African Film Making

So, I’m hunched over a keyboard in an internet cafe in Accra, Ghana. I’ve been in the country four days and this is the first chance I’ve had to get online!

I’m staying with a film maker and we’ve been talking about the state of the African film industry.

It’s in a very poor state and Kwame is determined to make a significant difference — he wants to bring production values up to the same level as European productions.

The problem with West African film making is lack of money for equipment, lack of production skills and above anything else, there just don’t appear to people in the industry who really understand how a script works. The story telling is all done by exposition, the dialogue is sub-Mexican soap opera standards and as a result the acting is unique in its over the top, anti-realism.

Talking to Kwame it became obvious really quickly that micro budget feature production was going to really suit the industry here. They’re facing exactly the same problems most indies are, lack of production funding and no real professional industry to work within.

So, for the last four days I’ve been restructuring the outline for the feature film I want to do here. Very little of the original idea has survived this process as I draw on Kwame’s experience of the culture here. But, the new outline is good.

What we’re attempting to do is apply western writing techniques to an African story — then planning a micro-budget production, maybe for next year.

The plan is to mix some of my regular crew with Ghanaian crew and bring up the production values so we’ve got a film that will stand up in the West as well as selling in the vast Africa film market.

Anyway, it’s big task, but I’ve got another five weeks here to get the screenplay finished.

I’m trying to get online a couple of times a week — so I will be posting again soon.

On The Road

So I’ve spent the last two days driving and now I’m in London. I fly out to Ghana tomorrow.

Over the last couple of days I’ve had to explain the thinking behind $1000 movie making a few times and the common misconception I run into is that micro-budget means unprofessional. One of the abiding flaws in the film industry is equating budget with importance. It is pretty much the only business in the world where people boast about their costs. In every other business in the world the usual thing is to attempt to keep costs down and maximise profit. Not the film industry though, where people measure their importance by how much money they are given to spend.

I’ve always thought this was insane.

So, anyway, because the industry still has this insane thinking where the size of your budget relates to your ability to spend, a $1000 movie fails to even be considered a low budget movie, in fact it’s even pushing at micro-budget.

What people have forgotten is this: money doesn’t make movies, creative people and resources do.

Now, of course if you have money you can buy people and resources and you can get your movie made. Therefore the more money you have the more people and resources you can buy.

However, once you take the budget out of the equasion, you realize that, in fact, people and resources aren’t in short supply and you don’t need money to find either for your project. What you need to do is inspire people, and give people the opportunity to do the things they came into the business to do.

The truth is, very few people come into the business purely to make money, most of us are motivated by other things.

The other misconception about the $1000 movie is that the resources for the film will have to reflect the budget.

Once you realize that it’s possible to chase resources rather than chasing cash to buy resources, then the whole process gets easier.

By the time we’ve finished, we expect to have a movie that would have cost between $500,000 to $750,000 if we’d paid for the resources we used making it. In other words, a real, professional, full budget feature film.

When you look at it objectively you see that your cast and crew become your investors, they invest their time and expertise in the movie. We’re very aware of this and are always blown away when people offer to help. But like I said before, we’re not all in this business for the money.

Packing And Taxes

I wanted to write something about low budget film making today, but I’ve had to take care of last minute real world stuff before the trip to Africa, which starts tomorrow — a three day road trip followed by a flight, to get me into Ghana by Friday.

On top of this, I’ve been locked into five days of tax returns! Yippee.

How’s a guy supposed to create great movies, when the government wants him to add up the cost of every paper clip he bought over the past year.

Anyway, I may not be able to post for a few days. Although I will try to post before my flight.

If not, the next post will be from Africa as I start looking at the viability of us making a film there.

Next Page »