Well, the journey with "Starving In Hollywood" continues. Negotiating the murky waters of the industry has been an interesting and extremely frustrating experience. In this day and age, methods of distribution are apparently changing by the second. Depending on who you talk to, TV - as we know it - is a thing of the past, and the future lies with the internet. Increasingly, us humans are watching content on laptops, on netflix, on phones, on iPads etc etc. so online streaming is bigger than ever. All of which should play precisely into our hands, right? Surely we can just put our show on youtube and reap the spoils after millions of people tune in and enjoy? Well, apparently not. As the things that do well on youtube are things like "cat jumps over gate" (which is, admittedly, fecking hilarious). There seems to be a solid marketing path for show concepts, pilots or pitches, however finished content - such as ours - seems to be all dressed up with nowhere to go. Which is annoying, to say the least. My logic would dictate that having something finished is better than having an idea not yet begun, but then again, what do I know?
Therefore the best option remains, at this moment in time, trying to negotiate the Iron Wall of the Managers/Agents/Production Companies and hoping that somehow, some way, someone may take a passing interest enough to go "I like it, here's some money". Stay tuned, friends.
To cheer myself up, I embarked on something I said I'd never do, which is make another short film. However, when the opportunity came around, the people involved on the production side and what they would bring to the table for little to no cost made me instantly change my mind. The result was the filming of a script that I'd had written for a few years now called "Head-Side Up". Here's a poster for it…The shoot itself was the best one I have ever had, and certainly, by far, my best experience as a director. For the first time in a long time, I felt at ease, in total command of the form, and enjoying every second of it. I think a large part of this feeling comes purely from experience - which dictates how long you should schedule, which locations to use, what lighting schemes you like, how to handle set-backs (an absolutely inevitability) and the best way to work with actors, which I basically find is giving them a nice, relaxed, environment to let them do their work. A large part also comes from having the right crew around you which, for the first time ever, I did. That is why, folks, it pays to get out and work because, by doing so, you accumulate the good people and sift out the…not so good ones. At the risk of sounding like a capitalist pig, I can't tell you how much easier my job is when you know everyone around you is doing theirs. Marvelous stuff and certainly pretty integral to the film-making process, which is hard enough as it is. This project also marked the first time that I directed without also being an actor in the film, which again made life a great, great deal easier and was equally satisfying. Fun times all round, really.
Also, I've been hired to edit multiple projects over the past few months. All of which have gone absolutely swimmingly. In fact, editing continues to be endless source of fascination for me. It really is remarkable what you can do. You can turn a good performance bad and a bad one good in a matter of frames. So, any actors (female mainly) out there remember to give your editor (me) a nice, healthy blow job at the start of every project and things will turn out just fine. In fact, such is the importance of editing, you can actually turn a good film bad, or indeed make a bad one good - well, reasonable maybe - so the same rule applies to all you directors (female) out there also. I even edited an editing reel. And here it is…
Other than that, I've just been keeping my head down, my chin up, and my lyrics on point. If I think of anything else interesting I've done, I'll let you know. Don't hold your breath.
Much love to everyone for your continued support and interest in this here writing space.
Cheers,
John.
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