The London Film Festival was well underway when Film and TV Now was invited along with other Press, to interview some of the key film-makers in attendance at this year’s event. Film and TV Now focused more on a core group of creatives and asked them about some general reflection on the creative process when they were realising their visions:
SUBA SIVAKUMARAN – HOUSE OF MY FATHER
ON BUDGET:
Budget is always a challenge. In the case of House Of My Father, this is a political horror-fantasy and is a mix of artistry and reality. In terms of the team I put together, it was important to prioritise key talent. In terms of how budget shapes the film, equipment was no budget, whereas talent and the days we shot were key elements in this.
ON WRITING:
It often begins with a question or a starting image, as well as a story from a central question which motivates the film.
ON COLLABORATION:
It’s crucial to select people that you can form relationships based on trust, as well as people who are willing to try new things. It’s also important to aim for a common standard to be achieved in the course of the production.
ON ART VS COMMERCE:
The Sri Lankan film industry is predominantly commercial, but there is a committed cohort of sincere art film-makers. In my case, I had no budget to speak of, and the film is definitely not commercial!
ON THE ACTOR / DIRECTOR RELATIONSHIP:
It is crucial to always find a way into this. It’s always a profound and different situation every time. An actor always has to try a look outside their comfort zone and a director’s job is to try and push them out of that.
ON DISTRIBUTION:
It’s a technological challenge. It has become a lot more fragmented and a lot of key distribution bubbles throughout the world. There are also isolated pockets of people and less traditional models for distribution today.
ON CINEMATOGRAPHY:
The relationship between the director and the cinematographer is often an intimate one. I am the brains as director, the cinematographer is the eyes of the film, but as the creative voice, you are the drive behind the vision and focus of the camera.
ON GENRE:
I love all genres, but horror is not one of my favourites, which is weird considering House Of My Father does fall into the Horror Genre. In the process of writing this film, I discovered that elements of tension came into play and it became a catharsis for me as a creative voice.
AARON SCHIMBERG – CHAINED FOR LIFE
ON WRITING:
I find the process torturous. I often will watch another film in some genre and then build my idea based on that to something different and new.
ON ART VS COMMERCE:
I am not a successful film-maker and I have never done anything for commercial purposes. It does come from a stubborn belief in the ideas I have and I leave it to others to sell.
ON BUDGET:
It is often one giant obstacle – getting money here and there. In the case of Chained for Life, we did have a grant for this. Pretty much everything in my film was shot and if it wasn’t for the preparation of others I wouldn’t have got it done. Often we did everything in master shots, with 5 – 7 minute takes. It’s about a sense of dependability. Although I trained at USC, I didn’t use anyone from there, mostly friends and people who I got from recommendations.
ON NETWORKING:
I am not a great net-worker. There is a great film-making community in New York and a lot of the time I am on the periphery. One of my contemporaries is a gentleman called Patrick Wayne. We have the same bond and connection through our work and he has done about four other films previously. I am not sure we are that different, but we do appear to be both stubborn.
ON GENRE:
I don’t really believe in genre. I get enjoyment out of everything.
LEV KALMAN / WHITNEY HORN – TWO PLAINS & A FANCY
ON CO-DIRECTION / CO-VISION:
We tend to base it on each other’s ideas and visions and if one of us comes up with the right idea or concept, then we will work with it towards something that we find both agreeable in the process.
ON WRITING:
LK: We are both collaborators
WH: There is often a long gestation period of development with the screenplays we do
LK: Also our stories are location specific and in our case, the process does on average take about three months.
ON FILM LENGTH:
LK: There is no ideal length for a film, but our projects tend to be more artistic. It would feel weird to have a film of ours which would last about three hours when a ninety-minute film would suffice. For example, our previous film to this was about seventy-five minutes and the one before that was about forty-eight minutes.
ON BUDGET
LK: Two Plains & A Fancy was the first film of ours to have funding. We had a lot of volunteers behind it. Overall, there are certain costs that cannot be ignored, which in the case of our film, it is travel.
ON DISTRIBUTION
LK: This film has no UK distributor as of yet. It played at the BAM Cinema Festival, but the London Film Festival is it’s International Premiere
ON THE ACTOR / DIRECTOR RELATIONSHIP:
LK: It is all about finding a common pace so that we can build as we go.
ON GENRE:
LK: We are artistic film-makers and generally we are not interested in a studio approach. We tend to find different genres in all our works. We have tried a Road Movie, A Western and our next project is going to be a Sci-Fi Thriller
ON CINEMATOGRAPHY:
WH: I am a Cinematographer, so often I am the person who shoots the films we do. Often I do shape the look of the film.
PIETER DUMOULIN / TIMEAU DE KEYSER – ETANGS NOIRS
ON CO-DIRECTION:
TDK: We are both collaborators and Pieter is a DOP as well as a director. We are also people with an element of flexibility when it comes to the creative process.
ON BUDGET:
PD: Our current film is a small one and we know that a bigger budget would bring bigger responsibility
TDK: We don’t have stars, but the benefits of a smaller budget is that you are pushed to find better creative solutions and that can extend to the screenplay and the editing as well. It is also a matter of strategy when it comes to the creative process and how we want to work with our team and actors. We also feel it helps find the dynamic in what we are trying to create.
ON GENRE:
TDK: We have no particular preference for genre. Our film is a Detective story that has been influenced by Hitchcock which was our start off point.
FEMALE FILM-MAKER PANEL
A session in the afternoon was set aside to give five female film-makers the chance to air their views on their work and other elements of their process. It was pointed out at the start that 38% of the directors in this year’s LFF are female, up from about 24% the previous year.
The directors were as follows:
SOUDADE KADAAN – THE DAY I LOST MY SHADOW
DYANA WINKLER – UNITED SKATES
ARANTXA ECHEVARRIA – CARMEN AND LOLA
SARA BLECHER – MAYFAIR
JESSICA HYNES – THE FIGHT
DW – My film was about the subculture of Music and Dance, as well as the Black culture and hopefully shine a light on what it means to be black in the USA.
AE – My film focuses on the love of two girls.
SB – My film focuses on Indian / Muslim / Somali Gangsters. It is about violence and focuses on a father and son relationship. It also brings up the issue of when you become your parents, even though you don’t want to be like them.
JH – Mine was inspired by an all-women boxing gym in Folkestone Kent and I wanted to showcase this. It brings women from different places and the appeal of punching the s*** out of a punch-bag. It was about women striving for something in their lives. In the locality, there is a lot of family dysfunction and personal struggle and it is also about breaking the cycle of dysfunction.
DW – In the case of my film, I come from a documentary background, so often these films are a lot easier to shoot yourself, you can pick up a camera and then later on bring somebody else in as part of your team.
AE – About 75% of my crew are women, be it the Producer and DOP for example.
SB – It seems that very few genre films are being made by women. This can be a strength and a challenge. One of the scenes were a shoot-out in a train depot. There doesn’t appear to be much generalising and it is possible to do a shoot-out and make it about something.
As time goes on, I think genre will become more accessible to women and the whole landscape of genre will change.
JH – My film is inspired by ROCKY and I wanted to do a film where people can still say ‘ YAY!!’ . I wanted to reach out to audiences. It in turn took a lifetime and no time to put together. I set up locations in Folkestone and prepared myself over a matter of months as I developed the script. In turn, it took a year of principal photography to complete.
AE – Community is important.
SK – I used a mix of professional and non-professional actors. It’s also a bond with realities as well.
