Tag Archives: Short films

A super, super-low budget gem, and Tiger goes to Cannes…

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I thought I’d do an update on where we are with Tiger, the short film I wrote and produced last year. This film was made during February 2012 and had its first screening (albeit for family and friends) last summer at the Lighthouse cinema in Dublin. Since then it’s been screened in London, at the Underground Film Festival in Dun Laoghaire, at the Waterford Film Festival, and more recently as part of a shorts double bill in a cinema in Navan.

The costs for the film to date are nudging €3.5k, but that isn’t bad for a short (except in comparison to the movie below), and we still have some money left over to get it out to more festivals. It’s a little movie that was relatively non-stressful to make (the fundraising was the most onerous part tbh) and one that audiences really seem to respond to. Or at least, that’s what they tell me!

And there’s some really good news recently – Tiger’s been accepted into the Short Film Corner at Cannes, and as its co-producer, that gives me Cannes festival accreditation! So I’ll be going over next month for four days to take full advantage of the free pass and meet as many industry types as possible. Bring on the free stuff and the lovely people!

I submitted Tiger to a bunch of distributors and I’m also happy to say that one of the biggest distribution/licencing companies is interested. It’s early days, but things are looking promising! So if that works, out, Tiger will be seen by an even bigger audience, and me and the director/co-producer might even make our costs back some day. You never know.

Talking of super-low budget films, I found myself at an IFTA screening last week for Gerard Barrett’s Pilgrim Hill. Barrett is a young Kerry guy who wrote, directed and produced this feature film for less than €6k. You read that right. Actually, it might even be much less than that – he borrowed €4.5k from his local credit union and added “ a bit extra” to make it. If that wasn’t astonishing enough, the film was shot in seven days, with just three members of crew (Barrett, a cinematographer and a focus puller).

So the question you’re probably wondering is, is this frugal epic any good? And the answer would be, yes it is. Barrett’s clearly dealing with a subject close to his heart – the film’s hero, a lonely bachelor farmer in his forties, is based on the director’s own uncle. The performance he gets out of real-life farmer and sometime actor Joe Mullins is incredible – to the point where you feel uncomfortable watching it at times because it doesn’t feel like a performance at all.

Mullins’ character is a slave to the family farm and to his own demanding, disabled father. He’s long given up on escaping the isolated life he seems doomed to follow, but the events of the film force him to confront his past, his present and most definitely his future. There isn’t a huge cast – there’s probably only four main characters, but the quality of the script and the acting means that you barely notice this. The film looks amazing too, beautiful photography by Ian D. Murphy and a final scene that will wrench your heart out.

My only complaint – even bearing in mind the budget constraints – is that I would have liked a little more story. But this is a small problem with a film that’s already put Gerard Barrett on the map. He was there in person for an entertaining interview with Arena presenter Sean Rocks and talked about his next project – a family drama set in Dublin called Glassland. After seeing Pilgrim Hill, I’m really looking forward to it.

Seeing a film made for a budget as tiny as this can’t help but make you think of what can be done – even of what you could do yourself for a similar amount. I have a friend whose script was made last year for €18k, which seemed (and indeed, is) an incredibly small amount to make a feature. That being said, Pilgrim Hill has a lot going for it – the writer’s intense knowledge of the subject matter, a decent script, an excellent DoP and a real find in its lead actor. There are no stunts, no car chases and no explosions. Only a bare-bones cast and crew. This is DIY film-making at its best.

Still, if you have a great idea and don’t need a huge crew involved, maybe you don’t need to approach the Film Board or track down a producer. You could skip the usual fundraising route, raid the piggy bank and make the low-budget feature of your dreams…

Throwing yourself in there – improv at Groundlings. And being a know-it-all at Paramount…

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I definitely wanted to try acting while I was here in L.A., figuring that it could only make me a better writer. Particularly if, like me, you tend to write comedies! It helps to know what makes people funny – what makes a good comedic performance.

So I went to the place that churns out the funniest people in Hollywood, The Groundlings improv company. Everyone’s been through this place over the years, from Will Ferrell, to Lisa Kudrow, Paul Reubens, Cheryl Hines, Jon Lovitz, Edie McClurg and Will Forte, to pretty much the entire cast of Bridesmaids.

It’s based on Melrose, so I staggered down there on Monday (Monday was HOT) for the first of six three-hour improv classes. I didn’t really know what to expect from my fellow improvisers (there’s about 15 of us) but they range from people who seem to be professional stand-ups to people like me who’ve never acted before.

Our teacher, Julie, got the ball rolling by making everyone stand up and say their names. She made us do this about thirty times, which was good because it took some people about that long to learn to pronounce my name. Sometimes I have whole days where no one has any problem saying it and then there are days when I literally have to keep writing it out. This was one of the bad ones.

Improv is so weird because when you describe the things you’ve been doing to someone who hasn’t been there, it sounds like some kind of abuse! Here are some of the exercises we’ve had to do:

  • Standing in a circle (they’re big on circles), saying a word that the next person has to repeat, while copying the extreme emotion you delivered it in.
  • Tossing an imaginary ball around, again with strong emotion.
  • Sitting on stage pretending to be a world leading expert on something mad, like nuclear fusion, and taking questions from the floor.
  • Pretending to be part of a giant imaginary machine with 3 other people, each having to do different movements and noises.
  • Sitting knee to knee with a scene partner in front of the whole group and maintaining eye contact while making up a joint imaginary story (kind of like some dates I’ve been on).
  • Standing with a scene partner while the group think of a horrible scenario for you to act out (“You’re signing the Constitution!” “You’re beekeepers!”) and then having to improvise a scene based just on that. This was the worst one to start with. It was terrifying. Because you can’t help but let go and know that you’re going to look like an idiot. But then about twenty seconds from the end, I realised I was really enjoying it and didn’t want the scene to end. You get a real buzz afterwards, no matter how it went.

Yesterday, Julie gave us some tips on improvising, some of which I think are just as relevant for writing comedy in general:

  1. Before you get into the scene, make sure you’ve established who, where and what. Otherwise the scene will descend into confusion. And be specific! If you’re in a department store, what section are you in? What imaginary props are to hand?
  2. What is the emotional crux of the scene? Why is it worth watching?
  3. Use spacework – use the props as if they were there, and remember to maintain the integrity of the space no matter what. If there’s a “table” and this has been established, don’t walk through it, or if you do, make a joke about it!
  4. Show, don’t tell. Don’t rely too heavily on dialogue.
  5. Characters – take a cliche and put a different spin on it. Make the people you play original.
  6. Arguing about the facts in a scene drains the life out of it. If someone makes an accusation against you, sometimes it’s funnier to acknowledge it and say, “Yes, that’s true!”
  7. Don’t ask questions – assume everything. You already “know” the person your scene partner is playing, and what you’re both doing.
  8. Don’t play crazy, or dead drunk. Or a little kid. Any of these people might do ANYTHING. There are no parameters. Don’t go there.
  9. Raise the stakes in your scenes and always commit to them. Even if an idea doesn’t sound promising or seems to be tanking, you can turn it around.
  10. Listen to your scene partner, respond, and make eye contact (being Irish, this is a hard one for me. We don’t even make eye contact when we’re clinking glasses. We watch the glass to make none of the precious booze spills…)
  11. And the hardest of all for me – don’t plan your scenes! You can’t, so don’t even try. Throw yourself in there.

And that’s what I’d say about improv in general – it’s about throwing yourself into it. I’m loving every minute of it, even the minutes where I feel like throwing up…

I went to see some short films showing as part of LA Shorts Fest on Tuesday night. A friend of a friend’s movie was showing – I highly recommend it (It’s got the intriguing title A Conversation about Cheating with my Time-Travelling Future Self). A great script and very cleverly shot.

This being Hollywood, there were also shorts directed by Shia LaBeouf and ones starring some well-known faces like Roger Bart and Thomas Lennon. I saw six films in total that night and they were a really high standard. Best of all, the theatre is a two-minute walk from the North Hollywood subway station – nice one, Shorts Fest!

Today, I went to another studio, this time Paramount. And this time, for the official tour. Paramount is the only studio still in Hollywood itself, taking up a huge 65 acre site. It just looks like a studio should – which is why it’s used so much in movies itself.

The tour was me, two middle-aged Brits, two young Germans who never spoke and an unfortunate tour guide named Brian from Wisconsin. I say unfortunate because it emerged early on that I knew at least as much as Brian simply by being a huge film nerd, and I find it impossible to keep facts inside me.

So every time he hesitated and couldn’t remember some actor’s name, or mentioned some movie, I’d pipe up. I know, but what can I say. I’m my mother’s daughter.

Eventually, an hour into the tour the English lady said to me, “It’s a good thing you know so much!” and I decided to stop, before Brian cracked and beat me to death with his branded iPad.

Seriously though, this is a good tour. You get driven around in a little golf cart, which is infinitely better than trudging around in the heat. And Brian took out the aforementioned iPad every five minutes to show up a clip of something filmed on the actual spot we were standing on, which was pretty cool. We saw Lucy Park, the childcare center started for the offspring of Paramount employees by Lucille Ball. We saw her offices and the side gate Katherine Hepburn used to cycle through to HER office.

There was the wet cement where a drunk Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson once put their hand and footprints while streaking through the lot (this was when Cheers served real beer!). The Forrest Gump replica bench, where Tom Hanks once sat down – for a prank – in full Forrest gear for a whole day and gave out chocolates to people. The Bronson Gate, where struggling actor Charles Buchinski was queuing one day for an audition and decided to change his  name on the spot to Charles Bronson.

The funniest thing we saw were two doors – this was in their fake New York set – that were exactly the same, except that one was smaller than the other. Brian explained that these were used in the movie Vanilla Sky. Cameron Diaz walked through the larger one and little Tom Cruise through the shorter one, creating the illusion that they are the same height. Because of course the guy CANNOT be smaller. The world would explode…

Other tidbits from the tour: Anchorman 2 is on the way. Nicole Kidman is set to play Princess Grace of Monaco in a biopic. And last night, they screened Raiders of the Lost Ark in all its IMAX glory for Paramount employees. With Ford and Spielberg present. I would have given my right arm to be there…

I went to Lucy’s El Adobe afterwards, a legendary Mexican restaurant across the road with a wall full of signed celebrity fan photos. No sign of Tarantino, who’s a known fan, but thanks to Brett for the recommendation!

What a short film really costs to make, plus an update on L.A.

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Firstly, an update on Tiger, which is finished and will be screened at The Lighthouse cinema this Saturday afternoon before heading out on the festival circuit. My little film is leaving home! (That’s how it feels, anyway).

I wrote before about how it was funded and thought I’d follow this up with a final tally to give anyone else out there thinking of doing the same an idea of costs.

To date, the film has cost nearly 3,200 euro. A third of that was put in by the co-producer and myself, while another third was raised by two fundraising events ( a quiz and a networking party) and a plant sale at an allotment (amazingly lucrative). The final third was raised from friends and family, mostly by putting a trailer up on Fundit and collecting donations.

Production cost 2,100 euro, with post-production and other costs such as screen hire, DVD burning and artwork splitting the other 1,100 more or less evenly.

As always, the question is: now that we’ve finished, would I do it again the same way? Yes and no. I’d much rather not have to produce another low-budget short, not because I don’t enjoy it – there are aspects of producing that I enjoy very much – but because fundraising takes up an awful lot of time. And it’s time I’d rather spend writing.

So my final piece of advice (for now) for wannabe low-budget producers is to exhaust all funding routes before going down the road of raising the money yourself. Apply for Signatures, the Filmbase shorts programme and any other funding scheme you can find. Unless you love running events or begging people for funds, in which case knock yourself out!

In other news, my house is in the process of being sold, removing a long-term obstacle to my move Stateside. It’s amazing that sometimes when you make a decision and take action, the Universe gets behind you and things start to happen. Literally the day I bought my plane ticket to L.A., our estate agent called with an offer we could accept. We’ve been trying to sell this house on and off since 2009 and all of a sudden, we had a buyer.

So here’s my advice to everyone else – whatever dream you’re putting off, take some action. Book that holiday. Take that class. Ask your crush out for a drink. Yes, they can always say no, but at least you’ll know you tried!

The important thing is to get started. Once you’re in motion, nothing can stop you!

No loan shark required – my guide to funding your short film

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A rough cut for my short film Tiger is due this week – post-production is well and truly underway! We’re still in the process of fundraising to pay for post-production (see our trailer page here). But I thought I’d open up about funding the movie in general to give pointers to any wannabe short-filmmakers out there.

I touched on this in a post a while back, but there are five main conduits to cash when you want to make a shortie:

The first, and the most commonly mentioned, is public funding (IFB, Filmbase etc). This can work if you aim for a deadline, have a director and producer on board and are prepared to jump through some hoops (you’ll probably have to do an interview – or even several interviews – with the funding body and talk about your vision for the script). The bad news – it’s a very competitive process with a lot of other writers, directors and producers looking for a piece of the same pie. And if you’ve missed all the deadlines, like we did, it can mean a long wait until the next one.

Second – approaching a production company with the script and hoping they have the cash (or can access cash) to make it. I probably didn’t explore this option as much as I could have. This was partly because I met the director of Tiger at a film festival last November and the project started building momentum pretty fast. By the time we were seeking funds, the project had kind of developed past the point of involving a production company. However, this is still a solid option and I’d advise anyone else to go down this route initially. Not only will you get a lot of expertise on board really quickly, but the production company will take care of things like putting the film into festivals etc which saves you, the writer, a lot of hassle. On the other hand, if you’re a control freak and prefer to be steering your own car, it’s time for option three…

Fundraising (or crowdsourcing) the necessary funds yourself. I’m not a fan of this option but it’s the stony road I’ve chosen, given my laziness about options one and two. So here’s what we’ve done so far to raise funds for Tiger: held a table quiz, threw a networking party for filmmakers and now the aforementioned Fundit page. The quiz and the party raised half of the production budget and the director and myself added the other half ourselves. We may get this money back if we manage to sell the film to a distributor, or we may never see it again. But hey, the script is my baby and babies must be fed. We’ve currently raised nearly a third of the post-production budget on Fundit and I have hopes that we’ll hit our target by the cut-off date.

I’m not going to lie: fundraising is time-consuming and tough. But it’s a lot less tough than…

Option four – seeking corporate sponsors. So far, we’ve had some success getting companies to sponsor quiz prizes but no luck getting them to fund the movie, or even part of it. However, the optimist in me believes that this is still possible, and I’ve no doubt that someone out there has a film “Brought to you by Coca Cola” or similar. If you have had joy with this option, let me know! Maybe I can learn something!

Option five is grim – you pay for the WHOLE THING YOURSELF. Probably on a credit card, or with a credit union loan. Don’t go to a loan shark, you’ll end up with a short movie and two broken legs. Either way, your kids will be hearing about your film because you’ll still be paying off the loan that paid for it.

An unofficial option six is sending a rough cut to a distribution sales company and seeing if they will buy your short film just on the basis of that footage. I know a couple of people who’ve done this, although I’m unclear exactly when money gets handed over (Is it once you’ve signed a deal? When the film is completed?). Regardless, you’ll have to put some money up front just to get the film to a rough cut point, and this makes it a “speculate to accumulate” kind of situation. I’ll report back once we’ve finished Tiger and approached a couple of distributors.

That’s my ten cents on funding your film – if you have any other shorts-funding ideas, post them below!

Watching your short film go from page to screen…

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Today we finished shooting Tiger, the short script I’ve been wanting to see on the big screen for so long. Well not for much longer!

We had a great two-day shoot at a house on Mary Ward’s farm in Co. Dublin. The whole thing went really smoothly – we only worked two reasonable-length days, everyone got paid and I have great hopes for how the rough cut will look, let alone the final edit. Thanks to all the lovely cast and crew!

We’ve shot the movie on some money we raised through a quiz and a networking party (about half of the production budget), and the director and myself funded the rest of the production ourselves.

But we’ve still got to get Tiger through post production and get it to festivals! So I’ve set up a Fundit page (trailer to follow) to raise the rest of the money, as well as approaching some corporate sponsors. I’ll report back on how we do – if we raise another 1,500 euro we’ll have enough to really get the film out there and put on a premiere screening.

Apart from getting the film made, it’s been really interesting to explore different funding methods and seeing which ones work best (for example, the quiz raised a lot of money. Raffles are a goldmine).

In terms of producing the film, I had some experience from producing Prodigal Son to draw on, but it also helped that Tiger was a very simple film to shoot and didn’t require a big cast or crew.

Writing is great – yes, it’s solitary and can be frustrating but I love it. But seeing your work come to life… nothing beats watching something you’ve written getting filmed.

And I’m looking forward to having a lot more days like that in future…

Allowing your characters to drive the plot….

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The pre-pre-production prep for Tiger is rattling on – I’m going to see a possible location this Thursday evening with the director and the DoP. We’ve cast one of the child roles and have a few leads on some female teenagers who could do the other role.

The fundraising quiz has been organised, as has the networking party at Four Dame Lane on 2nd February. So now it’s just a case of getting some prizes together – and hoping and praying that enough people show up to both events!

Apart from all that, I’m in the middle of a fairly extensive rewrite. So extensive that I’ve thrown out most of the original script and am starting with a semi-blank page. Now, I knew how the new script would start, and how it would end. But I had no idea what was to happen in between!

My tactic – and this is the only way I know, but I’m open to other people’s ideas – was to try to identify a possible mid-point for each of the main characters, and then work on getting them from the start to the middle and from the middle to the end of the script.

Also, it helps to put yourself in the shoes of each of the characters and ask: what would they do next? How would they feel and react about the situation they find themselves in? This will help drive the plot, which should be coming about at least partly because of the characters’ decisions and their personalities anyway.

If you get lost, ask your characters. They’ll know which way to go!

2012 dawns, and things are looking up!

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So far, 2012 has been a big improvement on the last few months of 2011. On Wednesday, I got a new job, starting next week! This was despite the fact that the interview was in Belfast, it was windy and pouring rain, and I had the head cold from hell. I coughed so much during the interview that I had to leave twice to get a glass of water.

But it didn’t matter – I got the job and I’m back on track. It’s a sign! Roland Emmerich was wrong – Armageddon is not on on the horizon. In fact, it’s going to be a great year.

In addition, the arrangements to bring Tiger to the screen are coming along well. The two lead actors have been cast, we have a possible location for the shoot, plus a small but experienced crew has been assembled. I’m co-producing the film, mainly out of necessity! (When you can’t get a producer, produce it yourself).

We now just need to cast the other two roles (young teenagers) and fundraise the money needed to make the film.

To that end, there are two events lined up – a fundraising quiz at the Teachers Club on Parnell Square on 25th January and a networking party at Four Dame Lane on 2nd February. I’ve held quizzes before and successfully raised a lot of money with them, but this is my first time being involved with a networking party. The director has done a couple in the past, however – they’re a good option because they get movie people together AND raise funds without a huge amount of effort.

I’ll report back on how the two events go and how much we raise – fingers crossed we can get close to three grand together as this will completely fund the shoot, allow us to pay everyone and cover post-production.

I’m really looking forward to the adventure of making this little movie – and for what the rest of 2012 will bring….

Tiger is heading for the screen! And Puss in Boots already made it….

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First up, some good news! Apart from, I have more time to write, which is always good.

My short script Tiger is getting made. I met a director at the Waterford Film Festival who read the script and liked it, and we’ve been having meetings about it since. The upshot is that we’re going to shoot the film next Spring, hopefully in late February/early March.

I’m meeting the director tomorrow to go over the script and break it down, and we’re also meeting a possible lead actress and a DoP. So it’s all systems go – which means entering the fundraising fray again. Luckily, Director Man reckons it can be done nicely for 3 grand, which is a fairly achievable sum to raise.

If you live in Dublin and want to help out (pretty please!), then you can in one of two ways. Come to a fundraising quiz which we’re going to hold at a city centre pub at the end of January. Or, if you know of anyone who has a big, impressive-looking house that we could borrow for two days, give me a call! We won’t wreck it, I promise.

In other news, I went to see Puss in Boots yesterday at midday. Yes, I’m unemployed. But hey, there were five people in the cinema apart from me and my sister (she’s not unemployed, just on a week off) and there was no idiot kicking the back of my seat. It was great.

As for the movie itself, it’s not as good as Shrek 1. But then again, nothing is, including Shreks 2, 3 and 4. What Puss in Boots does have is great characters and great casting. Zorro himself as Puss in Boots, with Banderas spoofing both this and his role in Desperado. His Desperado co-star Salma Hayek as his feline love interest. Zach Galifianakis as the self-loathing, surprisingly touching Humpty Dumpty.

But the best turns for me were from Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris, who play Jack and Jill as monstrous, terrifying hillbillies. They drive around terrorising people in a huge cart pulled by flaming-eyed hogs. They have cool weapons – sort of like Southern-fried blunderbusses. They have all the best lines – and there are some great lines in this movie.

If you have kids, bring them along – but be warned that they will have nightmares about Jack and Jill. If you’re sprog-less, go along anyway, you’ll enjoy it!

Getting your short film ready for its close-up….

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So you have a short script that tells a great story, won’t take ages to make and can be shot on a shoestring budget. What’s the next step? How do you go about getting it from page to screen?

It’s time to break the script down into shots. This step is often left up to the director – and with good reason. It’s the kind of task that makes me want to start napping. However, it is a good exercise as it really shows you what’s possible to shoot and what’s not. Plus, you’ll know your script inside out once you’ve prepped it!

Firstly, go through the script and try to picture it in terms of shots. Can you imagine each shot on screen? Will it be a close-up, a tracking shot, or a long shot?

Stepping back and seeing your film in individual shots makes the whole thing less overwhelming. Now you know what shooting it is going to entail!

Make a list of all the shots and if you can, draw each one out roughly. Stick figures are fine – draw a box, put the rough sketch in it and mark it as “John reacts, close-up” or whatever it is. Imagine that this is a comic book and that each box is an illustration.

Ask yourself:

  • What is the location for this shot?
  • How many actors are needed for it?
  • Props – are any needed and if so, which ones?
  • What type of shot will it be (close-up, establishing shot) etc?

Unless you’re also planning to direct, that may be as far as you need to go. You will now have a. something solid you can show to a potential director and b. a good idea of what will be needed in terms of locations, props, number of actors etc.

If you do plan to direct yourself, you’ll also have to get into things like shot angles, camera movements, lighting, special effects (if any) and the direction of the action. I’ll hold my hands up and tell you that I know nothing about this.

However, these are the people who do: Chris Jones and Genevieve Jolliffe, the intrepid creators of The Guerilla Filmmakers Handbook.  They’ve been there, done that and gotten the scars and police arrests to show for it. This book is ten years old but still well worth a read, if only to hear about some of the crazy stuff they’ve done in the name of no/low-budget guerrilla filmmaking. Like casting Harrison Ford’s brother Terence, nearly going bankrupt or posing for a movie poster with a huge gun (Genevieve).  

If you have a decent short script with something to say, don’t let anything stop you from getting it made. To quote Jones and Jolliffe, “Don’t be put off by ridicule, poverty or fear”.

Just to prove that that quote wasn’t just for fun, I’ll storyboard Tiger over the next few weeks and post a scan of the no-doubt amateur looking results (gulp!)…