And thus, Brian and Neville were born, one lunchtime over a keyboard with a cup of tea handy and four pages of script. Which was where they stayed, only getting an occasional airing as a writing sample somewhere in an embryonic business plan.

COME IN TO SOME EASY MONEY...

It was August that year when I first met director Anthony Bennett. I had subscribed at the time to Shooting People (www.shootingpeople.org) on which he advertised, a mailing list where subscribers can advertise their film-related needs and services and ask for or post advice. Inspired by low-budget film The Blair Witch Project he was keen to find a script to first-time direct himself for very little or no money, but was having trouble finding a writer willing to defer their minimum Writer’s Guild fee, and was slightly intimidated by the possibility of dealing with their agents.

....AND A BIT OF FACTOR X!

As a Writer’s Guild member, I found this understandable. Writers whose only income comes from writing have to have an income in actual payment, not pieces of paper in lieu of income. However I came up with and suggested an alternative. I had a script that I was willing to co-produce. We would each put in a share of the money, but my stipulations were that everyone who worked for us were paid expenses and a token fee, signed a release form and agreement deferring the rest until such time as the film was screened for payment or sold, that the project was insured, legal, and contained all the elements of a professional production - stills photography, behind-the-scenes footage, that everyone was fed and had access to kitchen and toilet facilities, and that everyone who had to travel did so safely. With that in mind it was decided to film and recruit for the project within the M25 - London where Anthony was based which would involve minimum travel for cast and crew employed, and to employ a runner with their own car to ferry people to and from the nearest train or tube. I also insisted on reasonable working hours - we were aiming to shoot the film in one day, and I said we had to offer breakfast, start first thing, and wrap before 8pm. We would be filming in a garage attached to a house owned by a friend of Anthony’s at their inconvenience, and despite Anthony’s early notions on nouvelle film practises involving torturing your cast and crew late into the night, I actually wanted people to work for me again following the experience. It’s true that camera crew and DoPs are sometimes happy to work through breaks getting lighting and camera set-ups right - however in the meantime with the cast standing around freezing it’s only fair (and legal) to make sure they have something to eat, somewhere in the warm to sit down, and a lavatory with toilet paper.

THE CONGA GIRLS


RACHEL PEARCE, LISA FINCH, SUSAN BENTON, GENEVIEVE COPE, KATE NAUGHTON

Once we had agreed a shooting date for people approached or interviewed to commit to, I gave Anthony the job of recruiting for the film as he was in London, while I worked on finding insurance quotes, cast and crew release forms, preparing an advance budget based on the minimum requirements I had stated, and arranged where my contribution would actually come from.

Although he did take some artistic license when recruiting ‘locals’ (for the first time I discovered that both Wales and Crawley were situated within the M25), Anthony did put together a superb cast and crew for Easy Money, with only one let-down by a make-up artist - which wasn’t a problem as the costume designer Hiromi Uchida and assistant Maria Pares Cabrita both took over. Anthony had some contacts from his former youth theatre who joined in, including Nathan Morris, who filmed all the behind-the-scenes footage and a piece that we used in second unit while editing, and Mari Liistola who assisted on the set construction the day before, but most of us were strangers before filming. We held our pre-production meetings at the Café Dome in London’s Leicester Square, leading to an encounter with one of Hollywood’s top actors who was very courteous about a feature film script materialising hopefully over his coffee (he referred me to his agent), and gave us a huge boost of confidence not to mention a mystery ‘thank you’ from us in the credits of our humble promotional short.

The preparation and groundwork paid off - the filming came together on schedule, with no disagreements and a great team atmosphere on the day. As a first time director Anthony was keen to learn, willing to adapt to the reality rather than stick with his Blair Witch preconceptions of film-making, and any problems were very minor and mostly due to management skills rather than technical, although the lack of digital tape stock I had reminded him to pick up two days before was a small oversight (Much advising on personnel management and communication followed his uses of artistic license, for example). It’s tough for any first-time director wanting to create Art and learning that behind any professional production is a business individual watching the clock and counting out the change, but we both discovered that great things can be achieved within an allotted time (and can also be improved with editing)

DAVE LEMAY/CARIBOU PRODUCTIONS LTD.


(Centre, with Chris Taylor & Michael Cole)
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY & SOUND

All we needed to complete the footage was an exterior night shot of an industrial skip, and some fireworks, both fortuitously provided back in my locale of Hastings, where we like to blow stuff up at least twice a year and dump things at any opportunity. Quite a variety of such skips were available at the time, causing some comment as I explored the town like an Environmental Studies student taking Polaroids of the possibilities. Anthony began editing the DV rushes himself, and after seeing the first attempts develop and considering I wanted to keep as much as possible within a schedule, I made some notes and we sat together over a weekend tidying up around the edges, and adding the music tracks.

SPOT THE SCENE OF THE CRIME!

Anthony’s final piece de resistance of artistic licensing (regarding the schedule I had set) was that he didn’t have a company logo for Sharp Focus Enterprises Ltd. and decided it was a good opportunity to animate one himself. I think it took longer than the rest of the filming and editing but I have to say it was worth it! When the final videotapes arrived in a box at my house (ready to be packed up again and posted out to cast and crew as in their agreements) complete with professional sleeves and colour-printed sticky labels, that was the day I knew we’d achieved something.

NATHAN MORRIS, 2nd UNIT CAMERAMAN
AND
LISA SCULLARD, WRITER/PRODUCER

The short film experience was a great learning experience, training ground, test run, and networking opportunity all in one. Dave LeMay and Chris Taylor of Caribou Productions, Susie Benton, Rachel Pearce, Kate Naughton and myself have all since worked or assisted together on various other scenes, shorts, test commercials and in one case a 16mm pop video/trailer for the Caribou Productions’ DV feature film LVJ. Anthony Bennett started organising successful short indie film-makers screening nights in his local area and also found himself quite a niche in editing. I found as well as learning from the experience I was also now being approached for advice, not only on producing but in all aspects of film by all sorts of people, from students of media studies needing research materials, to new directors developing scripts, and artists seeking work, and was even able to refer some and help with casting/crewing on short films such as That Last Bite and Reminesse.

Film-making is an industry where the type of jobs available is almost unlimited, everything from driving to carpentry to stunts, to acting, writing, directing and lighting - where you aim to be when you start approaching it may not be where you find your first job or what you actually find you enjoy most when you get there - for me I found that the variety itself is what makes it such a great thing to be a part of.

Photos by Gemma Mount
www.gemmamountphotography.com