10-03-14 / SCOTTISH POLICE FEDERATION FILMS - 'IT'S WHAT WE DO' Och, here's the finished films I did for the Scottish Police Federation with the boys at Brain Candy Films. They only went live today so don't consume them too quickly or y'might burn y'wee mouth. Any nuts out there who might be interested in a detailed blog of the production will find it here, although there is a bonus fourth film below, by John Duncan, which documents the behind-the-scenes shenanigans for those who can't [be bothered to] read.
01-03-14 / SCOTTISH POLICE FEDERATION FILMS FINISHED Grade completed at MyTherapy in London yesterday, whoop. Here's Dado at the wheels of steel while the two muppets behind him discuss the intricacies of kelvin, knee, pedestal, lift, gamma and gain. Oh yes...
10-02-14 / FILMING IN SCOTLAND Just spent a week in Scotland shooting three shorts for the Scottish Police Federation. Working with Brain Candy Films in Birmingham, it was a roaring success and we didn't even get rained on (a minor miracle in itself for Scotland in February, surely?). I suppose it's always the done thing to gush about one's team after a shoot has wrapped, but this lot were incredible. There wasn't a single dent in our collective armour and every single person gave it their all without complaint. The proverbial machine. And when the police liason is telling you each day how accurate the casting is, you know you're doing something right.
Kudos to the boys at Brain Candy for assembling such a winning crew. I even got to "release my inner vandal" (thanks for that Ash) and kick a car's head in to let off steam. More on the resulting films later, but we're talking about 3 x 2min films, each shot in one continuous take, focusing on the difficult decisions that police officers are forced to make when up against it.
23-01-14 / NEW FESTIVAL TRAILER So, a few months ago I was given a brief to create a trailer for Punto De Vista Documentary Film Festival, the brief being "the frozen image". I decided to wait for snow so I could film something in my garden or similar, only the snow never came and time was running out. Instead, I visited a local second-hand shop, bought a beautiful old 8mm camera, and put it inside my freezer. After knocking up a makeshift greenscreen in my kitchen and filming the camera several times I managed to come up with this (below). Please be sure to watch in HD through headphones:
10-12-13 / LEUVEN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL & THE END OF AN ERA My second visit to lovely Leuven, and a busier time than the usual festival jaunt. Initially invited to hold a masterclass in short film writing, a jury invitation for the Flemish competition soon followed, while Stew & Punch simultaneously participated in the European Competition. Then RITS film school in Brussels asked if I would be interested in hosting a series of script development workshops with six candidates who are working towards finished drafts for potential production finance.
Humbling as such invitations are, I generally decline them on the grounds that any teaching of short film writing is a suspicious practice. After all, I'm only a writer by proxy of directing, self-taught with no academic experience, but I know you don't need a set of guidelines to make a short film. I used to have a similar dilemma about attending juries, because let's face it: who am I to vote? Then I decided that if I didn't vote then someone else would, and it may as well be me if I want to see the rightful films winning prizes. Add to this the opportunity to watch a lot of short films, which has always been my education in the medium, and it became a no-brainer. So, I said yes to the workshops and thoroughly enjoyed working with each and every candidate. I hope to see their finished films at a festival before long.
The masterclass was my final duty and it was lovely that so many people showed up. Almost as soon as it was over I felt my brain gratefully shutting down. I then found out that Stew & Punch came third in the votes for the Audience Award, so just when i was feeling all bronzey and everyone was being so nice... a bad thing happened. After telling someone only hours before about my 19 years of not vomiting, I woke at 5am with my stomach on fire. I knew it was about to happen, that my reign would sadly not reach its 20th anniversary, and so my hotel room turned into a scene from The Exorcist. Being a confirmed emetophobe, the experience was terrifying and continued relentlessly until my scheduled pick-up for the airport at 12pm. Dehydrated because I couldn't hold down fluid, delirious from one hour's sleep, I tripped on my own feet through the airport and somehow managed to get home with my dignity intact.
26-11-13 / 'STEW & PUNCH' WINS AT EXGROUND FILM FESTIVAL Massive thanks to Andrea Wink and the team from Exground Filmfest in Wiesbaden for selecting Stew & Punch in the first instance, and thanks of course to the jury for awarding it the prize for Best International Short Film. Final thanks go to the audiences for responding so brilliantly - there were some great films in the competition and the ones that make people laugh are seldom awarded jury prizes. "Comedy", if you believe in such a limiting description for a genre, is usually the preserve of audience awards, so I'm buzzing that this particular jury highlighted the density of the drama beyond the black comedy on the surface. All of the small details which cast & crew worked so hard at helping me to include were recognised and appreciated. I received so many great compliments from people and every single one of them warmed the cockles of my increasingly cynical heart. I'm genuinely choked that it has been honoured in this way. Many thanks to festival photographer Dagmar Rittner for the photographs:
The full jury statement: "The film tells a macro story of a microcosm. We easily follow the director's invitation to look through a magnifying glass onto modern society. Today, man's role seems to be blurred and evokes situations of discordance and tension. The director masterfully combines ancient three-act drama with innovative film language. His statement encourages us to reflect our own position and overcome obsolete conventions. Great actors, brilliant camera work, perfect timing and a fine sense of British humour - this recipe punched us."
20-11-13 / INTERNATIONAL CREAM Woah, I knew I'd been absent for a while, but TWO MONTHS?!? Where does it go? In that time I've been mostly quarantined with a virus, a virus which kicked off after watching five feature films a day at London Film Festival - so there you have it, films ARE bad for your health. I also had to decline an invitation to be on the BAFTA short film jury, my chance to do some justice and try to steer things in a better direction, but of course I wouldn't have been able to submit Stew & Punch if I accepted, pfff. It's probably too celebrity-less for BAFTA but you have to try these things.
International Cream: I have programmed a selection of my favourite short films for Bang Short Film Festival here in Nottingham, a refined version of the programme I did for Festival No6. It's on December 1st at 5pm. Never mind your Sunday malaise, book now and turn up, or you won't be there.
20-09-13 / ENCOUNTERS: A UK SUCCESS TO BE PROUD OF The only thing worse than leaving a really nice festival is having to leave it prematurely, and Encounters has become THE prime event in the UK with a buzz that goes from strength to strength each year. Bursting at the seams with guests that include almost all of the competing filmmakers, a vast range of top-notch programming and talks, I was crushed to leave before the weekend even started. And with festival director and pal Liz Harkman leaving for Australia this year, I have no doubt that said weekend's celebrations will be significant. Bon voyage Liz!
After two very different-looking projections of my homemade DCP of Stew & Punch (too little contrast in one festival, way too much in another), I'm somewhat relieved to say that it looked exactly right at Encounters, although their presentation has always been second to none so I needn't have worried. Considering I was screening at 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon I was astonished to find the theatre completely full (!) and ALL of the competing directors in attendance. Amazing!
Finally, it's cry-worthy that I had to miss Franz Treichler's live soundtrack performance when The Young Gods were such a significant band of my late teens. I never thought I'd see a day where I was telling an amused Franz how I was punched in the face at one of his gigs over 20 years ago. Delighted to discover that he's a bloody nice bloke because it's so disappointing when it goes the other way.
16-09-13 / FESTIVAL NO.6 SHORT FILM CINEMA Straight from a real Italian town to a pretend one - Portmeirion in Wales. The rain lashed down for two days out of three and there was a 'code red' weather warning which downed several trees and flattened tents. Thankfully, there was one day of glorious sunshine and it didn't clash with the programme I was screening, which consisted of ten shorts totalling two hours, looped four times. The venue was a cute little hut where the forest meets the town, with only thirty seats and surprsingly effective back projection.
Thanks to all the directors for agreeing to participate! For anyone interested, this was the line-up: Premature (Gunhild Enger, Norway), The Centrifuge Brain Project (Till Nowak, Germany), Incident by a Bank (Ruben Ostlund, Sweden), Afraid So (Jay Rosenblatt, USA), Dad's Stick (John Smith, UK), Stew & Punch (Simon Ellis, UK), Bear (Nash Edgerton, Australia), Tumult (Johnny Barrington, UK), Animals I Killed Last Summer (Gustav Danielsson, Sweden), The Apocalypse (Andrew Zuchero, USA).
