As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a filmmaker. Alright, that’s not strictly true. As far as I can remember, I always wanted to be a writer. OK, again, maybe that’s not completely right as, as far as back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a tyrannosaurus rex but let’s stick with the ones that are achievable and I’ve actually done something about* (and I think we’ve run the whole Goodfellas quote thing into the ground now so let’s move on from that).
It turns out that, in this here blog, I’ve never really told the story in any real detail of how my mate and I** went off and made a feature film. Sure, I posted some promotional blogs at the time but there were a number of items that were never revealed to the general public at the time. Now, at last, the full story can be told...
It was during my formative teenage years that the filmmaking bug really hit home. In the mid-90s, people like Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Robert Rodriguez were emerging - this new wave of filmmakers who had just gone out and done it all for themselves (Kevin Smith having famously made Clerks on his credit card while Robert Rodriguez volunteered for medical research to rasie the $7,000 for El Mariachi). For any of you on the younger side who may not really remember much before 2000 (or those of you who have gradually pickled themselves to the point where they live in a sort of endless now with the past forever locked away out of reach - either/or), the idea of going out and making your own films was still pretty out there. Actual film stock was (and still is) expensive and the advent of the digital camera was still many years away so the idea of getting the cash and people together to make your own film was pretty daunting.
My filmmaking buddy, Rich, and I thought, “If they can do it, why can’t we?” which is, let's face it, the thought process that should lead to all interesting endeavours. Over the coming post-university years, we spent a goodly amount of time with like-minded friends making short films (if you want to know more about that, you can go right back to the early days of this blog and read them there posts) but, as our twenties dwindled and the thirties approached, we felt that we had to make the leap and go for broke with a full-on, full length feature film.
It was a time of opportunity, of things coming together in a nicely synchronous fashion - I had been working for a company for a number of years and, whilst working as project support on a major programme of cutbacks which I was able to write myself into, was being offered a pretty good redundancy package. This, combined with another pot of cash put in by Rich as a result of his flat sale, was giving us the budget that we needed. Here was our chance - destiny was pushing us in the small of the back and it was time for us to leap.
All we needed was a script, some actors, a small crew, equipment and locations. You know, all pretty simple stuff, really. How hard could that be?
To Be Continued
*Not including stomping around with my arms drawn up to my chest and my fingers poking out like tiny T-Rex arms. Because I definitely didn’t do that. Nope.
** And a substantial number of other people too, of course, all of whom will be sufficiently bogged up.
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