Why are movies so expensive to make?

Last year I decided I didn't know enough about the movie industry, so I signed up for a course in film making with Line Out in Leicester. We learned about lighting and sound and cameras and scene structure and how movies are put together. But the highlight of the course was the final weekend when we went out to make our own five minute movie.

Five minutes is a difficult length to write a story for. It is too long for a single punchline gag and too short to easily develop characters and relationships that the audience will want to follow. With those limitations in mind, I set out to write a five page screenplay. I was delighted when my story, Pictures of Andy, was selected for production.

Then came the filming weekend. Such an exhausting two days of sweat and effort! But the production team, including Gav, Bav and Alex (I'll write more about them in a later post) was excellent. The actors, including Haresh Sood and Claudia Wilson were superb. All the days of writing, storyboarding and planning bore fruit. When we sat down for our final 2 days of work on the film - in the editing suite - we were amazed to see the result taking shape.

All that for five minutes of film? Now I start to understand why movies are so expensive to make. But was it worth it? All I can say is, I can't wait to do it again.

Our film, Pictures of Andy, has just been put up on YouTube. Unfortunately our attractive widescreen format film has been squashed to get it to fit YouTube. But it will give you an idea of what we were doing.

No Star on the Door

Last night I had the hugely enjoyable experience of visiting Derby's Guildhall theatre, seeing Michael Marshall talk and read from his soon to be published novel, and performing the story Blood Mother, alongside Clare Littleford and Sally Spedding.

I've lost count of the number of venues where I've given readings, talks or storytelling performances. Usually they are libraries or community centres or village halls. Each has been enjoyable in its own way - for me, at least. But last night was the first time in a good few years that I've had the pleasure of performing in a real theatre, complete with black drapes, stage lighting and a dressing room. (I can report that there were no stars on the dressing room door.)

And Michael's reading was spellbinding. I don't want to spoil it for anyone so I can't say much - except that it was a masterclass in pace and impact.

Virtual spring cleaning

It is spring - according to the flowers and animals in the garden. No use telling them to hold back till March 21st - the official first day of spring. What better time of year to clear out the clutter with a physical, spiritual and virtual spring clean?

My physical spring clean has been hauling barrow loads of stuff (stuff that I can't compost) from the back of the garden to a skip at the front of the house. The spiritual spring clean is the Baha'i fast (a period of nineteen days leading up to the Baha'i new year, March 21st). And then to the real subject of this posting - the virtual spring clean - which has been a re-design of my website.

http://www.rodduncan.co.uk/

Please do visit it and let me know how it looks on your computer. The input would be much appreciated.

Are you a character in someone else's fiction?

Following a number of discussions on fiction, metafiction and films such as Stranger Than Fiction, Annie Hall etc, I thought it might be useful to provide the following practical checklist. If you suspect you may be a character in someone else’s novel or movie, here are a few signs to look out for:

If you are able to find a parking space outside any building you happen to want to visit, you are certainly in a movie not in real life.

Similarly, if you book into a cheap hotel room in Paris and find your window looks out on the Eiffel Tower.

If every time you turn the TV on it happens to be a news bulletin on an issue directly relevant to your present situation, then you are definitely in a work of fiction.

If you are still in doubt you could always try this: go into the city centre and start dancing. If everyone you bump into knows the steps to your dance, you are definitely in a movie.

Stranger than Fiction

Characters in novels do sometimes come to life. Like in the novel Breakbeat – where I put my main character in an argument with a woman from the Social Security, and was surprised when, at the end of the conversation, he invited her out on a date. They both wanted it, so I let them. Other times I have to keep my characters more tightly under control. I have occasionally spared them some ordeal, feeling they have suffered enough already. But I have never believed they were real.

In the film Stranger than Fiction, however, they really are. It is a delicious ‘what if’ story. What if someone woke up one day and found a narrator in his head? What if the plot choices of a reclusive novelist were being played out in real people’s lives?

Will Ferell plays a man who thinks he is in control of his admittedly narrow life. He counts the strokes of his toothbrush. He counts the number of paces to the bus stop. But when the voice of Emma Thompson comes into his head one day, narrating the things he is doing and is about to do, he starts to suspect that his future is being written.

With metafiction – stories in which storytelling itself is in some way the subject – one is never quite sure whether any shortcomings are in fact ironic statements by the writer. In Stranger than Fiction, the clichés and quirks of Emma Thompson’s narration are surely intended in this way, and added greatly to my enjoyment. I would have liked to think the unbelievably two-dimensional character of the author’s assistant, played by Queen Latifa, was another ironic statement. Unfortunately that one was just a mistake. There was nothing wrong with her acting, but the character was so obviously a device to give the novelist someone to talk to that she became unbelievable.

However, that is a small complaint about an otherwise eminently watchable, well acted and cleverly constructed romantic comedy which has plenty of laugh out loud moments along the way, especially for those who enjoy reading (and /or writing) novels.

Story Structure - Getting to the end

I’ve heard it said that Sue Grafton describes the process of writing a novel as being like driving through fog. You can see the road for a little way in front of you but the horizon in obscure. Other novelists speak about the process of planning out a novel in great detail before setting out on chapter one. It has been years since I read it, but I believe R. F. Keating describes this method in his book on how to write a crime novel. For me, the experience is somewhere in between. I know where I am going, but the landscape I’m going to pass through on the way will be a surprise to me. (Hopefully a pleasant surprise.)

I’m presently coming to the end of writing something and last week I had the magical experience of understanding how to get from where I am to the climax of the story. I perceived a pattern in what had previously been a complex jumble of information and story threads. Suddenly the chaos resolved into a single picture. I walked round the house smiling like a Cheshire cat looking for long-suffering family members to tell.

But there is one bit of a story that I never know before I get to it. That is the last little bit – after the climax but before the words ‘The End’. The crime may be solved. The action may be over. But in my stories that last chapter often contains the real payoff – the emotional resolution. I may guess what it will be, but I can’t be sure until all the rest of the book is written.

Runequest and team writing

Thank you, Geraint, for your comment on my last posting Don't Judge a Book by its Cover.

But perhaps I should explain for those who don't know (the population of the world minus three). When I was 18, I spent the summer holidays with a schoolfriend, Paul, planning out a comedy fantasy novel called Runequest. Geraint, another schoolfriend, came to join us for a number of those writing sessions.

I don't know if anyone else would have found our story funny. All I can say is, I had never laughed as much before, and have seldom since. It was my first experience of writing a story for my own pleasure. It was wonderful.

Then, of course, this man called Pratchett (you may have heard of him) came along and cornered the market in fantasy take-off novels. We all went off in different directions and our Runequest story never saw the light of day. I believe Paul still has the folder containing the plan. Looking back on it, and having gone through the novel writing process a few times now, I'd say our plan had enough material for a 5 book series.

Perhaps there is something particularly pleasurable about team writing. Every time I have done it since, it has been a huge pleasure. So far the only bits of that work that have come to fruition are the performance stories Hazard Warning and Blood Mother, written with Clare Littleford and Sally Spedding. The next performance of Blood Mother will be in the Derby Guildhall on March 15th 2007.

Don't judge a book...

Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover. But don’t we do exactly that? The title, the cover image and the blurb make some kind of impression that get us to put the book back on the shelf or open it up and start reading.

All of which makes my present dilemma more difficult. There is a story that has been tumbling round in my head for some time. Now I have started to write it and, for various reasons, I need to come up with a title. I’ve grown quite fond of this story, and so I want a really good title to go along with it. That puts the pressure on. Ho-hum. I’m just going to have to choose one and hope. I'll let you know when I have it settled.

Perhaps I should have done it the other way around – devised a drop-dead brilliant title, then imagined a cover and a blurb to go with it, and finally got round to thinking up the story.

Giving an Author Talk

For anyone interested, I'm about to start teaching a course on: "Giving an Author Talk".

The course will be held in Leicester on 6 Wednesday evenings, starting on 21st February.

It should be good for anyone who hopes to get published or wants to to improve their public speaking skills. And hopefully it should be a lot of fun.

If you'd like more information, please e-mail me here

Lunching with Crime Writers

I was in Derby having lunch with some friends who are crime novelists the other day. We were just about to order when someone raised the subject of ‘how to dispose of a body’. Not the best lunchtime discussion, you might have thought. Especially as someone raised the option of feeding the remains to pigs. Would it change the taste of the pork, she wanted to know?
Let this be a warning to you - never lunch with a crime writer.

At this point one of the others present asked if any of us found what we write disturbing. No, was the general answer. Some found what the others wrote unsettling. And three people stated that the process of writing helped them to deal with things that might otherwise have given them nightmares.

So that was that, except to say that the meal was very enjoyable and that the writer sitting opposite me – I won’t name names - ordered sausages, gravy and mash. He tucked into it with apparent enjoyment, in spite of one or two people asking if he could detect anything unusual in the flavour.

The Last King of Scotland

Dr Nicholas Garrigan escapes his father’s dour presence by signing up to work in a medical station in rural Uganda. He may be treating the poor, but his motivation is adventure. He likes drink and dope and women – black or white, married or otherwise. These he finds.

He also finds, or is found by, president Idi Amin. On learning that Garrigan is Scottish, Amin takes an instant liking to the young doctor and invites him to become his personal physician.

Watching events unfold, I found myself willing the fictional doctor to run. Amin is going to turn into a monster. That is history. But in the film it is still 1971 and the signs are not yet clear.

They say that a frog dropped into scalding water will hop straight out again. But Garrigan is stepping into a pleasantly warm bath. The president seems clown-like at times, charismatic at others. He has wealth and pleasure at his disposal, some of which he bestows on his young doctor. He is strong, perhaps ruthless. But that’s what it takes to govern a newly independent country, isn’t it? The temperature rises a degree at a time.

The brilliance of this film is in the characters of Amin and Garrigan, played by Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy. The portrayal of Amin is multi-dimensional and terrifyingly believable. His relationship with Garrigan is paternalistic, domineering and corrupting. The doctor has fled from one father to be adopted by another. The dynamic between the two is mesmerising.

The insanity of what is happening in Uganda is revealed gradually as the president slides into paranoia. Towards the climax of the film, where some of the horror of what is happening is graphically revealed, Amin confronts the terrified Garrigan with the words: “This is real.”

Superlative performances and a fine script combine to make this film feel very real. It also feels close. We see the Asians being expelled from Uganda. How many of my friends and neighbours in Leicester were among those thousands, forced to leave with nothing but the clothes they were wearing? And what of the people who stayed? I remember seeing Enoch Olinga speaking at a Baha’i conference in 1976. That wonderful man was later killed in Uganda, together with his wife and three of his children, victims of unknown gunmen. No one knows the number murdered during Amin’s rule. Three hundred thousand is the figure quoted by the film.

The numbers are incomprehensible. Butchery of this kind is incomprehensible. But through the film, the tyrant is revealed as human. The steps that led to the madness are small enough to be believed. Just about. That doesn’t make this, our history, easier to cope with. But hopefully it will make it harder to forget.

Miss Potter

Beatrix Potter was the children’s publishing sensation of her day. In terms of book sales she was the Edwardian equivalent of J K Rowling. She was also a lady of remarkable drive, insight and wide-ranging abilities.

If you’ve seen the trailers for this biopic, you’ll know that Reneé Zellweger plays the eponymous writer/artist and Ewan McGregor the publisher with whom she becomes romantically involved. You will also know that Beatrix Potter’s beautiful illustrations are seen coming to life on the page. It was this latter point that gave me cause for concern as I queued up to buy my ticket. It looked altogether too cutesie for a depiction of the life of such a woman.

Surprisingly, this aspect of the film seldom felt out of place. I found myself accepting that we were being given glimpses into the mind of the writer and artist who, for many years, considered these fictional characters to be her only real friends.

The film opens with her trying to sell her first book, Peter Rabbit (a story that my family used to have a vinyl record of. I still remember my complete fear and fascination for the thing as a child, especially the bit where poor Peter squeezes under the gate.)

We see Beatrix Potter’s rise to fame and fortune, her first romance, her refusal to play the part of the upper class unmarried woman, her arguments with her family and ultimately her move to the Lake District.

My only complaint is with Reneé Zellweger’s portrayal of Potter, which I couldn’t believe at first. Perhaps it was a memory of Zellweger playing another famously unmarried thirty-something. It wasn’t an easy role, of course. Characters that spend so much of their time living in internal worlds are notoriously difficult to portray in movies (much easier in novels). Whatever the reason, I found her harder to accept than the other members of the cast, who all gave excellent performances.

A good story has its own momentum, however. I soon forgot my reservations and by the end I was completely absorbed in this gentle, beautiful and genuinely poignant film.

Why all the film reviews?

Why all the reviews?

Here is a list of possible reasons, some of which may be true.

• A friend was kind enough to give me some Vue Cinema vouchers last year - a perfect gift.
• An editor once told me that he went to see 50 movies a year so he could keep up with trends in fiction. The movies are often a couple of years ahead of written fiction, he said.
• An author once told me that going to the movies is a tax-deductible expense for a writer of fiction.
• Having to write a review makes you think about what you have seen – not just in general terms.
• I love going to the cinema.

Apocalypto

The man in the box office frowned as I offered my money. “You do know it’s not in English, don’t you?” Presumably he’d had complaints from customers thinking they were going into a standard Hollywood action thriller. But a film set just before the collapse of classical Mayan civilisation, directed by Mel Gibson, was always going to be subtitled.

No one knows why the Mayan civilization fell. The remnants of great cities, complete with vertiginous pyramids, were rediscovered by explorers hacking into the jungle during the last century. All seem to have been abandoned long before Europeans reached the Americas.

Apocalypto opens in the forests of the Yucatan peninsular at some unspecified time in history. Our hero, Jaguar Paw, is one of a group of men hunting game. We see village life and the ominous image of refugees from some terrible event walking through in search of new lands to settle.

The fall from grace comes swiftly. A raiding party destroys the village in an orgy of explicitly depicted violence. Those who are not killed are captured and bound, with the exception of our hero’s pregnant wife and child, who he secretes in a deep pit – a place that will be both their hiding place and their grave - if he can’t get back to rescue them in time. Jaguar Paw and his friends are then lead off towards a fate they don’t know but which we can guess. For the Mayans apparently practiced human sacrifice on an industrial scale. “Come back to me,” his wife pleads, which sets up all that follows.

For me the high point of this movie was the journey towards the apex of a pyramid and an appointment with a razor-sharp ceremonial knife. We pass from their forest home through landscapes increasingly despoiled, past the pox ridden and a starving population. We feel the bewilderment of Jaguar Paw and his companions as they are dragged through environments as alien to us as they are to him. They reach the city with its crowds of tattooed, scarified and pierced men and women, up to the place of death where sit the corrupt and corpulent heads of a civilisation heading for its apocalypse.

For that journey alone it was worth seeing this movie. Also for the fascinating array of faces, each beautifully individual and distinctly non-Hollywood. But what followed - a substantial chunk of the film – though gripping in action terms, felt wildly improbable. And the ending, which I won’t give away here, seemed to me starkly anachronistic.

I do admire Mel Gibson for producing movies that he wants to make rather than pursuing an ideal of middle-of-the-road commercialism. But ultimately Apocalypto left me with the sense of an opportunity missed. This could have been a great film.