Anyway, here are the markers in mine and Stephen's relationship

In 1990 I made my first film - a half hour documentary about the Scala cinema (aka Sodom Odeon) in London's King's Cross. Stephen was one of the founders of the cinema and therefore responsible for its distinctive programme and all night culture. He'd moved on to Palace by 1990 but kindly gave an interview to a very nervous young director.

Cut to 2004. Stephen was a panel member for The Turner Classic movies shorts prize. They gave my short film 'Brown Paper Bag' third prize in the competition. Although we didn't win, the resulting exposure almost certainly helped raise the film's profile in the run up to the BAFTA's which we most certainly did win!

2010 After years of development hell and unfulfilled expectation created by the BAFTA wins, myself and the producer of Brown Paper Bag, Natasha Carlish decided enough was enough, we were gonna 'just do it', a decision which led to making 'Turbulence', my first feature film. It just so happened that Natasha had been able to secure Stephen as her mentor (I had no part in this) on the guiding lights scheme at that very same time. She showed him the rough cut I'd mostly put together (no money for an editor), which was painful but turned out to be extremely useful. Stephen declared the film to be not at all his cup of tea, then went on to say something like the following (I wasn't there you see)


'but its not really about me, who is your target audience? Show it them and see what they make of it'

We went away and set up test screenings for Turbulence, there were none in the pipeline before this moment. I've written some blogs about them and the experience of that. Let's just say it was a total revelation, not only one of the highlights of making the film, I'd go so far as to say it has completely shifted the way I see the film making process. I had no idea that was coming. Its too early to say what the result will be of this particular revelation but it feels significant.

So, Mr Woolley, I thank you very, very much and look forward to seeing you for the first time in seven years at this Saturday's 'Scala Forever' event at the Cinema Museum in London this Saturday 17.9.11. They're showing my documentary and there'll be a panel talking about the cinema's legacy and what not too. Cant wait!

http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/visit
http://www.scalaforever.co.uk
http://www.turbulencefilm.com

But just lately I've had a new reason to carry on. My son Jackson, nearing eleven years old, has a developing love of movies and indeed all things moving image. Although we don't like all the same things, there's plenty of taste cross over and we can pour over all the new releases and endlessly discuss their strengths and weaknesses. For the time being at least, we have a shared interest. And it's a wonderful thing.

But that's not all. He really likes my new film 'Turbulence'. And recently, as we have been editing and I've been bringing home different versions to watch, he has watched them with me. He's seen the film evolve over the past year, seen it shot and edited, refined and polished. This weekend we watched the final version of the front titles, which features animated versions of the characters. He whooped with joy as he spotted them appearing one by one. It was an awesome moment and very, very validating.

So... Jackson, I'd just like to say thank you very, very much for making this fathers day special.

Lots and lots of Love, Daddy (aka 'The Zids') xxx

Oh and p.s - thanks for the pumpkin heads and Homer corkscrew!!

Awards Season

The film awards season is now beginning in earnest. BAFTA have published their long list, from which the 6,000+ membership will choose the nominees and then the winners. I'm one of the voters. The trade press say that less films have been made this year but those completed are of higher quality. Having less films to consider is certainly a blessing and I have to say I'm really enjoying my movies at the moment. But, the big question - how am I going to vote? Tricky, with a lot of good films on offer. I think in my top three though contains two films based on true stories, the third is directed by a Brit in his 70th year. Can you guess the films?

One of my day jobs whilst we are making 'Turbulence' is running a Thursday evening film course at The Midland Arts Centre or MAC. To celebrate the awards season, I am going to dedicate each week to a different category. There'll be evenings on cinematography, actors, script, costume etc. I'm hoping to include special guests and even a special awards ceremony on the final night!

So what do the awards actually mean? For me I'd say being nominated is the most significant thing and being on that list year in, year out certainly does no harm to a career. The actual winner is much more of a lottery and ultimately less significant. Also there tends to be the lean towards one film picking up nearly all the prizes. Whilst this makes a good news story, I have to say I do think it's a shame and generally doesn't reflect what's out there. For my own work, I tend to think about the words of Martin Scorsese, famous for not winning an oscar for most of his career. He always said its not the prizes that matter but being able to make the next film. Here's to that.

So, I'm off to vote! You can see the BAFTA 'long list' using the link below, these will become nominees, and after a third round of voting, winners. Can you see any of your favourites from 2010?

http://www.bafta.org/awards/film/entered-films,65,BA.html

Also check out MAC's evening courses and of course, our film Turbulence. We are now looking for completion finance of £75,000. if you know someone who might like to invest, please ask them get in touch. Businesses can invest in the film and offset this against corporation tax before April 6th 2011.

About Turbulence http://www.turbulencefilm.com
For Turbulence investment e mail Natasha@dreamfinder.net
For MAC's courses see http://www.macarts.co.uk/page/3704/Learning+Participation
To follow me on Twitter it's @bikefilm

I have just found myself in the peculiar situation of simultaneously making my longest and shortest film. My longest film is 'Turbulence', which you will be familiar with from previous blogs. It currently weighs in at 2 hours - the assembly edit. The assembly is your very first edit, basically an 'assembly' of all the scenes, in the order of the script. It's as rough as Desperate Dan's chin but basically offers you a starting point out of all of those hours of material. I'm now looking at it to see how well the story works, bringing down the length through tightening and deleting scenes and adding in music. There's a lot of music. I decided that the best way to deal with such a length is to take it 15 minutes at a time. So far it seems to be working!

This is all in marked contrast to my shortest film - 'How to Speak Big Cat'. This is a one take wonder, me and my daughter pretending to be lions - shot and edited in 30 minutes on a flip camera and running at a mere 55 seconds. I made it for a competition - Land Rover and Biosphere's 'Go Beyond' with the prize a place on an expedition to Namibia. Well, after being put through my paces on a selection day involving driving Land Rovers down rivers, imagining scenarios like being stranded in the desert and spotting lifesize cardboard cut outs of Zebras in the Herefordshire countryside (to name but a few tasks), I am glad to say that they have decided to put me on the plane! Yahoo! Thanks to little C, Aquila TV, Land Rover and Biosphere.

#lrna

Links -

http://gobeyond.landrover.com
http://gobeyond.landrover.com/entry/86130
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5M5KNUWp-M

As they say at American Vogue, September is our January.... So, here goes.

One year ago I read an Observer film magazine special on the British Film Industry. It was sobering (even before the demise of UKFC) but very good, especially the Jason Solomons article and the interview with Michael Winterbottom.

The latter article contained two major nuggets:
1. If you want to emulate Britains most prolific director then stop waiting (see my earlier blog 'the waiting is kiliing me')
and 2. Behind every successful director, there's a great producer.

As soon as I put the article down, I called my long time producing partner Natasha Carlish and arranged to meet for coffee. We sat down in Maison Maici and I pitched my vision of the future, with the two of us working more closely and hurtling towards glory.

She told me that she was in fact thinking of knocking the whole film making business on the head...

Oh... I smiled bravely, asked her to think about it, then went home to think of plan B. No plan B came.

Early last year Scottish post-rockers Mogwai were filmed during their residency at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. The resulting document is directed by Nathanaël Le Scouarnec and Vincent Moon, known for some of the best music videos of the last couple of years (including Moon's work on The Take-Away Shows, short impromptu performances by bands on French music website La Blogotheque). Shot over three nights, this black and white film captures the beautiful intensity of Mogwai's performances.

To find out more about this event, please visit Capsule's website, and to find out more about the Flatpack festival visit their site.

Even while at the bus stop on Friday night there were crowds of girls and women in strapless dresses and stilettos with coiffed hair and bright lipstick; this isn't just a film, it's an event! Cocktail bars surrounding the cinema complex were stuffed with Cosmopolitan clasping ladies and many dabbed their eyes once leaving the theatre and swanned back into the bar.

The show's main pull was the fashion and it's almost a treat to dress up to the nines and make a true girls-night-out of going, leading to a box office smash. I know many people who have gone even before ever seeing a single episode. It may be an aspiration to be as constantly glamorous as the characters or an ode to the show's style admiration. I find groups of office girls more intimidating than a crew of hoodies so if you're planning on catching the new Indiana Jones flick, be prepared for hoards of females in their best, it's quite a sight to see!

I remember standing outside the ABC cinema on Bristol road waiting for the doors to open so I could see what I still regard as one of the best films I have seen, Raiders of the Lost Ark, I waited hours and was by far the youngest person in the queue there by themselves, but I had read about this film, I had dreamed about this film, I had the poster on my wall, for me it was vital that I see this film the first day that I could.
I am now much older, and I do mean much older but I'm not sure if that accounts for the changes in the way I think about films and how desperate I am to see them at the first opportunity, but there was something about this film that I wanted to see, if not the first night, then pretty soon afterward, maybe it was memories of how I felt about the first film, that sense of childhood wonder, the expectation and ultimately the sense of fulfilment coming out of the cinema and seeing huge queues about to see a film that blew my mind, a queue that I so wanted to join.

Now I don't intend to write a review of the film but after seeing it the first thing I did when I got home was to put on the dvd of the first film and see how it should be done. Now don't get me wrong its not a bad film, I just expected more, I wanted more, I wanted that sense of awe, I wanted to be on the edge of my seat, I wanted to hold my breath and not realise I was doing so.
The new film feels safe, it feels like a product rather than an experience, it has all the action set pieces, just not the excitement, there is danger but no real sense of tension or peril and that's what I missed.

This is one of the most highly anticipated films of the year, we have been reading about this film on an almost weekly basis for the last 12 months, speculation has been rife about the plot, the cast, the hair colour of the leading actor, who is in it and who is not in it. Indiana Jones and the curse of the crystal skull has been dominating the websites and the movie gossip columns, and it is set to dominate on a global scale, but will it dominate the hearts and minds of the audiences with the same level of passion that started the franchise almost three decades ago. I suspect that a new audience will love it, but if you know, I mean really know the first film and everything that made it what it is, I don't think 'love it' will be the phrase that you will be using, but that is up to the unstoppable Dr Jones to prove me wrong.

Yesterday I attended a screening of Nic Gaunt's film 'Rotunda: 21 Stories', a film ostensibly about the building that stands, er, 21 storeys tall at the bottom of New Street. But, while the film radiates from the Rotunda at its central core, it pushes far beyond that to be a film about identity, family, and how the built environment can help shape the way we feel.

Apart from possibly being the cinematic work that contains the word "round" most often, the film takes time to talk about how Birmingham has been shaped by its architecture and by using only the voices of Brummies and those involved in the building means that it's thankfully free of theories, instead focusing on emotion.

The 21 stories range from the base and James Roberts, with tales of how the building grew taller almost on a whim, to the top, restoration, and a young carpenter who's too scared to work alone in the basement. In between are a host of people talking about, confessing almost, their relationship with a huge pile of concrete and glass and by extension their lives.