Put Money in Thy Purse

One of the routes one has to take making a film with a very small budget is that one freqeuntly has to use friends and friends of friends to fill certain crew roles. (In the case of Folie, I also had friends in the cast, but that would be a disservice to their professionalism; they are also professional actors and I wanted to work with them again after an earlier collaboration.) The advantage of this is that they are usually willing to work for much less than the going rate - which is nothing other than the tried and tested 'Corman Method', in which the great Roger Corman used to say 'get students, they're cheap'. This has mainly paid off with Folie, and we have gotten this far with our rather limited funds, but no film is ever made without unexpected problems arising.

Hence the current post. Most of the postproduction team have been brought onto the project by my co-producer, and they have done a great job so far. It's exciting to see the final layers being added to the film, in particular the subtleties of the soundtrack. We're adding a lot of non-diegetic sound (look it up on Wikipedia, kids), and I hope that we can also add a few sequences where there is almost no sound at all. (The Italian gangster film Gomorrah uses episodes of near silence to great effect, as did Edgar Reitz in Heimat II.) I've always had a silence fetish, and I hope this will be in evidence in Folie. But, as with all such budgetarily challenged projects, people have to go off and earn money on real jobs. Heck, I've even done it myself and am looking for paying jobs as I write. So we are at a standstill once more whilst a key player in the operation does properly paying work, and I am left waiting and sending emails which rarely receive a reply. It's a bit like making a film with Lord Lucan. But, if you're going this route to make a film, then it's something you have to live with, and get through. I don't want to begrudge anyone the right to earn some cash. Speaking of such things, the film itself needs cash...

Perhaps we should rechristen this not the Corman Method, but the Orson Method, as a homage to the great man's production techniques. I'm thinking in particular of the Othello shoot, in which, when the money ran out, cast and crew were left stranded in hotels whilst Orson went off to act in other people's films. It took him four years to make the film. I can recommend Michael MacLiammoir's Put Money in thy Purse, which is a great book about the making of the film. He was Iago to Welles's Moor, and therefore had firsthand experience of what it's like to make a film piecemeal. At least they were holed up in decent hotels. But as a motto, Put Money in Thy Purse both explains the current impasse on Folie, and also sums up the need for me to raise some more money to get the film finished. Like the Lord Our God, I will no doubt be paying for the rest of Folie myself, as investors seem to have gone bankrupt. Or joined Lord Lucan in darkest Africa...

The End is Nigh!

I don't want to make any definite statement at the moment, but it seems that we are now finally very close to finishing, after a rather long period of postproduciton, one that could be safely described as a fucking nightmare. (What film isn't, though?) A cast and crew screening will probably take place at some point before the end of the year, although it's a bit early at the moment to start thinking about anything as organised as a festival strategy...

And the News Is...

Well, there isn't any. Still trying to get the final mixing sessions set up, without a great deal of success so far. We could easily have the film finished by Christmas, but it all depends on what - if anything - we can get done either this month or next. It's extremely frustrating to have gotten so far only to have the film still unfinished, especially when festivals are starting to show an interest in it. Memo to self: give up filmmaking as soon as possible...

Funding Appeal - Only £1,000 Now Needed!

OK chaps, with few other ideas in my befuddled head about how to secure the measly £1,000 now needed to finish the film, I thought I would post here on the offchance a reader or readers of this blog might be going to the cashpoint this evening... Seriously, folks, we do need the cash to get it done as we're now finally very close to the end of the line.

We could have finished it a lot earlier, had we had the cash. In fact, I've worked out that so far this year, we have spent approximately 4 weeks working on Folie. The rest of the time has been spent waiting for money or downtime to use the necessary equipment (online suites etc). And of course the usual amount of worrying, cursing and setting the world to rights over a pink gin or two...

Drop me a line if you're able to help the Widow's Son...

Mixing - In Progress

We started mixing at the end of June, and are now about halfway through. We've had another lay-off, although this one wasn't due to lack of funding, but due to the fact that our brilliant sound wizard, Hamish, went on holiday for two weeks, as did I myself. Louise and I spent a fortnight in Manhattan, never the most restful of places, schlepping around art galleries and applying copious amounts of foot cream to worn-down paws afterwards. We saw a great Chris Marker show and also had the unexpected pleasure of meeting the great documentary maker Albert Maysles. It was quite a trip, but I now need another holiday to get over it!

Now that we are all back in the UK, mixing will re-commence within the next week or so. It hopefully will be finished 'soon'. (I've given up announcing completion dates.) We are aiming to complete as soon as possible, as there is interest in the film, and it really is high time to get the beast out into the world.

In the meanwhile, our documentary about Scottish filmmaking genius Bill Douglas, Lanterna Magicka, has just been released on DVD. The film appears on disc 2 of the BFI's release of Comrades, Bill's legendary film about the Tolpuddle Martyrs. The disc has already had two very good reviews, which also give the thumbs up to our documentary. (See the Lanterna blog for more details.) Very nice to have such a positive response after three years' work. But the main reason for buying the DVD/Blu-Ray is, of course, Comrades. One of the greatest British films of all time, and something I have never really recovered from seeing. Yes - one of those films you can say changed your life. For the better, of course - as all good things do.

The Beatles Rock

And this is the same rock the Beatles sat on, nearly 46 years later, taken yesterday after yet another depressing visit to the bank. Lack of money and absence: strange things.

Music History Part the Second

This is a bit OT, but as a Beatles fan and Weston historian, I thought I would post this link, which has plenty of Fabs-in-Weston photos, including one of those telescopes that you'll see in Folie... And if you scroll down, you'll see two home movie clips.