This blog could lose me a few supporters. I say this safe in the knowledge that a fair number won't unfollow because I'm like the prisoner. I am a number not a name. But for the real people on Twitter who actually care about things and not just mindless childish postings, (That footie chick has big tits LOL) what I'm about to write may just annoy the shit out of you and be too politically charged and weird for you to comprehend.
Friday Night here in England we had the opening ceremony of the Olympic games. If stories are to be believed it cost £20,000,000. Quite a lot of money unless you fall into one of the following categories.
1) A Banker who has just got his bonus
2) A Footballer who has just moved from Newcastle to Liverpool
3) A Man City supporter
4) A Sheik or Russian magnate.
5) Don't give a shit.
I'll be frank with you, I fall into one of these categories. Guess which one... Go on....
Basically I see it this way. Danny Boyle was called over by Seb Coe and asked if he wanted to be creative genius behind the opening ceremony. He said yes and was given £20,000,000. Now just to put something into perspective here. The budget for "127 Hours" which ran for just over an hour and a half was £18,000,000. "The Beach" had a budget of £49,000,000. So Danny spent £20,000,000 on a four hour ceremony designed to show off everything that was great about Britain. So far I don't have an issue.
In the past three years, we have changed our Government and been promised that measures of cuts and austerity and debt control would see our country blooming. And this very week we've had the news that we're in the worst double dip recession for over 50 years. (And a minor point here, under Labour just before we booted Gordon Brown out of office we had economic growth)
In the past three years Danny Boyle has sat down with a giant flip chart and written down.
1) Kenneth Brannagh in a top hat oversees a gaggle of body popping engineers while smoking a giant cigar.
2) A giant ship will celebrate welcomg immigrants from the West Indies
3) A Forge will create the Olympic rings in a manor resembling Saruman's destruction of Fangorn Forest in the Two Towers.
3) Mr Bean will play the theme from Chariots Of Fire
4) Mike Oldfield will play Tubular Bells, surrounded by jive dancing nurses and doctors, and children in hospital beds.
5) A 60 ft high Lord Voldemort will be beaten back by a hundred Mary Poppins'
6) James Bond will walk through Buckingham Palace followed by Corgies and meet the Queen.
7) The Queen and Bond will sky dive out of a helicopter.
8) A Giant house will lift up to reveal a guy on the interenet..... Lets make him the inventor of the internet!
9) 27 cyclists wearing angel wings will cycle to Come Together.
Imagine the ideas he rejected.... I'd like to think that Grace Jones Hula Hooping to A View To A Kill was very nearly in there.
So which of these do we seem to be more cynical about?
Well, and to be frank again, it annoys the crap out of me that as a nation we're more than happy to bend over and be fucked up the arse by a Governemnt, increasing prices on everything; failing to keep their business pals under control and helping them out with tax CUTS and being smug bastards about how its all our fault. Cut the arts, cut the NHS, cut the police, the armed forces.
Why do we find this more acceptable than a spectacle that has allowed hundreds of young people to live their dreams. To dance in front of the Queen and millions of people on TV. To take part in a spectacle in their home city, to prove they have what it takes!! Our view of society is sometimes quite rightly clouded in shit by what happens and how people behave. But sometimes we have to accept that people are better than we give them credit for and all they need is an opportunity.
How many volunteers that danced in the opening ceremony will now decide to follow that as a career? How many will become choreographers? Singers? Actors? For half an hour someone believed in them enough to let them try. And to me that's worth more than treble £20,000,000 that was spent on the ceremony.
We're all born with brains, its a fact of human anatomy that no-one can dispute. The choice we have is how we're going to use them. In three years time there may be another 5,000 graduates that sit on boards and become directors and managers who are only interested in counting beans, making people redundant, increasing the unemployed and increasing the amount of pounds in their pocket. What I'd like to think is that in three years time, inspired by what they saw on one Friday night in July. We have artists, actors, writers, musicians, dancers, choreographers, directors, producers, CGI artists, production managers, set designers, swimmers, runners, rowers...
But above all I'd like to think we have people who are willing to go, this is my dream, this is my talent, I am going to try.
Saturday 28 July 2012
Saturday 7 July 2012
Just Have A Little Patience.
Its an ironic scenario, my day job which should be the most stress free of jobs, where I spend all day walking up and down solving problems and pressing buttons is 100 times more stressful than my non paying job in which I have to script/script edit and produce/production manage. The reason for this I believe is down to effective management and communication.
So, what was the point in that opening salvo, wait and see because hopefully by the time I finish this blog post I will have wrapped it up in a shiny bright bow in pure Charlie Kaufman-Moffat style.
Do you remember reading my Production Notes blogs? (Yes I know half of you are wondering what this has to do with wheelchair basketball, but bear with me, I can be just as amusing and life affirming as Michael Galligan... Just give me time!!) If you do then you may recall that I signed off with a little piece of premonition in which I pondered upon where the cast and crew of ForverTogether would be... Well, six months down the line and ForeverTogether is still the only release from the Nun with A Gun/CreativePixieFairie.co.uk stable. Does that make us failures? Well, in some eyes yes. (I recently met a guy who had completed 42 productions) But, in my eyes and certainly in other peoples I would answer a resounding No!
So on what do I base my stance?
1) Quality over quantity.
This is possibly the most overused statement ever. I hear it all the time in audio drama circles, some minority kicks up a fuss about there being no regular output and how they can't wait and who does it take so long to get a show on the air. To be honest I just let the argument wash over me, but seeing things from the other side it is an incredibly valid argument. I've read scripts and even written some that I've rejected out of hand because the whole thing could not be made in its original format with our budget at top end quality. It would be far more damaging to release short films and productions of inferior quality than to have high quality but slower releases.
2) There is so Much Wonder To Come.
Following on from number 1, is surprisingly, number 2. It is very important to understand that the reason you haven't seen any of our new work is because it is high quality stuff. The recent completion of principle photography on 'The Whisperers' made me contemplate its position. The original idea was that it would be a streaming video release to spread interest in Nun With A Gun/PixieFairieCreative.co.uk and increase our visual portfolio's. I actually think that what we have so far is too good to sit on a streaming site and should be entered into competitions. Yes, actual horror spooky supernatural competitions.
Add to this you also have two more in the 'Soul Trilogy' still to be filmed. Plus editing to 'Relaxing Day In The Country' Plus, 50 kisses, 2 Days later, One Shot, Christmas, all in the pipeline. And more!! So much on the back burner just simmering and stewing and in some cases fermenting.
3) We're Learning
Ok, to clarify... We're not students or night schoolers. We've all come from different backgrounds and all bring something different to the table. But to my knowledge none of us had ever run a shoot before, though I may be doing Mrs Perry-Smith a disservice. You have to start somewhere, find out how you react to problems, where you turn, what you have to drop and raise, where you have to negotiate and where you have to be a bastard. The Whisperers tested everything and had lots of production issues and budget issues that would have put other people off completing the shoot. We didn't, we grew, we learned.
4) Any Other Business.
It may come as a shock, but we actually haven't made any money from the projects. We haven't entered the crowd funding arena which seems to be filled with so many people wanting something for nothing. I've had some negative experiences with some of these productions, really tarnish the idea of indie productions sticking together and helping each other out. me personally I'll resist it, but maybe one of the other producers will convince me its the route we should go. I'm more old school, raise money, save money, co-produce, negotiate.
In between current activities I have a day job, Mr Baker has a day job, Mrs Perry-Smith has her own commitments. So the very fact that we have a fair few productions in various stages of development has to be applauded. If some tweeters are to be believed they have £1,000's in budgets and don't work and have yet to take one single roll of film.
Add to that, Mr Baker sidelining as a web designer/campaigner for the Below Zero movie, Mrs P-S with her plays currently in two theatres and my writing and producing and audio drama. Maybe we're working too hard and something we love?
I can't recall the movie, but the line goes "It's called Show Business. Not Show friends" or something like that. And I have spent a lot of time looking at this aspect. I have a better understanding of limitations, of processes and potential outlets. What's the point in having things with nowhere to put them?
The first six months of 2012 may have been a slow progress year, but just you watch us grow, just you watch us get better. Watch our films of YouTube, Vimeo, Black Flag TV, Metacafe. Vote for our films at the multitude of festivals that we'll be in. Watch the people we work with get better, get more confident and grow, watch teams develop, watch friendships and relationships and lots and lots of things happen.
Remember the names David Key, Edward Rastelli-Lewis, Michael Hudson, Adeel Abbasi, Rafiqul Alam, Scott Baker, Elinor Perry-Smith, Vanessa Mayfield, Jacquie Cumberledge, Chloe Sinclair, Daryl Pargeter, Andrew Smith, Charlotte Covell, Robin Booth, Max Byrne. One day you'll be queueing at ComiCon and one of them will be charging £5 an autograph and telling you about their life in film.
So, what was the point in that opening salvo, wait and see because hopefully by the time I finish this blog post I will have wrapped it up in a shiny bright bow in pure Charlie Kaufman-Moffat style.
Do you remember reading my Production Notes blogs? (Yes I know half of you are wondering what this has to do with wheelchair basketball, but bear with me, I can be just as amusing and life affirming as Michael Galligan... Just give me time!!) If you do then you may recall that I signed off with a little piece of premonition in which I pondered upon where the cast and crew of ForverTogether would be... Well, six months down the line and ForeverTogether is still the only release from the Nun with A Gun/CreativePixieFairie.co.uk stable. Does that make us failures? Well, in some eyes yes. (I recently met a guy who had completed 42 productions) But, in my eyes and certainly in other peoples I would answer a resounding No!
So on what do I base my stance?
1) Quality over quantity.
This is possibly the most overused statement ever. I hear it all the time in audio drama circles, some minority kicks up a fuss about there being no regular output and how they can't wait and who does it take so long to get a show on the air. To be honest I just let the argument wash over me, but seeing things from the other side it is an incredibly valid argument. I've read scripts and even written some that I've rejected out of hand because the whole thing could not be made in its original format with our budget at top end quality. It would be far more damaging to release short films and productions of inferior quality than to have high quality but slower releases.
2) There is so Much Wonder To Come.
Following on from number 1, is surprisingly, number 2. It is very important to understand that the reason you haven't seen any of our new work is because it is high quality stuff. The recent completion of principle photography on 'The Whisperers' made me contemplate its position. The original idea was that it would be a streaming video release to spread interest in Nun With A Gun/PixieFairieCreative.co.uk and increase our visual portfolio's. I actually think that what we have so far is too good to sit on a streaming site and should be entered into competitions. Yes, actual horror spooky supernatural competitions.
Add to this you also have two more in the 'Soul Trilogy' still to be filmed. Plus editing to 'Relaxing Day In The Country' Plus, 50 kisses, 2 Days later, One Shot, Christmas, all in the pipeline. And more!! So much on the back burner just simmering and stewing and in some cases fermenting.
3) We're Learning
Ok, to clarify... We're not students or night schoolers. We've all come from different backgrounds and all bring something different to the table. But to my knowledge none of us had ever run a shoot before, though I may be doing Mrs Perry-Smith a disservice. You have to start somewhere, find out how you react to problems, where you turn, what you have to drop and raise, where you have to negotiate and where you have to be a bastard. The Whisperers tested everything and had lots of production issues and budget issues that would have put other people off completing the shoot. We didn't, we grew, we learned.
4) Any Other Business.
It may come as a shock, but we actually haven't made any money from the projects. We haven't entered the crowd funding arena which seems to be filled with so many people wanting something for nothing. I've had some negative experiences with some of these productions, really tarnish the idea of indie productions sticking together and helping each other out. me personally I'll resist it, but maybe one of the other producers will convince me its the route we should go. I'm more old school, raise money, save money, co-produce, negotiate.
In between current activities I have a day job, Mr Baker has a day job, Mrs Perry-Smith has her own commitments. So the very fact that we have a fair few productions in various stages of development has to be applauded. If some tweeters are to be believed they have £1,000's in budgets and don't work and have yet to take one single roll of film.
Add to that, Mr Baker sidelining as a web designer/campaigner for the Below Zero movie, Mrs P-S with her plays currently in two theatres and my writing and producing and audio drama. Maybe we're working too hard and something we love?
I can't recall the movie, but the line goes "It's called Show Business. Not Show friends" or something like that. And I have spent a lot of time looking at this aspect. I have a better understanding of limitations, of processes and potential outlets. What's the point in having things with nowhere to put them?
The first six months of 2012 may have been a slow progress year, but just you watch us grow, just you watch us get better. Watch our films of YouTube, Vimeo, Black Flag TV, Metacafe. Vote for our films at the multitude of festivals that we'll be in. Watch the people we work with get better, get more confident and grow, watch teams develop, watch friendships and relationships and lots and lots of things happen.
Remember the names David Key, Edward Rastelli-Lewis, Michael Hudson, Adeel Abbasi, Rafiqul Alam, Scott Baker, Elinor Perry-Smith, Vanessa Mayfield, Jacquie Cumberledge, Chloe Sinclair, Daryl Pargeter, Andrew Smith, Charlotte Covell, Robin Booth, Max Byrne. One day you'll be queueing at ComiCon and one of them will be charging £5 an autograph and telling you about their life in film.
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