Continued 3

The Clearance was also a ghost story. An unscrupulous man, sent by the council, is clearing out the house of a recentlty deceased elderly woman. Whilst rummaging though the old coach house he finds some medals and a soldier's greatcoat. Thinking he is alone he puts it on and wanders back into the house where he meets an unexpected, attractive visitor.

It was filmed in a friends old, victorian house over a few cold, wet weekends. Actors, yet again, were a bit of a pain - relatively minor things like not bothering to learn the script and not having a clue what the story was about. Despite this it turned out ok in the end. We entered the film in what was billed as an international film contest and was told it would be screened in cinemas across the country. Our film, along with a number of others in the competition, premiered in a local cinema so we went along to see it - let the comedy begin. First of all the organiser casually anounced he had lost our high quality avi files and that all the films will be shown in dvd format run from a laptop - ie crap quality. When we sat down to watch our precious films they were all in the wrong aspect ratio - 4:3 instead of 16:9. If you're a fat person this can be quite flattering - I think at least one actress watching herself on that big out of focus screen was well pleased with the result - I wasn't! There's more of this sorry saga to come.

Continued

The film we were attempting to make was called "No Greater Love." It was basically a Ghost story set in modern times about a haunted flat. A group of young friends decide to find out what is behind the ghostly happenings in order to put a stop to them. It's worth mentioning that part of the story is true and really happened. I witnessed many strange things whilst staying just one night in a friend's flat and included them in the script. We'd already filmed a number of scenes in other locations: an old Victorian farm house, a Napoleonic Fort with dark tunnels and cannon, and spent three nights filming in the woods - so the project was well underway. First the leading female actor, without warning, quit saying that something had happened in her private life. Then the leading male character announced, out of the blue, that he wasn't available for the next three weeks because the Rugby World Cup was on TV. Faced with terminal problems like these, the film was cancelled. I then, with much embarrassment, had to cancel other pre-arranged locations which included an old church. The Reverend, a very nice chap, had gone to great lengths to obtain permission from the Synod to allow us to film there. To try and salvage some of the footage, so that we hadn't completely wasted our time, I hurriedly wrote another, less ambitious, screenplay called "The Clearance." We actually manged to finish this one and showcase it at what we thought was an international film festival - but not without many more problems. to be continued. 

The Trials and tribulations of Film Making

I've been making short films for about four years now of varying quality and content, most on a self financed, shoestring budget. The one thing I have learnt, apart from the expedential technical stuff, is things seldom go to plan. Despite months of screenplay rewrites, story boards, securing locations, sourcing props and costumes, actors have almost always been my bigest problem. If you ignore the fact that they only get paid if the film makes any money - unreliability is top of the list and will kill any project stone dead. Here are a few gems for you.
After weeks of auditions and rehearsals we began filming in a cafe with several actors, two Canon XL2 cameras and a myriad of lights and sound equipment. All the actors turned up late including the lead female character. The leading male character was word perfect in rehearsals and in a number of dry runs before we turned the camera on. The instant the cameras rolled he began to speak at a hundred miles an hour which immediately threw everyones timing completely out the window. Despite taking costume, continuity stills some of the actors turned up in different clothes - one had even dyed her hair a different colour. To be continued.