The Eton Crow blog is now - we think - on Stumbleupon.
This may literally double our readers - given that we only have one confirmed reader at the time of going to press, we kind of hope we might get a few others.
The Demo Reel - twenty-seven minutes of joy that we love but that probably makes no sense to anyone who hasn't:
(A) Got the love for samurai films
(B) Got the tolerance to sit through three minutes of badly pastiched samurai film action
(C) Likes efforts at Craxploitation and can put up with Benny Hill references
(D) Got the love for Disco and a man constantly adjusting his fake mustache on camera
(E) Got any love for a mockumentary about a film that, to all intents and purposes, doesn't exist
(F) Played Final Fantasy (FFX, specifically)
(G) Seen this
(H) Got any love in their soul for a first attempt at filmmaking, bad lighting, odd sound choices, ninjas and all.
It's kind of difficult right now, because there's a kind of tense euphoria at having finished the damn thing, coupled with a feeling of let-down because we've finished the damn thing.
Basically, we here at Eton Crow like to be working. When the work's done, we feel kind of redundant. Plus, there's a constancy of feeling that if we went back, ripped the whole thing apart and put it together again, that it could somehow be better. So we have to actually restrain our editor from doing this, because if he did, we'd never see him again.
Looking in the tape chest, we actually have something like thirty hours of tapes and footage. If we let our editor loose, he could probably make a full-length film from what we've got on tape.
Of course, it would make no sense whatsoever. But when has that ever been a problem?
So, the demo reel is finished. It's kind of old school - basically because we can't afford the new school - the DVD case is just Text On A Background, and the dvd is, naturally, a DVDR. We've sent out seven and given out a further two, but so far, only one person has actually admitted to having received it, which is a little troubling.
Well, such, as our director says, is life.
Saturday, 29 August 2009
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
We'll fast forward to a few years later
Our director writes:
There's a question anyone in any particular field dreads. Kind of. It's the equivalent of, having been cornered into admitting that you speak a language, being asked to 'say something in (X)'.
And suddenly, all the words disappear from your brain and you're left stumbling for my wife's pear is not yet ripe.
As soon as I admit that I'm a wannabe filmmaker (unless you take the advice of Robert Rodriguez, in which case, I AM A FILMMAKER! - except, kind of and kind of not) - there's the inevitable question;
What's your favourite film, then?
And there's the sudden mental blank, right there, right then.
Except that, it turns out, it's a question of confidence. There are approximately three stages of evolution in this conversational gambit;
Stage One
Go completely mentally blank and either choose something banal or embarrassing; you may be shocked to know you had a hitherto unknown love for Josie and the Pussycats, to your eternal chagrin. You will probably then be reminded of this every time you meet that person and/or anyone else they've met, at which point you'll have to grin and bear it instead of, for a purely hypothetical instance, emigrating to Khartoum to start up a hermitage.
Stage Two
Confidence begins to grow, but so does the need to impress; so suddenly you find yourself picking something wilfully obscure in the desperate hope that the other person doesn't know it and will drop to their knees, the light of salvation in their eyes, and proclaim you the most knowledgeable film buff ever.
This can include foreign films - if you're stuck for a lazy analogy, there's always Nanni Moretti, because you can then immediately start an argument about him being "The Italian Woody Allen" and you can argue whatever side you want because no-one will care. If you want something incredibly obscure - to a British audience, at least - there's always Утомлённые солнцем, which is actually a good film with a tense, taught structure and a prominent third-act reveal before a gut-punch of an ending.
Alternatively, just choose Day Watch and pray the other person hasn't read Sergey Lukyanenko's work and isn't looking for a semantic argument about whether the second film should have adapted the first book's second section or the second book's first.
Stage Three
This can only happen when confidence has been attained and you can actually state with pride that you have a favourite film, as opposed to some sort of faithless love for all film.
After years of wandering the Favourite Film desert, I actually realised that it doesn't matter as long as you can justify your love. I've been through several. The first one I actually felt comfortable justifying was this; but then, kind of a given.
Then, for a while, there was this, which was kind of cool at the time.
Then, I realised, you have to stop giving a fuck about what other people think and, most importantly, stop trying to look cool. Nobody really cares, unless you admit to liking a film that's so offensive that you may as well have walked into the room naked with a chicken on your head to cause less offence.
I currently have two favourite films. That's just how I roll. The first would be this: In Bruges. It's not perfect, but it's kind of close, and I have a whole hash of personal reasons for liking it beyond the fact that it's clever and funny and features a cocaine-snorting racist demi-mondain.
But the real favourite - deep down, all the way - is this.
And because it's the real deal, I don't have to justify it.
That's confidence, baby.
There's a question anyone in any particular field dreads. Kind of. It's the equivalent of, having been cornered into admitting that you speak a language, being asked to 'say something in (X)'.
And suddenly, all the words disappear from your brain and you're left stumbling for my wife's pear is not yet ripe.
As soon as I admit that I'm a wannabe filmmaker (unless you take the advice of Robert Rodriguez, in which case, I AM A FILMMAKER! - except, kind of and kind of not) - there's the inevitable question;
What's your favourite film, then?
And there's the sudden mental blank, right there, right then.
Except that, it turns out, it's a question of confidence. There are approximately three stages of evolution in this conversational gambit;
Stage One
Go completely mentally blank and either choose something banal or embarrassing; you may be shocked to know you had a hitherto unknown love for Josie and the Pussycats, to your eternal chagrin. You will probably then be reminded of this every time you meet that person and/or anyone else they've met, at which point you'll have to grin and bear it instead of, for a purely hypothetical instance, emigrating to Khartoum to start up a hermitage.
Stage Two
Confidence begins to grow, but so does the need to impress; so suddenly you find yourself picking something wilfully obscure in the desperate hope that the other person doesn't know it and will drop to their knees, the light of salvation in their eyes, and proclaim you the most knowledgeable film buff ever.
This can include foreign films - if you're stuck for a lazy analogy, there's always Nanni Moretti, because you can then immediately start an argument about him being "The Italian Woody Allen" and you can argue whatever side you want because no-one will care. If you want something incredibly obscure - to a British audience, at least - there's always Утомлённые солнцем, which is actually a good film with a tense, taught structure and a prominent third-act reveal before a gut-punch of an ending.
Alternatively, just choose Day Watch and pray the other person hasn't read Sergey Lukyanenko's work and isn't looking for a semantic argument about whether the second film should have adapted the first book's second section or the second book's first.
Stage Three
This can only happen when confidence has been attained and you can actually state with pride that you have a favourite film, as opposed to some sort of faithless love for all film.
After years of wandering the Favourite Film desert, I actually realised that it doesn't matter as long as you can justify your love. I've been through several. The first one I actually felt comfortable justifying was this; but then, kind of a given.
Then, for a while, there was this, which was kind of cool at the time.
Then, I realised, you have to stop giving a fuck about what other people think and, most importantly, stop trying to look cool. Nobody really cares, unless you admit to liking a film that's so offensive that you may as well have walked into the room naked with a chicken on your head to cause less offence.
I currently have two favourite films. That's just how I roll. The first would be this: In Bruges. It's not perfect, but it's kind of close, and I have a whole hash of personal reasons for liking it beyond the fact that it's clever and funny and features a cocaine-snorting racist demi-mondain.
But the real favourite - deep down, all the way - is this.
And because it's the real deal, I don't have to justify it.
That's confidence, baby.
Monday, 24 August 2009
Will you do the fandango?
One point of interest that came to our attention recently is that for a small company, we've filmed in a lot of places.
This is kind of unusual, because starting-out filmmakers tend to find somewhere pretty and nearby and work with it as much as they can until they know all it's nooks and crannies intimately.
Not us.
Looking at our Demo Reel today, we realised that it was filmed on location in:
- Plymouth
- Tring
- Berkhamsted
- Northwood Hills
- Golders Green
- Letchworth
- Wiggington
- Some unnamed place in bloody Wiltshire
- Kerry (Ireland)
- Dagenham
- Bow (London)
and Aylesbury.
Four of these locations were chosen because we were following the talent, baby. Our 'Star' - mentioned in a previous post as possibly being the only person to read this, so hello again, Fuckface! - moved around a lot, and so Eton Crow moved with him.
So, if nothing else, we've managed to get in some travel...
This is kind of unusual, because starting-out filmmakers tend to find somewhere pretty and nearby and work with it as much as they can until they know all it's nooks and crannies intimately.
Not us.
Looking at our Demo Reel today, we realised that it was filmed on location in:
- Plymouth
- Tring
- Berkhamsted
- Northwood Hills
- Golders Green
- Letchworth
- Wiggington
- Some unnamed place in bloody Wiltshire
- Kerry (Ireland)
- Dagenham
- Bow (London)
and Aylesbury.
Four of these locations were chosen because we were following the talent, baby. Our 'Star' - mentioned in a previous post as possibly being the only person to read this, so hello again, Fuckface! - moved around a lot, and so Eton Crow moved with him.
So, if nothing else, we've managed to get in some travel...
Very Superstitious
If you described our director as a paranoid man - and he found out - he'd shrug his shoulders and admit that he'd always thought you thought that. He's paranoid like that.
Actually, in this case, it's not so much paranoia as a bizarre form of over-awareness; he's almost empathic in worrying constantly about anyone else involved with any given project, because while he's doing it out of love, they're doing it as a favour to him.
That's right, Eton Crow haven't yet reached the stage of paying our actors (in anything other than [a] the coin of the soul and [b] a dvd as a reward for any given performance). This isn't related to the concept of economics sullying creative freedom, it's because we have no money.
Working with our friends, of course, is an entirely different and much more difficult animal. A paid actor can tell you to go fuck yourself, and leave, and then be brought up on whatever contract they signed for breaching it (unless you'd been treating them unreasonably, of course).
A Friend, doing it out of friendship, will, when they reach their breaking point, tell you to go fuck yourself in - hopefully - a very polite manner, and then they can leave as and when they want, because there's no tie other than loyalty - and when you've been under the sun for four hours with someone alternately bossing you around and asking you to wait for camera setups, loyalty gets progressively thinner and thinner.
A good director works around this, by providing food, support and encouragement (in that order of importance - free food has been scientifically proven to be the most important thing on any given set, sometimes.) But even the most willing friend finds themselves tested by sunstroke, long hours, and generalised irritation.
It's our director's contention that it cuts both ways, too. It's along the same principles as to why a person borrows money from a bank rather than from their friends; being beholden to an institution is different to being beholden to a person whose friendship and respect you actually desire (and, in some cases, need).
But, perhaps, enough of this maudlin talk.
Intermission!
You want to know why we're feeling a bit maudlin at the moment?
Eton Crow has suffered it's first 'dead film'.
Having successfully completed our 2009 Demo Reel, we here at the EC offices were feeling a bit brash - one might even say, 'cocky' - and decided to try to make an honest-to-deity proper 'short film'. And oh, it might have been epic in scale - sex (implied), violence, buddy comedy.
We worked on the script for several weeks. Note, this implies two 'firsts' on our part - one, actually having a script, and two, working on it rather than just running with the first draft.
We did some preliminary filming - just the previously-mentioned conversation, plus some driving footage and a couple of dream sequences.
But now, looking at the requirements of the script and the fact that the first round of filming has apparently already broken one of our actors, we've had to decide to put it on the also aforementioned indefinite hiatus, with the emphasis on indefinite, because to make it work we have to go back, gut the script, rewrite, and find enough people to actually film the goddamn thing, and, right now, that's not going to happen.
Of course, such is life.
On the bright side, the 2009 demo reel - filmed in May - is finally and properly finished, and is being burnt to DVDs to be sent to various people even as we speak, so that's halfway to good news.
Plus, we do have other good news, but we're saving that for later.
Actually, in this case, it's not so much paranoia as a bizarre form of over-awareness; he's almost empathic in worrying constantly about anyone else involved with any given project, because while he's doing it out of love, they're doing it as a favour to him.
That's right, Eton Crow haven't yet reached the stage of paying our actors (in anything other than [a] the coin of the soul and [b] a dvd as a reward for any given performance). This isn't related to the concept of economics sullying creative freedom, it's because we have no money.
Working with our friends, of course, is an entirely different and much more difficult animal. A paid actor can tell you to go fuck yourself, and leave, and then be brought up on whatever contract they signed for breaching it (unless you'd been treating them unreasonably, of course).
A Friend, doing it out of friendship, will, when they reach their breaking point, tell you to go fuck yourself in - hopefully - a very polite manner, and then they can leave as and when they want, because there's no tie other than loyalty - and when you've been under the sun for four hours with someone alternately bossing you around and asking you to wait for camera setups, loyalty gets progressively thinner and thinner.
A good director works around this, by providing food, support and encouragement (in that order of importance - free food has been scientifically proven to be the most important thing on any given set, sometimes.) But even the most willing friend finds themselves tested by sunstroke, long hours, and generalised irritation.
It's our director's contention that it cuts both ways, too. It's along the same principles as to why a person borrows money from a bank rather than from their friends; being beholden to an institution is different to being beholden to a person whose friendship and respect you actually desire (and, in some cases, need).
But, perhaps, enough of this maudlin talk.
Intermission!
You want to know why we're feeling a bit maudlin at the moment?
Eton Crow has suffered it's first 'dead film'.
Having successfully completed our 2009 Demo Reel, we here at the EC offices were feeling a bit brash - one might even say, 'cocky' - and decided to try to make an honest-to-deity proper 'short film'. And oh, it might have been epic in scale - sex (implied), violence, buddy comedy.
We worked on the script for several weeks. Note, this implies two 'firsts' on our part - one, actually having a script, and two, working on it rather than just running with the first draft.
We did some preliminary filming - just the previously-mentioned conversation, plus some driving footage and a couple of dream sequences.
But now, looking at the requirements of the script and the fact that the first round of filming has apparently already broken one of our actors, we've had to decide to put it on the also aforementioned indefinite hiatus, with the emphasis on indefinite, because to make it work we have to go back, gut the script, rewrite, and find enough people to actually film the goddamn thing, and, right now, that's not going to happen.
Of course, such is life.
On the bright side, the 2009 demo reel - filmed in May - is finally and properly finished, and is being burnt to DVDs to be sent to various people even as we speak, so that's halfway to good news.
Plus, we do have other good news, but we're saving that for later.
Monday, 10 August 2009
As blind as any traveller you could meet
There's a piece of advice that almost every short film book or website gives you.
Don't film a dream sequence.
So here in the Eton Crow offices, we took this seriously.
For our latest short film, we didn't film a dream sequence.
We filmed two.
This isn't bloodymindedness... Wait. It's not just bloodymindedness. Yes, there's a certain element of stubborn here. But we decided to go ahead and film the sequences because they look good and because they're not pretentious - there's an actual point to their existing.
They're not the stereotypical, clown-flipping-pancakes, girl-in-dress-contemplating-candle surreal bullshit dream sequences that directors use to get all the visual cues they want to on screen.
They're just a man, dreaming of a beach. No clowns. No pancakes.
We promise.
Don't film a dream sequence.
So here in the Eton Crow offices, we took this seriously.
For our latest short film, we didn't film a dream sequence.
We filmed two.
This isn't bloodymindedness... Wait. It's not just bloodymindedness. Yes, there's a certain element of stubborn here. But we decided to go ahead and film the sequences because they look good and because they're not pretentious - there's an actual point to their existing.
They're not the stereotypical, clown-flipping-pancakes, girl-in-dress-contemplating-candle surreal bullshit dream sequences that directors use to get all the visual cues they want to on screen.
They're just a man, dreaming of a beach. No clowns. No pancakes.
We promise.
Hank Williams hasn't answered yet
Creative differences are a wonderful thing.
Our director loves driving footage. He believes in it's usefulness as a bridging segment, allowing for enhanced suspension of disbelief instead of characters magically zapping from place to place. It's cheap to do, and it can be very pretty depending on where it's filmed.
Our editor hates driving footage. Sure, it might look pretty and be cheap, but it's incredibly irritating to edit - or, more accurately, to make it look even remotely interesting, unless you're Nanni Moretti or Jim Jarmusch. Sure, driving down a 1/10 gradient country road in the middle of a very pretty forest is lovely - but it's not that interesting unless you do all sorts of things to it.
While we have a mantra, we here at Eton Crow also have a few things we believe in - mostly, truth, justice and the American wei, but also in trying to make things look good while using the limited equipment we have.
This means some judicious colour shifting, slowdown, useful transitions - but mostly, in the case of driving footage, speeding everything up to make it look that more interesting. Yes, linking sections are wonderful, but you have to keep feeding the viewer that sugar, baby, or they'll get bored.
Anyway, let's take a moment out to celebrate the fact that at least one person is now reading our blog - our main 'actor' has let us know that he's keeping track of what we post here, which is sweet, really. So not only can we not say anything offensive about him, we should also say hi -
- Hi, fuckface!
- and then get on with things as normal.
Our director loves driving footage. He believes in it's usefulness as a bridging segment, allowing for enhanced suspension of disbelief instead of characters magically zapping from place to place. It's cheap to do, and it can be very pretty depending on where it's filmed.
Our editor hates driving footage. Sure, it might look pretty and be cheap, but it's incredibly irritating to edit - or, more accurately, to make it look even remotely interesting, unless you're Nanni Moretti or Jim Jarmusch. Sure, driving down a 1/10 gradient country road in the middle of a very pretty forest is lovely - but it's not that interesting unless you do all sorts of things to it.
While we have a mantra, we here at Eton Crow also have a few things we believe in - mostly, truth, justice and the American wei, but also in trying to make things look good while using the limited equipment we have.
This means some judicious colour shifting, slowdown, useful transitions - but mostly, in the case of driving footage, speeding everything up to make it look that more interesting. Yes, linking sections are wonderful, but you have to keep feeding the viewer that sugar, baby, or they'll get bored.
Anyway, let's take a moment out to celebrate the fact that at least one person is now reading our blog - our main 'actor' has let us know that he's keeping track of what we post here, which is sweet, really. So not only can we not say anything offensive about him, we should also say hi -
- Hi, fuckface!
- and then get on with things as normal.
We, all of us, have our Demons
Let's talk about two of the most difficult words in the filmmaker's lexicon.
Indefinite Hiatus.
Here at Eton Crow, we do actually have our own mantra. Well, kind of. It's not like it's copywrited or anything, and it's not particualrly profound, unless you're, I don't know, stoned.
But it's a simple mantra, and it runs like this:
Real Life comes first.
It's kind of simple, really.
We don't have a budget. Nor do we have professional actors or crew or decent equipment. But we do have a lot of enthusiasm, in a kind of what kind of lame power is enthusiasm way.
The funny thing is, enthusiasm can get you a long way. Not all the way, and certainly not alone, but a fair amount, anyway.
But when real life comes first, enthusiasm is only so much use.
Put it this way. If you consider that money won is twice as sweet as money earned, then it follows that arranging a time when everybody's available and having it all work out is much more sweet than bullying everyone into fitting your arrangements. Our director maintains it's also a good way to give yourself a coronary incident, but we don't listen to him all that much.
When everyone's where you want them to be because they want to be there, that's the sweet spot, right there, baby.
Our mantra is kind of a home truth of no-budget filmmaking, because all we have here is our creativity and some not-very-good cameras, and a lot of heart.
Maybe one day we'll get some better cameras.
Indefinite Hiatus.
Here at Eton Crow, we do actually have our own mantra. Well, kind of. It's not like it's copywrited or anything, and it's not particualrly profound, unless you're, I don't know, stoned.
But it's a simple mantra, and it runs like this:
Real Life comes first.
It's kind of simple, really.
We don't have a budget. Nor do we have professional actors or crew or decent equipment. But we do have a lot of enthusiasm, in a kind of what kind of lame power is enthusiasm way.
The funny thing is, enthusiasm can get you a long way. Not all the way, and certainly not alone, but a fair amount, anyway.
But when real life comes first, enthusiasm is only so much use.
Put it this way. If you consider that money won is twice as sweet as money earned, then it follows that arranging a time when everybody's available and having it all work out is much more sweet than bullying everyone into fitting your arrangements. Our director maintains it's also a good way to give yourself a coronary incident, but we don't listen to him all that much.
When everyone's where you want them to be because they want to be there, that's the sweet spot, right there, baby.
Our mantra is kind of a home truth of no-budget filmmaking, because all we have here is our creativity and some not-very-good cameras, and a lot of heart.
Maybe one day we'll get some better cameras.
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