply discussing a festival and a time frame scare me, especially as the project is really in the early phases.

However, it provides me with an idea of timeframe.

Filming

It is a day for being handed the textbook filming problems...

The first calamity is the state of the kit that we have acquired. Despite arranging six P2 cards, we are left with one, as a result of collecting empty boxes and packaging that don't have cards inside. This is my fault for not checking them I guess. Similarly, the lighting kit has three lights and two of them don't work. The third light blows a bulb within a couple of hours of filming. This too could be my fault for not checking the kit. So you see a pattern forming - CHECK THE KIT. Do not assume the kit room have done it, because they aren't the ones who will be screwed on the filming day.

As it is, John, Etain and I went about making do, and started a different workflow whereby we'd film and drop the footage back to a 1.5TB drive every 17 minutes. Fortunately we have a high-spec laptop to enable us to do this. It doesn't end up affecting us too much as we are pretty slick on organisation and we soon find a rhythm. The filming itself is great. Eeva, Raul and Laura are naturals, very good at getting the mood correct. I'm pleased with all of their good work and get excited by the rushes.

The second calamity is the nightclub location. Despite visiting it in the week, and being happy that we'd arranged a deal to film there, we are asked for cash when we get to the door. Admittedly two get in for free, but four don't. This only costs £20 but it is an illustration as to why you should get something in writing when you agree it. The club itself is quite dark and it really pushes the camera to do a good job. Hopefully we can get something out of it in the grade. The crowd is pretty thin on the ground too, which makes it frustrating all round...

Etain arrives...

Etain McGuckian arrived in Birmingham last night to assist us over the next few days. We have made a point of keeping the crew very small, but are simultaneously aware that we'll need support. Etain is great at being versatile and worked with me on "Watching & Waiting" as my 2nd AD, so John and I know her well.

I think she is as bemused by the project as many others. It is certainly a different approach to filmmaking from we are used to. But the experience is certainly a fascinating one. I am surprised how comfortable I am despite being so close to the shoot. This is usually an incredibly stressful period, but I don't feel too concerned at all, largely because of the confidence that "W&W" has brought to the small crew. I think it is this certainty (as long as it is not folly), that means I am finally becoming at ease with my filmmaking.

Getting locations

Picking locations is easy. Getting permission to use them isn't.

I have learnt the following when trying to secure locations:

1) Going to see someone in person is better than using email or phone. I once had to convince a priest that I was a good Catholic boy before he would let me use his church for my student film. He only agreed because I saw him face to face and could gauge my sincerity. I wanted to specifically use his church and I got it.

2) Be honest. If you are going to have a crew of 30 and take 12 hours then tell them. Don't say you'll have no lights and then turn up with a lorry load of Arri's. I've seen people push this, even when filming "Watching & Waiting", and it leads to a bad relationship with the location staff, and probably screws up any future filming there.

3) In guerilla filmmaking, it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. This is not an invitation to be stupid. If you want to film at a station or airport, you'd get permission. But in the street, out of harm's way and not blocking a throughfare... I would controversially say do it. No doubt some union or industry "professional" location manager would disagree (as I am disregarding their job) on the grounds that everyone should have public liability insurance etc... then we start to talk big cash, because lots of licenses and a plethora of procedural paperwork begins. Be wise, do your health and safety checks and stick vehemently to them. Don't film the general public. Anyone asks... apologise sincerely and stop. Know that this time you were unlucky and you should never push your luck.

With this in mind, tonight I visited The Rainbow in Birmingham for permission to film there on Saturday night. I explained the project, the scale of the crew and was polite. I really wanted this location as it is one of the funkiest in Birmingham and could look like any one of the many bars in Berlin's nightlife - the ambiguity that we are searching for. The promoter of the night was positive and we are all set to film! Here are some pics to make this blog a little more visual...

Cutting back on the rigmarole...

I believe that John and myself are benefitting from the liberty of filmmaking with less rigmarole upon this project. We both spent 2008 upon projects that required a lot more logistical organisation and to some extent, unnecessary procedure. Procedure is a fascinating piece of terminology. It suggests an obvious course of action, a predetermined sequence of events. However, as we proved when making "Watching & Waiting", it is possible to pervert that procedure, and still have a satisfactory result.

Similarly this time around, we want to rebuke 'procedure'. We are keen to keep the production team to a bare minimum, at most four persons. This requires versatile team members, who can perform a series of tasks as opposed to just one. Some critics will argue that this creates a 'jack of all trades, master of none' situation. It could also be seen to dilute the focus of any one team member, and create chaos on set. But here is my logic...

We are not rebuking 'procedure' per se, but the established perception of 'procedure'. The one which has scarcely been revisited since the days of the studio system and hideously fails to reflect the current possibilities within digital filmmaking. Therefore it is possible to develop new procedures, with new priorities that determine their shape and sequences. For example, finance continues to be a motivator, and therefore we cannot have a large crew that requires feeding and paying. Similarly, working with non-actors, I'd like to get as much time to them as possible, and not have my focus drawn away by numerous crew requiring attention. This would slow us down to attend to both, and time is another consideration. So these limiters, motivators, call them what you will, inform our procedural construction.

This procedure is also a developmental process. It is different from 'Peppermint' and 'Watching & Waiting'. I'm keen to explore ways in which to experience filmmaking processes. I can feel my filmmaking develop. I watched my African documentaries last night as I have a possibility of another next year, and I hated the constant fades to black, which I felt broke the rhythm of the narrative, yet informed the 'scrapbook' nature. In "Watching & Waiting" we only had three fades to black, which indicated the passing of time into the next day. However, I want to add another rule to the production of Rosie - no fades to black within the main body of the film. We will fade in from black and fade out to black, but nothing else... That is what I call development!!!

We must not lose sight of the experimental nature of this project. It is the usual cost attached to the rigmarole of filmmaking that prevents filmmakers from enjoying an apprenticeship or developmental phase. The pressure is on to create a 'hit' immediately, as opposed to develop your style or understanding. In any other art form this would be ludicrous, no-one would be expected to be a master painter without painting first. It is a craft. Similarly I have difficulty with the short-film approach to filmmaking... "make a short, get noticed, make feature". Would you only paint small paintings first before a larger canvas? Would you make doll's house furniture before making the dining table chair? Would you practice sprinting when training for a marathon? No. In my opinion, and it is an opinion and little else, we should take the focus away from the cost and business and put the attention back to developing a craft. Maybe then we can advance this cinematic art form.

Storage...

Much the same as the clutter you collect as you get older, I seem to of collated tonnes of hard drives of stuff. My concern with the shift to HD is that this takes up so much more space than SD, and I'm going to need more storage. Granted, the cost of hard drives has fallen dramatically but there is still a cost attached, especially when most people recommend you buy TWO drives, and clone them and store them separately. This is largely as insurance, but especially more poignant with the P2 workflow when we consider that the masters will get erased also after cloning, as opposed to remaining on a DV tape. This is a particularly daunting prospect.

Locations

One of the elements that John and I discussed at great length is the look of the locations. We didn't want the film to be area specific. Indeed we wanted to confuse people to where the film is located as opposed to recreate anywhere else. Casting Eeva (who is Finnish), Raul (Spanish) and Laura Mengozzi (Italian) helps create this confusion within the titles also. We shot one scene previously in the Christmas market which looks decidedly German, and the intention is to keep other areas relatively vague also. I intend to have them read foreign books as well, as a cheeky little tease about the lack of language.

The film is divided into two time frames. The first is the present day, which I have no problem illustrating as the UK. It is made obvious by the Birmingham night scenes and the currency that Rosie is paid in. The present day will be filmed upon mounted cameras.

The second time frame is the flashbacks of the past, which are handheld, and exploit the ambiguity of their location. I plan to film some of the interiors in my own apartment blocks largely because they are fairly non-descriptive and not particularly architecturally 'British'. It is a reversal of my previous filmmaking experience of "Watching & Waiting" in which Galway was the obvious location, and was required to be so by the Fleadh organisers. Similarly Libya and Morocco landscapes play a major part within the African documentaries.

This challenge is another welcome one.

Kit booking

Booking the kit today means that we are all go for the weekend of 31st January. This is where I think a bulk of the filming that involves Raul will be done. He has a month break in February, and I will be off the Berlin for the Berlinale on the 4th myself, so I would like to have more rushes by then. It makes me a little nervous, but we'll be adopting a similar turn around to 72 with P2's being rotated as we film, and audio being recorded to a Marantz hard drive and being dumped from that also to computer as we go.

A far cry from the VHS I used to have in college when I started in 1997. How 10 years have changed.