London 2012 - Amongst the Multitude

3rd Draft Done...

2009-12-13T17:43:00.000-08:00

I have finished and sent out the 3rd draft of the script. I am very, very happy with it. I've changed about 30% from the 2nd draft which is quite a lot but I feel the script is stronger and tighter. After I get some feedback on this latest version I will likely post the 4th draft to this website to hopefully broaden the dialogue around it.

I have also got the project on IndieGoGo. Some friends have already found very good people and funding through it so why not the same for L2012-AM? You will find the link for it to the right of this post and also on the main website.

Update!!

2009-11-15T15:46:00.001-08:00

There has been a lot happening with this project in the past few months, but mostly behind the scenes.

For starters, the script is already on the 2nd draft and nearly on the 3rd draft. There have been quite a lot of characters created and killed, approaches taken up and abandoned, politics challenged and either accepted or dropped.

Also, there has been quite a lot of communication with other production companies who share L2012-AM's politics in terms of a straight-up collaboration or at the very least a share of networking resource. This is on-going and picking up speed but I can at least reveal that we will be working alongside Autonomous Human Films in LA for this project, with their team giving us a hand regarding script editing and some production bits and pieces. More collaborations to be announced soon.

Ideally, the project's shooting dates would be around Summer 2010 which would give enough time for the film to be launched before the real Olympics in 2012. Of course there's nothing real about the Olympics except for exploitation and capitalist colonisation, but that's another matter entirely... and one which the film deals with very well, I might add!

Benefit night

2009-07-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

Enormous thanks to all the bands who came to play on expenses only (some from outside London!), to the library house for the hospitality, to Skookum Boom for setting it up and finally to everybody who showed up and parted with a pound or five for this project!!!

I am eternally in your debt.

P.S.: I've added links to all of the above in a new section of the website called "Friends & Allies" - definitely worth checking out.

Benefit Night Skookum Boom!

2009-07-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

The creative collective Skookum Boom is putting together a benefit night for L2012-AM this coming Saturday! I am constantly being surprised by the generosity of people that learn about this project. Please do come to the benefit, details below:

See you there!!

Page 68 now...

2009-07-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

... and really liking the direction this is taking. It's still very rough of course. Most of the dialogue is on the nose with little subtext and the characters are still fairly generic without the spark of originality that will make them real people. There's also perhaps too much causality in the plot which is something that I will make an effort to hide a bit or at least make it seamless. I expect the first draft to be finished by the end of next week.

I've also taken on another feature project at the same time but I find it actually helps to have 2 projects going on at the same time - sometimes thinking about one project will give ideas for the other. Does that happen to you, too?

No Funding, No Cry

2009-07-10T09:29:00.001-07:00

The results are out and I didn't get short-listed for the FLAMIN fund. This isn't a big surprise by any means. First, because I was trying to sneak a narrative feature film into a fund designed for art installations around 20-30 minutes, and second because it was a film against a government initiative(and the Arts Council is a government organization). Was it not the Arts Council who said "We still believe that the 2012 Olympics presents a real opportunity for arts and culture in this country." Enough said!

This is a minor setback, but the film is still on... every day more so.

Writing the script, part I

2009-07-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

Up to page 43 so almost half-way there which is good progress for just a week. Last sentence I wrote before closing down Celtx was "NO GODS NOR MASTERS". Auspicious...

A bit unrelated but I will also be running a mini film course for 3 afternoons (total 6 hours) at the Library House at Clerkenwell/Brixton in July. Info below:

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Free intro course for writing, directing and conceptualising a film
Last 3 Sundays of July – 12th, 19th & 26th
All classes from 3pm to 5pm

Class #1 - Thinking about film
Art and industry
Pre-production, shooting and post
The role of the screenplay
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Elements of a screenplay
Screenplay format
From script to screen

Class #2 – Making a film
The film crew
The cast and the director
Dynamics on set
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Building scenes and sequences
Types of shots
Transitions

Class #3 – Filmmaking schools and styles
Examples and exercises from:
Classical Hollywood
Contemporary Hollywood
American independents
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Japanese family drama
Documentary cross-over
"Kitchen sink" realism

The classes are free and open to everybody. It's best if you commit to attending all 3 as they are related to each other

There will be a follow-up course on the more practical aspects of filmmaking like camera techniques, lighting, sound recording, editing, etc.

Outlining

2009-06-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

My plan was to delay the writing as much as possible. I wanted to see more spaces, meet more people, hear more stories and learn more about activism and protests before I started. But I've been having so many good ideas that it felt a shame not to put them down!

So basically what I've been doing is a rough outline of the script, writing down every scene, what happens in it and the characters involved. This allows me to read through the film quickly (without being stuck in lengthy dialogue or description) and easily gauge the rythm of the film, its pacing, and how the characters progress through the plot. I've put down about 50 scenes which is enough for a feature-length film. I still feel there are things missing from the script, but I believe that when working with the actors on their characters we can come up with ideas for more scenes or for improving what I have so far.

The next step is of course to write the thing! I doubt the dialogue I'm writing will survive until production but it's important for the cast, crew and myself, to have something to work from even if it's just to negate it later. I expect to have a good draft by the end of July.

On the move...

2009-06-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

Have scheduled meetings with residents and organizers at various social centres across London. I know some of them already but this will be the first time the project is introduced in a more formal way.

I have also been busy writing some sample scenes and setups which can then be worked more in-depth with the cast. So far, so good - everything is starting to slowly fall into place.

Introduction to a Theory of the Young Girl

2009-06-04T16:19:00.000-07:00

I was all set to begin work on L2012-AM when I read about a very interesting film competition on Vertigo magazine called the Fast Fwd Film competition - http://www.aworldtowin.net/film/fastfwd.html

The call was to "make a film about what makes us angry amused sad or just plain mad about the crazy world of capitalism". The organization behind it is called A World to Win and they "campaign for an end to corporate power and a new democratic political system". Having a casual look around their website did show that their politics were closely aligned to my own and I did like most of their aims and activism. If that wasn't enough to convince me to make a film for this competition, some of the jury were people I respect and certainly won't mind reviewing my film.

Unfortunately, the deadline was the 5th of June, and I was reading the competition rules on the 27th of May, so only 9 days to come up w/ a 5 minute film starting from absolutely nothing whatsoever. I needed to come up with an idea that was a comment on capitalism AND that I could write, shoot and edit before the looming deadline. Luckily, I had been reading a relatively light-hearted French philosophy/critique book that positioned the figure of the Young Girl as a living commodity whose pervasive effect on society is to force it into a permanent state of submission (in a very nutshell). The book was called Premiers Máteriaux pour une Théorie de la Jeune Fille. I was finding the book an excellent read, despite my limited command of French which meant regular flicking through the dictionary and many notes. It definitely was on brief for the competition but how to do it? It wasn't a narrative book, in fact it was a collection of sometimes disjointed paragraphs that would never work as a film if put straight into images and sounds.

It was then that I remembered the work of one of my favourite filmmakers, Chris Marker. He has always kept the element of critique, revolution and philosophy in his work through his cinematic essays, and I thought I could attempt something similar.

With this template, I knew I was going to use documentary footage, voice-over and, as a test run for L2012-AM I was also going to try to blend some fiction in. For the documentary footage it was easy - I live in London, the capital of capital if nothing else. For the voice-overs I wrote a rough script summarizing the book which took me about one morning in total as I had been taking notes while reading it. For the fiction parts, I wrote some scenes with blatant, but realistic, examples of jeune-fillism and set them up mostly in interior locations which would be easy to control.

For 4 days I wandered around London with my camcorder, a monopod and keeping an eye out for anything which could work in my film. I shot about 150 clips and over 90 minutes in those 4 days of all sorts of different things, grabbing some really interesting footage along the way and witnessing some bizarre situations as well. It's incredible how a city like London feels once one is not really going anywhere, once one is just looking around instead of having a clear objective like visiting a tourist spot, shopping, going to work, etc. One day I would go to Bank and then take 4 hours to walk all the way to Marylebone, going in and out of side streets, stopping often, going back through a different route, and all the while filming anything which I could use later for the edit. Another day I just went to Trafalgar Square and the followed the multitude and the natural traffic of people around the city, sometimes ending in the same spots, sometimes finding new things I had not seen before.

The fiction part was just 1 day and went very well. I think I cast a very good actor for the part and even though she didn't have time to properly rehearse her lines beforehand, she did very well to convey the spirit of the Young Girl. For that day I had my friend Marlena hold the boom and help out in general, but there was only 3 of us overall, so lots of room to try things out.

Rick Roll, my friend who I had made Knossos with, recorded the voice-over narration at home and sent me a couple of versions.

By Tuesday, I was ready to edit. It was always going to be tight though, but one of the advantages of editing one's freshly-shot material is that a lot of choices are easy to make. After 3 days of hard work, I arrived at a version that, to me, is perfect given the time, brief and my own objectives. This afternoon (4th of June) I sent 2 copies of the finished DVD to the competition organisers and I can say I've very proud of our efforts. I believe the film does what it says on the tin - it is an introduction to the theory of the young girl! A very brief introduction but one that I think captures the essence of the book, both in the narration and in the fictional scenes. You can see it online here - http://vimeo.com/4987670

The film was also an important dry run for a few methods I plan on using in L2012-AM and I will add it to the Inspiration page, hoping that people don't think it's too narcissistic to be inspired by my own efforts!

Fingers crossed...

2009-05-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

It's still early days for London 2012 - Amongst the Multitude but one of the first things I did was put together a comprehensive application for the FLAMIN film fund (http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=1182). This fund seemed very appropriate for the film and it'd be a big boost if we did manage to get one of the grants available. To be honest, even just getting on the short list would be fantastic, as that would entail a period of project development sponsored by FLAMIN with many advice sessions with professional artists and filmmakers. We are still more than a month away from hearing if this project's on the shortlist though.

Besides getting the grant itself, putting together the actual application made me write down a lot of material on what the film was about and how we would go about making it happen. I hope to share some of the application's text on the website (http://tinyurl.com/multitude2012) soon.

In the next days I will begin scouting locations and networking to find crew, cast and other support for the film.