Friday, November 1, 2013

Blahblahblah making movies (or not)

You may have noticed that I've been away. You may recall I was taking a trip to England to make a no budget feature film. Now I'm back and I've got almost nothing to show for it.

Making a no budget feature film is a giant headache and relies on a lot of people doing a lot of work for next to no money or in most cases nothing except the experience and the pleasure of your company. In that kind of scenario you need to expect things to go wrong, or at least not as smoothly as you would like, especially in an industry that is as notoriously fraught with logistical nightmares and giant egos as film making.

I'm ready to accept that ultimately the failure of Good Times to get in to production is my own, as head of the production the buck stops with me but there's only so much one person can deal with and only so many times that person can be let down by broken promises before things reach tipping point.

During pre-production of Good Times I met some really great people who were willing to do anything they could to help my creative vision come to fruition but sadly they were few and far between and when it comes to outlining what caused my film to not get made they don't really factor in to the story, but just so you know, it wasn't all bad.

The majority of my experiences were bad, friends from film school who showed enthusiasm for the project, for finally getting out in to the world and making something that they trained for instead of sitting on the dole or in a call centre, were the first to let me down, from something "small" like not doing something they said they would do right through to taking back an offer of accommodation and leaving me homeless.

After that we move on to so-called industry professionals, and I'm talking about crew and actors here, people who didn't have the decency to return phone calls, text messages, emails or, you know, that other thing that people do when they can't make it to a meeting or simply changed their mind about a project, phone me and tell me so that I knew where I stood.

But most disappointing, from my point of view, was the equipment hire company who I was actually paying the majority of the budget to doing exactly the same thing. I can't see how a business can function with such bad service. Maybe this is just the way of the world and at 30 I'm old fashioned but to me this kind of behaviour is unacceptable in any walk of life.

So yes, no film to share, no trailer, no behind the scenes footage, nothing fun or exciting at all.

The trip wasn't a complete bust, I have one small video to share with the few of you who might care; I had the distinct pleasure of living with two members of the band The October Game whilst in England during the time they were preparing to release their third album, Balancing, and produced a promo video for them. Shot behind the scenes of the music video shoot for their first single We Built This Wall To Destroy It. I'm actually a big fan of the album and if you feel like checking it out you can find it on iTunes and direct from the label Scylla Records, something I highly recommend you do.


3 comments:

  1. Was wondering when you'd get round to writing something about Good Times.

    It is truly sad, and as you said, disappointing that all the people who are industry professionals can't even reply back to a single text or email. I still never received a response back from one of the photographers asking their available dates...it is really ridiculous, and to be honest, with that sort of attitude they're not going to get very far. All industries, especially the creative ones, involve hard-graft and always being on the ball.

    I saw the promo that you put on Facebook and looking great! Really happy that you could get something out of the trip and hopefully Good Times will happen at some point in the future - it's a great story and one that would make an even better film.

    Onward and upward though with your next project! When you have more details about that one, too, let me know.

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    1. Hey buddy. I feel terrible for the communications blackout at the end of my trip, things just really got me down, so it's extra nice to see you comment. Now I'm out of my self imposed silence sending you a proper email is on my list of things I want to do. Hope Japan was awesome for you. x

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  2. Nice promo video. So sorry to hear the production went so badly. :( Seriously, how is that equipment hire company still in business?! Hope you have a better experience if you do another project.

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