I Love Luci

I Love Luci is a script for a short film.  It's based on an encounter I had with two very amiable drug addicts I met while having a cigarette outside my office.

I don't know their names, but lets call them Tommy and Marjory.  They had a dog with them - lets call him Luci.

This series of events led me to write a short script that I hope to make into a film very soon.  This blog is about that journey, warts and all.  I aim to be as candid as possible about the things that happen to me as I go through the process, not in a retrospective way either, but as I live and breathe it.  This means that anything you spot as a short-minded act of idiocy on my part is more than welcome as a comment - even if your first reaction is that I shouldn't be writing about this, send it in.

As you join me the script, I Love Luci, has been well received by everyone who's read it, apart from a competition I entered it into - they rejected it, my one big kick in the teeth so far. 

Resigned to the thought that this is still a good story and one worth telling I'm ploughing on regardless.

I'm now on my 7th draft of the script (something you're not meant to tell people by the way).  I have a wonderful fledgling producer, a fantastic production company, tentative interest from a major funder and the terrifying prospect that this might just all work.

I'm waiting for the ground to open up.

We are off to France with our script in search of funds and distribution.  On Sunday we go to Clermont-Ferrand for the short film festival.


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We are following in the footsteps of our friends and mentors here. 

At the time I started working in the film industry David Mackenzie and Gillian Berrie were embarking on a short film that Gillian had written - Somersault.  David and I subsequently ended up working in the same edit facility and that's how we got to know each other.  Anyway, they went to Clermont-Ferrand with Somersault and it did very well.  The film won a certificate for Masterful Editing if I remember correctly.  We have big shoes to fill.

As per the post above, part of the reason we are going to France is to meet potential funders for our film.  (The other reason is to see the best short films in the world and see how it's done, of course)


It struck me that I should probably set up a PayPal account in the unlikely case that any well meaning readers might want to pop a couple of dollars / euros / pounds / yen / bananas into the kitty and get their first Executive Producer credit on a short film.

This might sound cheeky, but, I assure this is not a request for money.  People have tried giving me the stuff in the past and it's been turned away.  However, I wouldn't turn it away for this.  So if the urge grabs you, click on the link in the sidebar. 

The next step will be that your name goes on a list and we'll give you an Executive Producer credit on the film.

In the meantime I'm going to get in touch with my clairvoyant, look up the long gone Norris McWhirter and find out what the world record is for the most execs credited on a movie and aim to beat it.

So much stuff makes sense when you're drunk.  I doubt this post will make it past lunchtime tomorrow when I wake up and read it back.  Until then...

This is just something other people might find useful.  I have been looking to buy a new viewfinder (chewy I believe is the slang term)  The last one I got my hands on got dropped, OUCH!, not by me I might add, and doesn't work so well now, plus, it's not mine and I should have one of my own by now.



Anyway, I found an interesting site that talks about the history of them and how incredibly expensive they are.  When I get one I'll certainly never drop it - I may well lose it though, that's my major shortfall, I'm fantastically disorganised - not great when you're trying to make a film.

No sooner had we arrived in Paris than we were accosted by the ubiquitous accordion toting tube surfers.

Bienvenue chez cliché!







Brian and I are very excited about our trip.  We hope to meet lots of interesting people and really get a feel for what's happening in the short film world.

We'll keep you posted with our progress.  I'm now going to spend the 3½ hour train journey to Clermont-Ferrand watching short films and updating my directors notes.

ADDENDUM:
For those who are unaware of directors notes they are exactly as they sound, a statement of intent from the director as to how they intend to treat the script so everything from design and performance to music and edit.  The more successful you get the less you have to make things clear beforehand, so far as I'm aware.  I'm afraid I won't be publishing my notes as these things are wont to change and I don't want to nail my colours to the mast too soon.

My head hurts.

Yesterday we had a very intense day getting the lie of the land and firmly ensconcing ourselves in the Salle de Jean Cocteau to watch short films.  This is the life.  It's hard to believe that there is such a passionate audience for the film short film discipline.

Twelve films in and we're starting to get a handle on the way the festival works and how to pick what we want to see.  We met some great people last night who are here for a pitching session that takes place today.

I'm going to stop writing now because I'm so hungover this barely makes sense.  Have a look at the photos on Flickr.

It will come as no surprise to hear that last night was another late night.  As usual it was spent in very interesting and highly amusing company (a big thank you goes to Scottish Screen for organising the dinner and having us along).

I sat next to veteran short film distributor Derry O'Brien from Network Ireland TV and EM Media's John Tobin who was involved in the fantastic Control by Anton Corbijn.  Needless to say they were highly illuminating and gave much food for thought.

In amongst the wonderful Auvergne feast, and a curious Irish take on Chinese food from the French (rice and potatoes was the only vegetarian option), was lots of talk of all things film.  I won't write too much introverted stuff just yet I don't think - suffice to say the experience of being at this amazing festival is one I will always remember and I hope that some of the wonderful films we've seen and people we've been lucky enough to meet and talk to rubs off on our work.  I will likely make reference to the sage words I've listened to here a lot over the coming months as our script is honed we edge towards production but for now I'm just going to let it all sink in.

It's our last day in Clermont-Ferrand so I'm going to go and make the most of it...

Brian and I are back from our totally inspiring trip to Clermont-Ferrand.  A big thanks goes out to those that made it possible for us to go there and get the lie of the land.

As I mentioned previously it will probably take a while for the things we learned in Clermont-Ferrand to register here on the blog and in our script.  But already there are a few things that seem interesting and CF's resonance is beginning to be felt. 

For instance, I have a far clearer idea of how I would like to position the look of my film.  I feel that this is at once important and unimportant.  There is no point in having a film that looks great if the story isn't there.  This is blatantly obvious stuff as a broad filmmaking rule is concerned, but, all too often you find examples of work that suffer because of the image.  This is by no means limited short filmmaking either. 

I recently watched a feature that potentially had a great story with fantastic drama but the image was pitched in such a way that any emotional content of the film became secondary, the production values were just too high for the story which would have been immeasurably improved had there been a stronger sense of reality to the images.  Too beautiful isn't the problem here either, the problem was of something being inappropriate.  This message was firmly put home for me in Clermont-Ferrand more through discussion with other filmmakers more than with anything in particular that I saw.  Those that had a strong focus on the image of their films seemed to be missing a vital ingredient.  The upshot of this for me was that I have some way to go with my script before I'm ready to really consider the camera.  I knew this anyway but there is nothing better to focus the mind than having the consequences of actions laid bare for all to see.



Of course, balance is everything.  I still want to shoot on film and know that some of the strictures that come with that process could be damaging to my ability to catch certain things, but I need to learn to cope better with the medium and create an environment that allows for those issues.  I believe that the discussions I've had and things I have watched recently have been very helpful towards getting the best out of my script, and of course getting my script to be the best it can be too, and that must come first.  I will continue to plan to shoot on film for now but it is the script that will get the focus of my attentions and in the background I will be thinking about how best to achieve the results I want.

Back to the drawing board for me, to be forewarned is to be forearmed (or something?).

...but that is only one of the things we need to get in place before we can go into production.

Although our script is by no means in a position to start shooting we are already considering the things that need to fall into place in order for this to go ahead the way we want.

As with all stories there are certain things that are peculiar to ours that we need to make sure are realised properly on screen.  We have some false teeth to cope with so we are dealing with a company from London who are specialists in making teeth for films.  This means that the actor won't be in too much discomfort while we're shooting and my hope is that we won't have to do any work in post to enhance the realism of the teeth.  I'm not a huge fan of CGI so I want to minimise the likelihood of having to do this kind of work.  It's hugely expensive and we will never have enough money to make it just right.

The company we are working with are called Fangs FX and have done some great work.

The other thing about the teeth is that it has a knock-on effect on our casting.  We are ideally looking for someone who has small teeth so that the FX gang's work is made easier.

I'll post the script soon so that you can have a better idea of the context we are working in.  I am still working on it though and don't want to make it public just yet.

Check out this great band...

One of the realities of making a short film is that there isn't much money involved - i.e. you don't get paid for your work, certainly not initially.  It is a labour of love, or a compulsion at least.  The knock-on effect of that is things have to slide a little when the offer of paid work comes along.

To this end Brian (producer on I Love Luci) and myself are making a music video.  Again, not a particularly lucrative profession but any little contribution to the coffers is always welcome so this will help while we're getting the script in shape.

We are working with a fantastic young Scottish band from Glasgow - We Are The Physics - on their next single release You Can Do Athletics.

If you like fast punky pop then these guys are for you.

Of course, this has involved a good bit of writing and research to get to the point of commission and I am now about to write a detailed script.  Once the script is in order the next steps will be scheduling, budgeting and crewing up for a shoot in the very near future.  Exciting stuff and very good fun, if a little on the stressful side as with all film making.

The production company is Sigma Films and the record label is Fake DIY Records.  I'd also like to put a little nod towards Gill Mills and iCast for making the introductions.

Another draft of the script (I Love Luci) is complete.  This is the 8th draft. 

The process is becoming more satisfying with every pass* these days.  The developments are more subtle as I encounter nuances within the piece that escaped me while I was getting the bigger picture in shape.  The result is these smaller more delicate changes make far more of an impact and greatly improve the story.

The script is now more malleable than ever.  As it becomes stronger it becomes more enjoyable to work on.  There is a point you reach when during any creative endeavour where this happens.  All the elements are in place, to all intents and purposes you have a finished piece, so now the real work can begin.  I'm not saying anything new here but it is at this point that the difference between something that simply works and something that is truly poignant can occur and the act of tinkering with the thing is ultimately very satisfying because you can't really do anything wrong.  It feels a bit like decorating a house, everything's in place but it's now time to make it your own and you can go on refining and altering until you are exhausted, or bored out your brains or more preferably once you have something that exceeds expectation.

I'm finished for now, but I'll no doubt start again tomorrow, my previous experience tells me this time doesn't last for long so I will capitalise on it.

The next question is whether or not to publish my script here.  A good friend of mine is an ardent advocate of publishing things on your blog that you might otherwise keep private.  I understand his point of view but remain sceptical on my own behalf.  David Mackenzie took the brave step of putting the Hallam Foe script on the web and while it is generally regarded as not having been a terribly successful experiment it was the start of something for the film.  Certainly it's presence online has gone from strength to strength from that day on and the action itself was a true indictment of the will and imaginative force driving the film.

What is really up for grabs here?

Hallam Foe was put online to get reactions and suggestions to the script.  But, as David has said in many interviews / Q&A's, the act of reading a script is very distant from a literary experience so he was being asked fairly ridiculous questions in response, like 'what's the music going to be?'  The mechanical nature of a script prevented any helpful intuitive response from readers unused to this experience.

All in all, having the script online wasn't useful to David directly.  That wouldn't necessarily be repeated here however.  For starters I'm not nearly such an experienced filmmaker as David.  But more importantly, the audience for this blog is no doubt considerably more film-savvy than the readers of Gapingvoid, which mainly concentrates on marketing theory, so there may be more chance  of getting helpful crit.

Of course I'd be a liar if I wasn't concerned about my rights too.  In essence I'm not too worried about the response I might get to the script, that seems like a risk worth taking.  But I don't have the same safety net as there was on Hallam where the material came from a book that had already been published and was backed up by a substantial and very competent legal team.

I have put things on here in the past and rediscovered them elsewhere on the net passed off as the work of somebody else.  Ultimately I didn't really care about those little snippets of video, but this is entirely different.  I have spent months creating this and the last thing I want to do is jeopardise it's life by exposing it to those more ruthless in the world.

If anyone has some genuinely good ideas about how I might protect myself I'd love to hear them.  For now I'm going to hold back on publishing my work.

I should say that if anyone is interested in reading the script with regards to co-production then email me and we can discuss.

* "pass": once you have a screenplay each return to the script where you go through the whole thing is informally referred to as 'doing a pass'

We would like to wish everyone working on Rounding Up Donkeys all the very best of luck today as they start their first day of principal photography.

ALL THE BEST X

Essentials for your first day on set:

Hat
Very warm coat
Pens
Paper
Scarf
Good boots
Camera
More pens
No hangover
Immodium
Callsheet

We are pretty much crewed up for the music video for We Are The Physics.

We are also quite well sorted on the locations front.  Although I will be doing a good long walk in the rain tomorrow taking pictures and trying to get everything nailed down.

We have a fantastic team on board so fingers crossed everything turns out good.

It's a kind of Glaswegian take on the Attack of the 50ft Woman - proper B-movie fare.

Recently Brian and I did a fairly comprehensive tour of Glasgow's west end looking for locations for I Love Luci.  Although this hasn't had a direct impact on the writing there were always a couple of locations that have been present in the script right from the beginning.

I remember David quoting Wong Kar-wai as saying that he likes to find a location and then a story.  David followed somewhat similar principals on Hallam Foe.  I have to admit I am not entirely following their lead but I am trying to apply my story to some locations that I have always wanted use, so my approach is not totally dissimilar.

Before being a filmmaker I studied painting, at that time my environs always had a big impact on the work I made.  It seems this is still the case with my current projects.

...after a fairly extended period of absence.

We have been busy though, Brian and I.  We are currently trying to put the funding together for I Love Luci.  Comparatively, it's quite a pricey short, some people have shot features for the same money (under £60k).  However, it's only pricey in a particular context and we are aiming to make a film reflective of our potential to make something for the cinema, films for the big screen.

I can't really discuss who we are talking to about finance at the moment, apart from obviously we will be making an application to our local funding body Scottish Screen.  This is de rigueur for any UK production.  Some local funding is available to projects that fulfil certain criteria (applications come with a set of guidelines you have to comply with and it's a good idea to build a relationship with the people at your local screen agency when going through the process).

In short, things are progressing, slowly but surely.  It is nerve racking though when you get to the point where it's time for people to put their money where their mouth is.  Everyone who has read the script has had a very favourable response but that doesn't mean they'll be willing to put any money into it...

The image below is of my room in Cannes this year, but I thought it might be a source of inspiration for Marjory's room in I Love Luci.

Money, money, money...

As soon as you start down the road of trying to make something that looks the part, will be professional and stand up to the competition, you inevitably have to start talking about money.

I believe people should get paid for the work they do, even if it's just a token gesture, a little something for time and effort is an important nod to the fact that a large part of film-making is about making a living too.

The thing about shorts is that there isn't a lot of money to be made once the film is complete -  no-one's going to get rich off the back of this.  Who knows what the future holds with the development of online viewing platforms and the long-term decline of terrestrial television, but none of this will happen in a time-scale that is useful to us and our film so I shall have a debate about the changing face of broadcasting at a later date.  (Although it does make me instantly think that there should be a clause in any contracts that the film has to be charged for when people view it in a capacity other than terrestrial TV and that some of that should come back to the filmmakers... to be continued...)

This, of course, all leads back to the same place: funding.

I mentioned previously that we are looking for the lion's share of our funding from Scottish Screen, our local funding body, and part of that process is putting in an application for funding.  I am pleased to say that our application appears to be getting closer and closer to completion.  The outcome of this will have a massive bearing on how we progress.  Without the funding I am not sure we will be able to go ahead.

Whether approaching your local funder or looking for private investment it is apparent to me that there are certain things that would help with any potential investor.  We're being very clear to identify all the people we want to work with up front, all the things that we predict will be problematic and trying to pre-empt as many of those problems as possible and, most importantly, making it clear where other investment is coming from and who those partners are.

This is conjecture but film making is an expensive endeavour and if the risk needs spreading then that's what you have to do.  The more people I talk to about funding short films the more parallels I see with the way independent films are financed, namely patch-funding.  For the uninitiated this means exactly as it sounds; funding is patched together from various sources in order to match what you have worked out is going to be the cost of making your film.

Of course this is by no means the only way of going about making a short film.  I have made a number of shorts with little or no money and pulled them together using a huge number of favours and some of the best films I have seen have been done in the same way.  This time, however, I am keen to finance the work and it's about time I took this step.  I should also point out that I am trying to make this film outwith the framework of a scheme.  This makes life a lot harder because many of the potential funders (government bodies, broadcasters etc) are not interested in spending money outside of their schemes.  I think they feel they already make a significant contribution to emerging talent.  However, there are always exceptions to the rule so why not try and batter the door down anyway. 

I am pleased to say that we have got some interest as a result of conversations in Cannes so perhaps I should retract my remark about it not being a useful place for people interested in making shorts, it looks like it might have been very useful for us.  We just need to firm things up now and get it all into our application.

Fingers crossed (as usual).

I have had the video that we made for We Are The Physics up on this blog before but I was asked to take it down by the record label.  I think that any concentration of hype they may have wanted will surely have passed by now so here it is again for those that missed it the first time round.

I should add that if anyone is interested in having a music video made by Sigma Films then they should get in touch with the office.