Sacred Plans

In response to the previous post about making a film in a day for no money, it is possible, and I've done it a lot. I'm doing it again soon, in fact, I have three of these films lined up - one in February, March and April.

I've also been thinking in terms of the Pandemic! In an effort to keep people safe, but I'm also looking at it as a creative challenge. It helps that this kind of filmmaking is designed to be shot in one day, on one location with just two actors, so I'm limiting risk there, but I'm going a little further too.

The first of these films is called "The Valley", starring Greame Coughlan and Oisin De Lange, and is effectively two separate monologues. I should mention this film has received funding from the Arts Fund with the Louth County Council, known as Create Louth. I'll talk more about that at the end. It could be done for nothing, but this way I can pick up some equipment and pay the actors, which is always nice.

More about the film. So, it's about a 34 year-old man reading a letter from his father, who committed suicide 23 years before, when he was 34. We travel through time to see it from both points of view, the Son reading the letter, the Father writing the letter. But they meet in the middle. As the letter is being read.

So they are completely separate, except for this part, which I decided to shoot outside, on a beach. At first we think the Son is just out for a walk, but it is revealed that this is where the Father took his own life, and reappears to read the letter to his son.

All I need for this is the set up previously pictured, and two actors. Nothing more. Now I know I could do this on a RED or an ARRI, light it, get a sound recordist, spend a week on it and make it look like something from the BBC or something. But that's unrealistic for most of us, and we have to stop thinking that way (for now) because right now we just want to get stuff made, get stuff out there, tell the stories inside us. This is the way to do that. See two posts previous, "Dream Big... or small". We do what we can with what we have. Maybe that's not much right now, but just because your poor doesn't mean you can't be honest.

Next will be "Life Had Other Plans", starring Andrea Coyne and Darren Behan, and tells the story of two strangers who strike up a conversation in a cafe, about life, approaching middle-age and forgotten dreams. Difference is, they do it back to back, they never look at each other. It's almost as if they're a voice in each other's head, or an angel on each other's shoulder. It's an intimate piece, and creates an intimate environment for the characters, because they never leave their own space. And an intimate environment for the actors so they're not spitting covid all over each other... you know what actors are like.

Again, iPhone, two actors, one location, one day. I wrote the script in an afternoon, it's about 7 pages long. It's a very simple idea. A sketch. I'm not out to set the world on fire, just tell an honest story that might connect with some people. Then it's on to the next one. Speaking of which...

That's called "Sacred Heart", starring Andrea Coyne and Bill Murphy, and tells the story of two divorcees who meet on a taxi ride and strike up a conversation about kids, partners, loneliness. This one isn't mine, Andrea Coyne wrote it and sent it to me. I loved it and saw it, it fell right in line with what i'm trying to do with these short films. Two actors, one location, one day. We shoot in April, to try and catch the cherry blossoms. 

I have three more of these scripts, Shadow, Oak and Smile. I wrote those two years ago, but didn't quite have my head on straight. But hopefully, if these three work out, we can find a rhythm and just keep going with them. For me it's about telling simple, honest stories, but it's also about making films that are stress free. When I'm stressed I don't want to make films, and when it starts to creep in, my energy and enthusiasm leaves me and I don't want to do it anymore. 

Now I know films are stressful things to do, but I don't care about that, these are my films and I'm going to do them my way, you wanna come at me with rules and stress, you can keep going pal! Do your thing, I'll do mine. There really is no need to over complicate these stories.

So yeah, keep is simple. Script. Phone. Mic. Two Actors. One Location. One Day. Done.

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I mentioned funding. If you do need a little bit of funding, to pay for equipment or pay actors for the day, there are ways: 1. Crowdfunding. 2. Personal Loan. 3. Your Local Council. 

Look around locally for funding opportunities, does your local council have an arts fund? Are there competitions? What about banks? They like to get involved at a community level. What about local businesses or business people, do they support the arts? Write up a proposal for you film. Top sheet has the synopsis, your plan for it. Then the script itself. Bios and Headshots of your actors, your CV, a budget breakdown (This doesn't have to be detailed, you're not looking for thousands, €150 a day for each actor, €300 for gear €200 for festival fees) Outline your plan for the film after it's made, hit filmfreeway.com and find the festival you want to enter, maybe all the Irish festival around the world, there are a lot and they're always on the look out for new Irish shorts. You can try to sell it to RTE through Short Screen, or ask Network Ireland Television to consider it, they are a sales agent for shorts and can get more sales and get you into more festivals.

BUT DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU!!! MAKE YOUR FILM!!! 

Enjoy the process, have fun, because if you're not having fun, what's the point?! We're making movies for crying out loud, not going down a mine!!!

8 Steps to Your First Short Film

Making a low/no budget short film in 8 simple steps:

Step 1: Your phone is your camera. (The set up above cost my €300 - not include iPhone obviously. The monitor looking thing on the top is actually a power bank)

Step 2: Sound is important - buy or borrow an external mic.

Step 3: Light - us natural light, available light. You can get LED light cheaply and use a reflector. 

Step 4: Writing - keep your script short, 5 to 7 pages (less) and between two actors. Story should be simple, set in one location. A conversation. Something that means something to you. Take time to get it right, don’t rush to production, nows the time to make mistakes, they’re easy to change!

Step 5: Rehearsal - take the time to meet, talk to the actors, have conversations about the script, make sure everyone connects with it. Do a run through, don’t be afraid to rewrite it if needs be. This will help you hit the ground running on shoot day.

Step 6: Shooting - you can shoot anywhere, but think of production value, what’s the back drop. Maybe don’t shoot in your living room, or if you do, put some time into dressing it. Can you shoot with your town as a back drop? Or a mountain? You get my drift. That kind of value is priceless!

Step 7: Post - do have iMovie? That’ll work. There are other free editing apps out there, find what works for you. Do you have a musician friend who’ll lend music for credit? Maybe your can do it, record it straight to your phone and import it. It’s all about keeping it as simple and cost free as possible.

Step 8: Distribution - well, now that’s not an issue, you can publish it the second you finish it. Hit social, spread the word. But if you want to go a step further, get it out to festivals, go to filmfreeway.com, create an account, there you can set filters to find free entry festivals, or low entry fees, set your budget and get entering. If you want to sell it, rte short screen buys short films, email on website, or you can get a sales agent, the biggest in Ireland for short films is Film Network Ireland. 

Main things, don’t overthink it. Write something that means something to you. Keep it simple. Find local actors, in you community. Use your phone, two actors, one location, one day. And Have FUN!

Dream Big... or small.

Dreams are powerful things. You can’t mess around with them, yours or anyone else’s. You need to mind them. Be precious with them. Look after them, and above all, pay attention to them. If you don’t they can turn against you. Forgotten and abandoned dreams can come back to haunt you, they can prevent you from doing many other things, including being a nice person! God knows I can be grumpy at times, and it often comes down to frustration stemming from a lack of fulfilment. 

Tricky thing about dreams is that they change as we grow, they might change completely and become something entirely different. Or, they can change size and shape. If we don’t pay attention to that it can be as detrimental as if we’re ignoring them. It’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, the peg being the old dream, and the round hole is our life as it is now.

I look at my dream of being a filmmaker, a writer and a director and how it hasn’t gone according to plan. It almost did. I was in the room with the producers, those who held the keys to the kingdom, I even booked the gig, but it fell through. Then I built my own room, became my own producer, and went after bigger fish. Only to have the line snap, and the big fish escape. 

I still hung onto that dream, the scale of it and the shape of it, for years, but my life now is unrecognisable to what it was then, as am I. I’m not that hungry young 25 year-old filmmaker who wants to conquer the world. I’m 43, I’m a Dad of three young kids, I’m married and the things I worry about most these days (apart from Covid) are paying the rent, putting food on the table and maybe someday, buying or building a house for my family... not film.

But it is still there. It hasn’t gone away, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t at the forefront of my thoughts on a daily basis. I still want to make films, I still think of stories I want to tell and I still see those stories as films. 

I think what’s been holding me back these last few years is that I’m still seeing my dream as the old dream, which is far too large to scale and conquer in my life as it is now. I don’t have the time, the energy, nor the financial means anymore. And that was holding me up. I was saying no to a lot of things, or half-assing things I had said yes to, because they weren’t part of the dream, the BIG dream! But maybe they were, maybe I am actually living the dream!

If I think about it differently, if I reframe it, if I scale it down and resize it to fit my life as it is now, I can make it work. I have to look at what I have to hand and ask what I can do with that. I can’t can’t make a feature film right now, but I can make short films. I can’t make the kinds of shorts I’ve made in the past, that require thousands of euros, a full crew and a dozen actors to shoot over a week or two! But I can find a couple of actors to shot something on my phone over a day for a couple of hundred euros.

Maybe it’s no great shakes, but it’s honest to goodness storytelling, in it’s simplest, purest form. It’s stripping it of all the bells and whistles and just focusing on the story. Creating small, intimate short films that tell a simple story. Nothing wrong with that. 

I’m also looking at helping people to tell their stories more. Not just focusing on myself all the time, that can be exhausting. I’m working with a writer at the moment to help her tell her story. I’m lending my experience so she can find a structure to her own story. 

Most of the time it’s just getting out of the way and letting them do their thing. But what I find works best is just being there to encourage, to coach, to say it’s working and to keep going. It’s often the only thing people need. 

Sometimes you don’t know there’s a door until someone shows you. Too often I’ve met people in this field who want to hide the doors, or stand in front of them and charge you an admission fee. How can you stand in front of the door to something else’s dream and tell them they can’t enter?!

Sometimes all you have to do is say yes, say it’s good enough, and say you’ll help them. More often than not a simple word from you can make all the difference to them. 

There are a lot of us out there. We’re dreamers, but maybe we’re older now, jaded, tired. We have a couple of kids in tow, a job, bills, commitments, but we’re still dreamers, we’re still storytellers at heart, and by not being able to tell those stories of dream that dream, it causes the heart to break a little, that light inside to dull a little. But we don’t have to give up on the dream. We just have to think of it in a different way, resize it to fit the shape of our lives as they are now.

What I want to do is shoot short films, no more than 5 minutes, two actors on one location to be shot in a day on my iPhone. That’s it. Small, intimate, simple scripts that perhaps surprise and delight their audiences. 

And I’d like to help others do the same. Even even it just means reading a script and saying “Yes, it can be done, here’s how” it might be enough for some people. Sometimes all we need is that little bit of validation, that Yes, the permission. 

But here’s the thing, the only permission you need is your own. Say yes to yourself, get out of your own way and go shoot a film. Don’t let your dream die, make it fit your life now. Tell your stories.