Continue reading »]]> We have been shooting for three days now and I have never been so tired in my life!

Michael Winner once said that the most difficult part of making a film is staying awake for six weeks. I remember laughing when I heard that but now I understand what he meant.

Our shoot is only going to last for three weeks but the complications of filming an entire feature film in such a short time are making life incredibly complicated.

Also, we are filming in a number of different locations and even with a small crew of 18, moving everyone and all the equipment they need can take up a lot of time.

Avesta, our 2nd Assistant Director, has proved invaluable as she’s so good at working out detailed timetables of which vehicle needs to go where and when and carrying what. I don’t know what we’d do without her.

Our first location was at Woodlands Leisure Park near Dartmouth which was wonderful even though the rain came down for most of the day. Watching James, our Director of Photography, slithering down a death slide with his camera gripped tightly in his hands is not something I will easily forget!

The scene at Woodlands is going to be a happy interlude in an otherwise tense and suspenseful film and we were afraid that the grey skies and heavy rain would ruin the mood.

Luckily, however, once we had finished filming our stars enjoying themselves on the indoor play equipment, the rain stopped ong enough for us to film the picnic scene and an adorable litter of piglets at the animal centre.

So far everything is on schedule, despite the weather and the moving from location to location. Of course, there is still plenty of time for things to go wrong, but it’s a wonderful feeling to see the months of preparation finally transform into images on a screen.

Yay! It’s really happening!

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My Mother is an inspiration.

In an era when playgrounds are considered health risks and parents are encouraged to keep their children wrapped in cotton wool I am so grateful to have been brought up by a woman who believes that life is about seeking adventure not security.

As a child growing up in the Sixties it was pretty unusual to have a mother who worked.

And my mother didn’t just have a job, she ran her own business and taught me that women can do anything they choose.

She was born during the last year of the First World War, emigrated with her family to Australia when she was 11 and returned to London as a young woman just in time for the Blitz.

She worked in Fleet Street throughout the war and had to be re-housed several times after her home was damaged by bombs.

Later she returned to Australia to research a novel she was writing and became stranded when her caravan broke down in the Nullarbor Desert. After 13 days she was rescued by a travelling circus owned by the man who was to become my father.

At 94 she must be one of the oldest bloggers on the web and has just finished a novel which she intends to publish as an e-book.

Many of my daughters’ friends have begun following Mum’s blog, including Dave Reynolds, who is making a series of films called The Underwater Realm about a mystical race of people living under the sea.

When Dave needed a ‘mature’ lady to make a short appearance as an ancient Atlantean he asked Mum to play the part and she was delighted.

As you can see from the photo above she looked amazing in her makeup and wonderful costume.

If you want to check Mum’s blog you can find it at www.dianahardie.wordpress.com

Do you have an amazing relative?

Continue reading »]]> The fact that I haven’t written a blog post for some time might suggest that nothing much has been happening on the film front.

The truth is the exact opposite.

After we shot the teaser-trailer last year I wrote about how lonely it felt once the filming had finished and all the crew had gone home leaving Robert, David and I to face the next stage alone.

At the time I had no idea just how much there was to do before we could get the team back together for the shooting of the whole film.

Rebecca, our lovely director, has kept busy preparing her vision for the film at home in London but here in Devon we have been dealing with the more physical tasks of building sets, researching locations and stocking freezers with enough pre-prepared meals to feed a cast and crew of nearly thirty for three and a half weeks.

When I first suggested making a film I thought it would be an exciting experience. I had no idea then that it would grow to take up every waking hour!

But the good news is that after months of slogging away we have finally reached the point where our team is about to reform.

We now have the magnificent Mike Higgins working with us as our First Assistant Director. Mike is a great asset to us as he has a wealth of experience gained from over 30 years experience working on films ranging from the original Oliver! to Gladiator.

We also have a Production Designer in the person of Philip Higgs who has just spent a day going around the locations measuring and photographing everything so that he can begin work on his designs.

As some of the scenes are going to be shot in our house Phil spent a lot of time examining furniture, pictures and ornaments and carefully fixing red sticky labels to anything that he felt might be useful.

The result is that my house looks at though it has caught measles!

And what is worse is that everything that has not been ‘stickered’ will need to be removed. That means finding a temporary home for a huge range of things from sideboards and sofas to my beloved collection of huge houseplants and two large fish tanks.

But it will all be worth it.

In little more than two weeks we will again have a whole film crew around us and Deadly Intent will become a reality.

I can’t wait!

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I am now beginning to understand why producing is described as herding cats!

We have been trying to pin down the dates for the shoot – we had originally wanted to start at the end of August – for weeks and every time we have been about to make an announcement something has happened to make those dates impossible.

The very nature of the film industry means that projects are often prioritised or cancelled at very short notice and this makes scheduling extremely difficult.

In addition to this when making a very low budget film there is the problem of not being able to pay people what they are really worth.

This means that you have to find people who are passionate enough about your project to be prepared to give up their time for free or in the hope that they will share in the profits once the film has been sold.

Unfortunately, even the most enthusiastic people still have bills to pay and inevitably this means that they will have to take on paid work in preference to yours when it becomes available.

This is not so much of a problem with post-production work, although it can result in a long delay before the film is finally finished, but it is a nightmare when trying to arrange a shooting schedule.

To put it simply, you can’t shoot a film unless everyone is there at the same time!

For weeks now I have been struggling to arrange a schedule that would suit all our cast and crew. Originally we had planned to shoot during the school holidays as the restrictions relating to child licences are not so severe then but a key member of the crew was due to shoot on a multi-million pound feature in September and when the starting dates were moved forward to mid-August we found ourselves with a major problem.

Since then I have been juggling dates and commitments, trying every possible combination to find a period that will suit everyone. Now, many weeks later, I am having to hold my hands up in the air and admit that it is simply not possible!

It is horrible having to tell people who have been brilliantly supportive to me and the film that they will not be able to take part but I have no choice.

If this film is going to be made we have to choose a date which suits the majority of people and stick with it. Those who are not available will have to be replaced.

And that is what we have done.

We will begin the shoot on 11th October 2012.

There. Done. Announced.

Now we just have to make it happen!

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I have some advice for anyone who wants to be a filmmaker. Find yourself a supportive husband!

OK, some of you might prefer a supportive wife, partner, boy/girlfriend, or whatever, but I’m sure you get my drift. You can’t do it on your own, or worse still with someone who resents your dreams.

I am incredibly lucky to have a wonderful, and extremely long-suffering, husband and a fantastic family and I’m happy to admit I would be completely lost without their support.

Following a dream can be an amazing experience but it can also be exhausting, infuriating and occassionally downright depressing.

There are times when I want to scream with frustration when things go wrong and others when I am bouncing with excitement because something has gone wonderfully right.

This is not a recipe for domestic harmony.

As I’ve said, I’m lucky and I know it, but if you are thinking of starting out on your own filmmaking adventure I would strongly advise you to be honest with your loved ones.

Tell them it’s not going to be glamorous. In fact, tell them it’s going to be hell.

They need to know that for a long period of time you are going to be stressed, anxious and ecstatic by turns. All available money will be spent, birthdays and anniversaries will be forgotten, and you will spend long hours working with strange new people they neither know or understand.

If your plans are met with exclamations of shock, horror or ridicule I can only suggest that it’s better that you know their feelings now rather than after you’ve given up your job and committed your life savings to a new camera and editing suite.

However, if you are lucky enough to find that your family and friends are prepared to support you, you will have a resource more valuable than gold and a constant source of emotional strength.

And don’t ever forget to tell them how much you appreciate them!

Continue reading »]]> Asking people for money is pants!

I don’t know if anyone enjoys doing it but if they do they must be very different from me.

I have spent four years working towards making my film and that includes a lot of time studying the business possibilities. I have visited film markets, researched distribution platforms and spoken to distributors.

I wouldn’t be going ahead if I didn’t believe I could make a profit and I have already spent a considerable amount of money, contributed by family and friends, to get to this stage.

I feel confident that I am not going to let down those who matter most to me.

And yet, when faced with a stranger asking me if I am sure they will see a return on their investment, I start to blush and say “No. There’s no guarantee. You may lose the lot.”

It’s the honest answer, of course, but not the one investors want to hear.

I know some of my friends are frustrated with me and tell me I have to sound more positive but it’s easier said than done.

I do feel passionately about making Deadly Intent and I am absolutely convinced that the team I am working with will create a superb, saleable film but how do I convey that belief to other people?

If anyone out there has any advice I’d be really glad to hear it.

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I am always impressed by youngsters who can walk into an audition with people they  have never met before and give a confident performance.

We held auditions in Dawlish today for James, the young lead in Deadly Intent, and the boys who turned up were wonderful. None of them were more than nine years old and yet they were all prepared to have a go at whatever we asked of them, from shouting at the tops of their voices to acting out improvised scenes.

I hope they didn’t find the experience too scary but if they did it certainly didn’t show!

We have more auditions lined up in Exeter tomorrow and then comes the difficult part of deciding who to ask back for recalls. I know that it’s going to be a really tough choice.

To be honest, that’s the one part of making films that I hate. Having to disappoint people. Especially kids. However talented they may be, it’s inevitable that most of the boys auditioning are going to be disappointed. At the end of the day we only need one James.

But I do believe acting, and auditioning, is good for kids.It helps them develop abilities that they can use in many different situations.

I know ‘pushy’ parents often get a bad press, and some people fear that if they encourage their children to act they will turn into self-centred little primadonas but in my experience most children who enjoy drama gain a lot from it. Certainly, the boys we saw today were great.

Roll on tomorrow.

Continue reading »]]> It was impossible to be in Cannes this year without hearing the rumblings of digust from the assembled women that, yet again, the Palme d’Or shortlist was a male-only affair.
However, it wasn’t until I got home and read a report from the Guardian that I realised there have only been two years in the Festival’s 65 year history when the shortlist has NOT been exclusively male.
Why?
Are we seriously expected to believe that there are no women director’s worthy of being included?
Sadly, the imbalance is present right through the film industry. In Hollywood only 5% of the top 250 films were directed by women.
And yet, strangely, the pattern is not the same around the world.
It may come as a surprise to many but the countries where women have the most freedom and equality are not necessarily the ones with the most opportunities.
Some months ago I was told that the proportion of women working in the Iranian film industry is actually higher than the proportion working in the British film industry.
At the time I found this hard to believe but while walking around the sales floor in the Film Market at Cannes I saw that films from the so-called third world often have a far more liberal approach to women than might be expected.
It is not unusual to see posters for films with exclusively women casts. And some of the women even appear to be over thirty.
Can you name a Britsh film with an all female cast?
No. Neither can I.
Filmmaking is one of the few areas where equal opportunities simply don’t seem to apply and that makes me more determined than ever to make Deadly Intent a success and prove that women can make superb films when given the opportunity.

Continue reading »]]> Michael Winner once said that the hardest part of making a film was staying awake for six weeks.

For me, and for many other filmmakers I know, the hardest part is definitely finding the money.

Everyone knows that these are difficult times so it’s not surprising that finding investors prepared to take a chance on talented but unproven directors and producers is going to be tough.

Yet it’s such a brilliant time to be a filmmaker!

For the first time in history it’s possible for Indies to make films that rival the Hollywood studios. I’m not talking about the all-action, effects-driven blockbusters but for most genres it’s perfectly possible to make low-budget films that look stunning.

Today what makes a film outstanding is not the name of the studio behind it but the strength of the script, the creative vision of the director and the ability and imaginative talent of the crew and creatives.

Any yet even low-budget films cost more than most filmmakers can find in their piggy banks.

Many first time filmmakers will have heard the advice ‘if you don’t have a rich uncle to fund your film – ask a dentist!’ but what few people know is that now, since changes to the Financial Services Act brought in by the last government, approaching your local dentist to finance your film could just land you in jail.

Or could it?

The truth is that the laws surrounding investing are now so complex that even lawyers are unable to give clear advice and filmmakers are told that if they can’t afford to hire a legal team they had better stick to applying to the BFI for a grant. (Please don’t laugh – that wasn’t meant to be a joke.)

In recent years the one glimmer of hope has been Crowd Funding and sites such as Kickstarter have raised huge amounts for Indies based in the States, and others, such as Indiegogo have begun to have an impact around the world but again the dreaded FSA has had an effect.

So far, Crowd Funding has been a one-sided affair. Fans have been allowed to donate as much money as they wish to help their favourite filmmaker but the law has made it impossible for them to be treated as investors. How crazy is that?

I know filmmakers who have run successful Crowd funding campaigns and they are extremely grateful to their contributors, but why can’t those people receive more than just a DVD and a T-shirt?

Why can’t they be recognised as a potent and influential force who have the power to help Indies filmmakers succeed and ensure that the films of their choice get made?

Obviously, filmmaking is a risky business and many films will never make a profit but that is equally true of any start-up venture. And if people are allowed to donate their money why can’t they invest it?

The good news is – now they can.

Crowdcube, a British company, has found a way to navigate the murky waters of the FSA and allow people within the UK to invest legally in a British film.

This may seem a small step but the implications for low-budget filmmakers are huge. For the first time fans can actually own a share in a film and enjoy a part of the profits if the film should be a success.

And the next good news is – Deadly Intent is going to be that film.

So please, please help us spread the word because we desperately want Deadly Intent to be the first in a long line of successful Indie films who have been made with the help of Crowd Investors.

Find out more at http://www.crowdcube.com/investment/deadly-intent-ltd-10598

Thank you!

Continue reading »]]> The last few weeks have been a strange combination of activity and frustration.

We have been gearing up for a fundraising campaign as well as planning ahead for the main shoot in August so a lot of time has been spent sitting at a desk working on projections and cashflows.

All essential stuff but just a little bit dull.

But now, things are about to get a lot more exciting!

In a couple of days time we will be launching our campaign – and asking for your help to spread the word – and then we’re off to Cannes to talk to potential distributers and sales agents.

As soon as we get back we will be into the serious work of building sets, holding auditions and generally rushing around getting everything ready for the shoot.

In fact, I have a sneaky suspicion we will soon be looking back on the last weeks and thinking how lovely and peaceful they were.