Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Making a film on the cheap - again.


This is going to look familiar to my very very very faithful readers - and I know you're there! I found the newspaper clipping, above, which is from November 1st 1988 - my wife's birthday, would you believe. It's a clip from the Business Section of the Northampton Chronicle & Echo and when I found it - well my wife found it and didn't recognize it was published on one of her birthdays. It was also the birthday of Mary Sullivan my grandmother - so how's that for a coincidence? By the way, my brother's wife has the same birthday as my mother and - even more coincidental - Mary Sullivan's parents have the same first names as my wife and myself. So how about that?

This always made me laugh as every word in it is true. A friend read it when I published it in February 2011 and said 'how will that guy feel if he reads that' - well he probably won't and in any case I didn't say anything derogatory.

I had a good response to this post from would be film makers who were very grateful as they said the learned a great deal.

I made a film once in which I was involved from writing the script, acting and directing in it to putting the china graph marks onto the cutting copy to denote where I wanted cuts, fades, wipes or whatever on the negative.
Then I had to sit and grade it in the studio to make sure the colours were consistent and then take it to Cannes to try and sell it as a pilot for a TV series.
The story was about two antique dealers from the bottom end of the market who find a valuable item at Portobello Antiques market in London, sell it after a lot of negotiations and then lose it before getting paid.
Just a bit of fun, really, but people liked the two lead characters and thought they would look good if the short film was made into a TV series; so I was asked, by a film distribution company, to write some outlines for future scripts before setting off to Cannes - in between helping the sound editor by plying him and accompanying him with many a glass of Guinness; it's a wonder our livers survived.
This might sound a bit like a one man show but there were a lot of others involved and I sorted out a way to pay for it - eventually.
When I was working at the theatre in Northampton, I bumped into a business man on the train coming up from London, who was a big fan of the theatre. He took his wife to every play and invited us to his big house in Northampton one of the nights after the show for dinner.
I stayed on living in Northampton after finishing the season there and lots of times, when I travelled on the train to and from London, I would meet the same businessman.
We would talk of plans for the future and one time I told him of my wish to make a film of my own. He said he would fund it and he said he could easily do it as a tax write off.
So I set about writing the script based on a true incident from the antiques trade which we dabbled in – and still do.
I had directed before when someone asked me to take over on a film so I contacted the director of photography from that film, the DP, and showed him the script.
He wanted to do drama, as he had been specialising in documentaries up to then so away we went; I would get the actors and he would get the crew.
To get everybody to work for nothing we gave the crew a rise in rank; somebody new would be the clapper/loader, a clapper/loader would go to camera assistant (focus puller) a camera assistant took the job of a camera operator and the DP became the DP on a drama as opposed to a DP on a documentary.
The sound was a different story; I had to use about three of four sound people on the film.
When a documentary is planned they hire their DP and he or she would choose where they would hire the camera, lenses and camera equipment from; so we went to a camera house in London and on the promise that he would use them for his next paying project they let us have camera and equipment for nothing.
I told him about the businessman and the fact that he had a very photogenic house which he might let us use for the film.
I had to buy the stock; this is film for the camera, tape for the sound and mag-stock which is what you transfer the sound to edit in an editing machine which is the same size as the film and we planned to shoot on sixteen millimetre.
Shooting on film was and is very expensive as opposed to shooting today on Digital which is relatively cheap.
The two music videos I shot over the past few years were shot on Digital and cost virtually nothing.
The other thing about digital is that you can play it back as soon as you shoot it but the only time you can do that with film is with a video assist – invented by Jerry Lewis – and we didn't have that kind of money; in fact we had no money at all.
I opened an account with the Rank Organisation – J. Arthur Rank of the famous rhyming slang activity – to process the film we shot and the rest of the stuff was begged or borrowed as with the camera and the actors worked for food; even though the crew ate it all – I'm joking I'm sorry.
I remember one of the days I took everybody out for a meal in Northampton and, when they ordered everything, I went to the lavatory to count the money in my pocket to see if I could pay for it.
I hadn't counted on going to a restaurant as I had laid food on for them back at my house – where we shot some of the film – but off to the restaurant they all trotted.
When I counted what was in my pocket I found I didn't have enough so I went back to the table and watched everybody eating and asking for more and maybe more wine and what about a pudding? – ha ha ha ha, they were laughing and having a lovely time and there we were; me and the crew, the actors had gone back go London, and I kind of sat there and looked at them having a good time wondering how I was going to pay for it.
Excuse me” I said and I went out; I stood there in the street and wondered if I should just go home – but I'm not like that.
I tried my ATM card at the bank over the street but it was declined so I found a phone box and called a friend who didn't live very far away; luckily he was in and met me in the street with a hundred pounds which was enough to pay the bill.
Yes you're right; what happened to that businessman. That's what we were thinking!
The last time I met him on the train I told him I was going ahead and he was very excited but when we were about to start I found him hard to get hold of; his secretary took a few messages but he didn't return any of my calls so I went around to his house and knocked the door.
He had a huge glass door and when I rang the bell I could hear his children playing in the hall; then I could see them as they were looking at us through the curtains; but nobody answered; I got the message.
I had shot the whole film, I owed the Rank Organisation money and when I took some lights back I was told that money was outstanding on them so I paid that.
My daughter's boy friend's father had let me use his big van for the shoot for nothing, so I didn't owe any money there but I did owe everybody in the movie to get it finished.
A few years earlier I did an award winning student film so I contacted the editor to see if he would be interested in editing my film and he said he would do it at the cutting rooms at the film school in Bournemouth but I would have to pay him; so I did; six weeks wages as he could only do it part time.
It was then finished at the cutting rooms at the Royal College of Art in South Kensington – but they didn't know about it; sorry RA. We would climb over the gate and creep in to the editing suites after the pub closed at night and do it then and it was eventually finished up to a rough cut. The editing and paying the editor cost more than the rest of the film, apart from the stock, even though I didn't have to pay for the use of the equipment.
My solution to funding the film was the same as any, and probably every other, businessman in the UK; an overdraft! So I booked an appointment with the bank manager.
This I did and he gave me an overdraft; with this I paid Rank and anybody else who needed paying and went to see the distributors; they let me use their cutting room for free for the sound editing and that's when I called my pal Giles and we gave our livers the Guinness test.
So I was bound for Cannes to try and sell the thing as a series. The distributors were involved in trying to get funding and set up loads of meetings in Cannes – and what a time that was.
I was asked if I would change the casting of the other character in it for an actor called Iain Cutherberson who was well known; the distributors had a connection with a Scottish TV company and as he was Scottish they wanted him in it.
But it wouldn't have worked; I promised my friend that he would be in it if we actually made the series but in any case I am about 5'9” and Iain Cutherberson was 6'4” - the dynamic would have changed. It wouldn't be about two fellas trying to make money out of antiques – it would have been about the long and the short of it.
At the end of the day we didn't get the series made; a series called Perfect Scoundrels was taken up by Southern TV, one of the people we were talking to, which was about two other guys on the make and which was very good I have to say.
My film sold to Finland and other Scandinavian countries but I didn't see a penny – that's show business.
The bank wrote off the overdraft and I came to Hollywood.
One night I went to the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) on Sunset Boulevard for a short stack of pancakes and coffee. As I sat there I noticed someone looking over at me; he was sitting with his friend and eventually came over.
Are you Chris Sullivan?” he said.
Yes” I said “and I know who you are.”
It was the rich businessman from Northampton.
I didn't hold a grudge so I joined them at their table.
I'm sorry to let you down” he said “I was going through a bad patch.”
That's okay” I said “but you could have answered your door!”

I re-cut the film - The Scroll - a couple of years ago so it's shorter than the original version and here it is https://youtu.be/WpWmesv5nVA

Friday, August 10, 2018

The Big Light.

This is another one, written in December 2016, which is being read again by quite a few people. I don't know why but I thought my regulars might like another look - and some news ones too, I hope.
I remember many years ago – many many years ago – when I was about 20 and still living at home; in fact I was 20. We threw a party and when we threw a party we really did; plenty of ice cream, jelly, custard, cake and lashings of ginger beer!
Well no it wasn't exactly like that; it might have been the year when I had my picture – in full colour – on the front of one of the local newspapers in fact it was, I just looked it up.

There it is, above, and the others in it are my brother (left), a pal called Dave, and the one on the side of the pool was a workmate of my brudder. You've probably seen it before.
I am the one with my mouth open – I had just got in to the pool and the water was cold, hence the grimace which the photographer caught at the right moment which is why it was promoted to the front page. Scene stealing even at that age!
The girl that I ended up with, for a short while anyway, was the one on the left, of the 3 but unfortunately I have forgotten her name. We only went out together for a very short time in any case.
The photo was taken in Wales and we didn't know the girls till this photo was taken but found out that they lived in the same city as we did – Birmingham so dated them there.
Now that was a big digression as it's nothing to do with the party I opened with but I would like to say no I haven't saved the newspaper for all these years, Dave (from the photo) gave me a copy when he came with a few friends to see one of my shows when I came over from Los Angeles to London about 10 years, or so, ago.
So back to the party: as we were living at home we had the party when les parents went out for the night.
Booze was bought, plenty of finger food, the lights were low and various guests sat around in the salubrious surroundings of our sitting room. Music played, not loud rock, but mood music and maybe that was even by Glenn Miller and maybe it was Moonlight Serenade as I had seen all Jack Lemmon's movies in which he was invariably in a bachelor pad in New York, bringing girls back to seduce to the sweet strains of Moonlight Serenade or similar music.
It was in the days when smoking was fashionable and the room was full of smoke and a great ambiance was created.
Saxophones played, trombones augmented and there was a great trumpet solo but out of the corner of my eye I noticed the door opening and a hand moving to the light switch – YES!!!!
THE BIG LIGHT!!
The ambiance disappeared as quickly as Sunderland supporters exiting from the football stadium whenever their team was losing.
Mam and Dad stood in the door frame; their evening out had been cancelled and my dad would always have to have the big light on – I don't know why he put it on at that moment but he probably thought that teenagers and their parents were supposed to annoy each other and THE BIG LIGHT would do the trick.
It certainly did.
The party broke up and everybody went home; they started to troop off as soon as the television went on and I think we went to the pub.
Now at this lofty age I empathize a bit more as the older you get the harder it is to see in the dark; salubrious lighting is good to watch TV but not to read.
Many years have gone by since then but at that precise moment, the moment when my dad touched the light switch, he was in charge; he was the main man and the man of the house and all that the 1960s stood for; he wanted to come home and be comfortable and get everybody out. He liked a party, a drink and a sing song but not our kind of party.
Since then he saw the big light in the sky and drifted towards it and so did my mother when they both shuffled off their mortal coils.
I often wonder what they would have made of the Internet and the Intranet and the iPads and tablets and all the other paraphernalia that has made nearly all GPs in this country prescribe Vitamin 'D' tablets to most of their patients due to the lack of sunshine and fresh air.
What'll be next? Rickets?
2016 has been a year of the BIG LIGHT for a lot of famous people. A lot of pop singers, actors and other notorious personalities but have you ever asked yourself why?
Well in the 50s right up to the mid 70s in the UK there were only a few channels on television. And up until 1967 there were no network pop music stations. Pirate radio existed, of course, but you needed to live near the coast to hear them, as most of the stations were on ships surrounding the British Isles.
The other source of music came from squeaky Radio Luxembourg.
Popular at the time was music by artists born around the 1930s; that was 86 years ago. Those artists became more famous than any of the artists before or since. These days there are so many outlets on TV and radio that you can become really famous in Wales, or Yorkshire or even Scotland and Ireland and nobody outside those areas will have heard of you. I mean who is the most popular deejay in any of those places?
Before the 50s and people like James Dean, teenagers were insignificant, in fact it was said that James Dean was the first teenager – even though he was in his 20s.
There was a sudden change when teenagers had more disposable income than in the past. In the UK their parents had no disposable income – get up, go to work, come home, cook and sleep. Then the same the next day – I repeat NO disposable income. The average Joe Bloggs would put everything on the never never; hire purchase, terms – you name it. It is all described in the excellent novel Live Now Pay Later by Jack Trevor Story. I got to know Jack very well in the 70s and later played his father in a TV series calledJack on the Box – he was a chancer and a bankrupt and just the kind of person I like.
Jack Trevor Story.
So for the next so many years we are going to say goodbye to all our heroes if they were born in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s – sad but true. One or two will last longer and one or two will die younger than average.
I mean Jerry Lee Lewis is around 85 and so is Little Richard!
The first baby boomers were born around 1945 and even though we are living longer and crashing into prostate cancer and/or dementia we will all be gone by the time Halley's Comet comes around again.