So once you're on the project,
what is the kind of process?
I basically do a breakdown.
I go through the script. I break down everything.
I break down the cast, the locations, any kind of vehicles,
animals, props, art department, anything specific, any heavy post.
And I just look at it all as these different elements.
And then I sit down and I go through all of the director
and like, "Ok casting, you know, how do we want to approach this?
Which casting director do we want to?
We have anyone in mind? Who would be our dream cast?"
And then I work out what the budget is needed from that by looking
at how many people there are, what we can afford to pay them,
how many locations there
are. What's a realistic amount to sort of attribute to each of those?
And I go, okay, we can probably make this on X amount
and then figure out who's going to pay for it.
Basically, I've always wondered with everyone,
get some money for shorts film as well.
But like, but now I've made a few.
And I think back to how they were all funded.
They've all been funded quite differently,
and I don't think there is one way of doing it.
I think funding schemes are really helpful in that
any money obviously really helps get stuff moving.
But you
know, first, some of the first shorts I did
were all funded by the directors themselves who had made some money
doing something else and then gone, "You know what?
I really want to make the short film and I've saved up this amount."
Three, four or five K. As I've gone along in my career with shorts, actually,
they've all got kind of a bit bigger than the earlier ones.
You know, like the, the early ones were a couple of grand here and there.
And then you start getting to the realms of sort of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
plus you know, sort of uh, thousand pound shorts.
And when you're in that realm, you know, it's difficult.
There's very few avenues, I think, where you're going to find that kind of money.
I've done stuff where we've had stuff
privately funded by platforms who are looking to generate content.
And, you know, that's kind of been
just fortuitous the way those have come around.
Like, I'll be honest,
in the sense that I didn't even set up those deals. That's going to come in,
the director's going like, "I've pitched this to these people
and they like it and they've got this much for it."
Smaller ones, I would say just any kind of scheme you can get
involved in anything that's related with Creative England, the Arts Council,
Film London, BFI. Anything that they're running,
just keep your ears open for it, because even if you get like a small amount,
like three or four grand, it's easier to kickstart like another six
than it is to kickstart ten.
You've got to get stuff made one way or another.
And if you've only got
like a small
amount of money, you're better off trying to figure out how to make it
for that small amount of money rather than not make anything at all,
I think. So adapt your film to your budget
is sometimes not the worst idea. But I think it always helps when you pay people
something. When you're on such feeble amounts of money.
Don't get hierarchal about it and be like, "Okay, the DOP can be on like
£100 and the runners can be on £50 and stuff."
Anyone who's involved at the lowest levels right through to your HODs,
everyone gets the same amount
and then there's no arguments because no one's really doing it for the money.
What's really helpful with short filmmakers
is because usually there is a limited budget
if they've actually prepared to do a bit of groundwork
and you know watch
people in other short films or,
you know, see the actors on TV that they like.
So at least they've got a list
of the types of people and the performers that they are interested in.
That's quite helpful.
It is good to have a casting director
because it's good to have somebody that knows the agents because most people,
if they don't know
the agents, the agents basically won't even talk to them on the phone.
Think of what you could pay them.
And it may be that if you have got like a sort of zero low no budget,
then probably someone with my experience may not be able to do it.
But maybe some casting assistants
might want the opportunity to do it.
That might work for, you know, nothing.
Well, whatever.
You know, when I say nothing, I don't mean nothing
of course. I mean very little.
On the other hand, yes, I think, you know, entry level people,
if they are
switched on, they can, you know,
get their friends to be in there or go to kind of drama colleges, sixth form
drama colleges, depending on the age group they're looking at and,
you know, start sifting through people themselves and maybe
just have a casting director as an advisory
capacity, say, "I found these people.
What do you think of these?"
It's very rare that you actually get to do exactly what you want in a
in a commercial or a professional job. Which is why we all like love music videos
and short films, because you get a chance to be a lot more creative
often. Things don't always have to make sense.
Sometimes continuity doesn't even matter.
And so,
yeah, like,
so I don't, I don't think it's important to have your own distinctive style
and certainly not at the beginning anyway, because this takes
time to develop as well. Because you might think you're one thing
and then the more work you do, you and the more people
you're around, you might find that you like something else.
Usually on a short film, there's not going to be very much money,
so you're trying to find a location that serves the script
as closely as possible so that you when you're
so when you're designing your enhancing the location
rather than working against it, which will suck up all of your money.
So then you sort of photograph everything and sort of, yeah,
make up mood boards to show the director what you're planning to do.
It's also great if the director sends you references of what they want
as well, so that you can say that you're all on the same page.
It's really good to be in touch with the other heads of department,
the DP, the director of photography, the costume designer as well.
Just so you can see that you're all on the same page and your colours and moods
are all working together.
Shorts are a great way to like,
learn how to shoot a scene and work with actors or work with directors
to build a narrative arc that covers more than just 3 minutes of a music video.
The other thing that's great is that you get to meet other directors
and you need to build a reel to show your work to other people.
There's a lot of support out there for short filmmakers. You know, even
if it's just rental houses agreeing to lend you a camera over the weekend.
People are generally really happy to help.
So if you want to try something new or try a new camera,
that's a brilliant place to do it.
It's quite difficult to try and experiment on a TV drama where you actually
you've got a very tight schedule and you have many pages to shoot out.
You can't say, "Oh, you know, I've heard of this lens, can I try out?"
It's just not going to happen. So shorts are really good for that.
The usual challenge is finding a crew who will going to work for you
either for free or for a very small rate.
And even though usually people are amenable to it,
there's an understanding in the industry that if somebody gets a
paid job or a commercial, they'll just, you know, they'll just leave.
So you might be all ready to shoot a show and your gaffer calls you up at 11:00
the night before and go, "I'm really sorry. I'm not coming tomorrow.
I've got a commercial." And then you have to find you
either end up having to do it yourself or you find somebody at the last minute.
So that's a very common problem in shorts, that your crew that you think you have
are not the crew that you get. Often on shorts or less so in shorts
but sometimes people will say, "Oh, you know, we'll just get we just get a spark,
or we'll just get like this runner to help you do the lighting."
But actually what that means is that you will end up doing it yourself
and you won't necessarily have enough time to talk to the director
or to think about what you're trying to do creatively.
Everyone should have a camera.
You need the ability to take stills
and you need the ability to do some video, even if it's just on your phone, like
so that you can plan shots or do like a video test of something
or you've seen a location, you need to take photos of it.
If you can afford a nice camera, a small one, that means that you can shoot
your own thing, put stuff online, and show people your work,
that's always going to be great.
And if it means that you can
spend a weekend shooting with your mates and make a little film, that's also great.
Having said that, don't let it put you off because people will lend you cameras
if you can work around their
you know, there are times or you can get it on a weekend
and you're happy to take whatever's on the shelf
and you're not going to be precious about the fact that you need an Alexa
or you need a Red,
then people will lend you stuff.
So I think, don't be afraid to ask to borrow.
I'm literally just get the rushes in, get them synched, watch them,
put them into bins as per,
you know, the scenes or just whatever logical arrangement makes sense for you
to lay out your clips.
Sometimes I might have them laid out in a timeline,
sometimes it might have them in a bin. It just kind of depends on
how... It just kind of depends on the story really
and how when you're doing that stuff upfront and organising
a project, you're actually starting to build the edit in your head.
What do you feel is key direction and guidance
that you can get from a director when cutting a film?
To be honest, it's kind of, it's almost like having
bumpers up at bowling or something
that's just like little... it's little things.
It's not a huge thing.
You put something together, you feel it,
and the director should just be there to bump you.
"We don't need to linger that much there." Or like "That's not..."
It's just that other
set of eyes.
You both end up kind of doing the same job.
I mean, it's obviously going to be, it's going to depend.
And like you do things for one director that they love
and then you might do a similar thing for another director and
they think I didn't work, but then that just comes
into figuring out what's right for each project and you have to be friends
and you have to be of a psychologist to them and all that kind of stuff.
Lots of people say that. Yeah, you really, you really do, because they're
you're trying to justify every little decision you make.
It's kind of easier to say what you're not
you know, what you're not looking for a thing.
And, you know,
that's sort of the EastEnders school of filmmaking in the sense that, you know,
you've got a drama that could be well acted, it could be well written,
it could look fine, you know, a family drama.
But, you know, it could be a soap opera that you're watching on TV.
And that's fine.
But I think when you're programming a festival,
you kind of want something beyond that.
You know, as a filmmaker, you should be
being, you know, sort of more
sort of honest in trying to create something
that you're excited about rather than trying
to make something that you think will take the sort of technical boxes.
All that's, you know, well shot of well lit or, you know, that is... I don't know.
It's difficult to explain, but hopefully it makes some sort of sense.
It can only be good for the film if it's got a festival life
and an online life.
You know, obviously at a festival you've got a much smaller audience,
you know, with the two festivals I work for, average cinema,
you know, is anything from sort of 90 to 120 people per screening.
But you know, you've got that interaction with those people
that are there.
You can see how they react to your film, you know, and you can see it
on the big screen and then you can meet those people outside afterwards.
And film festivals are still good, you know, for the whole sort of face
to face networking thing as well, I think.
If you start sending a film out and not one single festival accepts it,
which obviously does happen, you kind of have to have a bit of a rethink.
I mean, also this whole thing of sort of "Oh, I'll go for the top tier festivals first."
You know, "I'll go for Cannes, I'll go for Berlin."
You know, it's-- you've got to be realistic, I think.
And I'm not saying people don't
get into those festivals because obviously they do, but it's
you know, these festivals get thousands and thousands of short films
and show very small amount.
I think, you know, Cannes as nine films in one competition, about 12 films
in another competition.
It's always good to see what sort of these, what kind of films,
the various festivals are actually showing.
All the films that are winning awards, you can usually do Google searches,
you know, on on the Cannes Award winners or the Berlin Award winners
or even some of the smaller
European short film festivals, which are really good, like Hamburg or
of I mentioned earlier, Vienna Shorts is a really good short film festival.