Made For Nothing?

The first thing to say about being a man with a passion is that it takes a lot out of you. You're not always aware of the tolls you're paying until things begin to come to an end. Pizzaman has certainly been a labour of love but the sacrifices have outweighed the rewards by a considerable margin. I think its high time to write that disclaimer about how much I've learnt and wouldn't have changed it for the world. It's also a good place to mention the way exhaustion can indeed make things seem less good than they really are. So let me tell you about how I mannipulated my life to bring a Cardiff story alive. Whilst starting out I had a good contract with BBC's Homes Under the Hammer programme (I owe the way I talk on the phone, to this job). As with all good things they come to an end, I jumped into action looking for another money focused/career position that was very hard to come by. Pizzaman had the stories in place by this time and it was apparent I had to write it. I got a few weeks of work developing a TV show that wasn't commisned and working on set for a BBC Drama aimed at kids (nothing as glamorous as Dr Who I'm afraid). Make or break of Pizzaman came - 'WRITE IT OR IT DOESN'T HAPPEN!' I actively signed on the dole, occasionally looked for work to keep them happy and made a tick-box document outlining scene-by-scene progress. Painstakingly gruelling it was. Something I'd never done before, what the **** was I thinking? Arrogant self belief prevailed. The little engine saying to itself "I know I can, I'm sure I can, I know I can..." Money grew tight. Procrastination was the enemy although it was never fully beaton out of existance. I owed it to myself, I owed to all the actors I'd auditioned only months before. I'd look like a right divy if I gave up now. Everything I could think of to persuade myself, I used. I took a part-time job making sandwiches in Ealing just down the road from Ealing Studios (thats as far as the name dropping goes). I would find myself with a pen and pad, being late for this job, that was only three mornings a week, because I'd be sat on a bench writing dialogue that came to me at the most inappropriate of times. Oh and did I mention I was in the lead up to getting married. Stress was rife. Something that got me through was Teilo's (Pizzaman's creator) enthusiasm when I completed an episode and sent the rough script to him via e-mail. He was excited, I was excited. I finished it. I finished making the sandwiches and turned to producing the shoot. I had about six weeks before I was due to get married and frantically called everyone. To give you some idea of the amount of calls I was making, I was paying £75 a month for a contract phone that allowed me unlimited landline calls, 3000 mins to mobiles and unlimited texts. I still wracked up a bill for £6o0. This resulted in me refusing to pay, because I couldn't, and defering payment over the next 6 months so I could at least recieve calls. Now if you're meant to be co-ordinating a 16 day shoot of a drama series with over 50 people to manage, having your phone cut off is not what you want to happen! Of course I suddenly become desperate for money. With a month to go till I marry I take the most soul destrying job known to man, telesales. Thank goodness ot was only four weeks. Although I was lucky enough to have my wedding paid for by my parents and my now in-laws, I didn't have anything to pay for a 'real' honeymoon. Pizzaman had taken that away. We stayed at my in-laws holiday home in the Algarve (they are in fact Portuguese, so I think I married well). I had a three week honeymoon using our wedding money to get by, as I didn't have any and was counting on it. I then left my new wife in Portugal to come to Cardiff and film Pizzaman. It wsa heartbreaking to leave her but I marched right on (I owe my girl a lot). I get there to find that only four of the sixteen days I'd planned were confirmed. I was livid but it didn't stop me, I moved straight on. Straight on to the phone. I converted my parents small bedroom/study into Pizzaman production headquarters and proceeded to wrack up a £550 phone bill from their landline. I ate when I had 5 mins to spare and only slept because I absolutely had to. I did not get more that four hours sleep on any of the nights we were shooting. Sixteen days of mayhem ensued. Actors had not learnt their lines, some couldn't and some never got back in touch. I had fears that some wouldn't turn up and I prayed that none of the locations wouldn't fall through. Most of the time the call sheet was finished at 7am because it was the last thing to do of a night. I'd go to bed at 2am and be up at 05:30am to get straight back on the computer. I think there was even a day when I started phoning actors at 5am because I'd forgotton what time it was. There were two nights where I didn't sleep. When filming all the scenes in the Pizzashop we started filming at 2am and didn't finish until 6pm the next day. By 4pm I had to remove myself because I thought I was going to breakdown or something. The crew directed two scenes on their own. Luckily there were no tragedies or major mishaps. I have a collection of anecdotes to draw on from now until the rest of time and, believe it or not, loved every second of it. I was a one man army and loved it. I'd never challenged myself so muchand had so many people help, I am filled with gratitude everytime I think of it. Shoot over and it was time to log the tapes. Life got in the way slightly and I realised I now could not pay rent for the next month. At this point I was still living in London and had been staying with my parents who live in Rumney, Cardiff. My new mife came back from Portugal, we had a chat to the landlord and he agreed to let us leave asap. We moved in with my parents. For something that was traditional in days of old, moving in with your folks with your new wife is not something I recommend however well you all get on. The strains began to show. I confined myself to the bedroom, took half the tapes we'd shot (35x1hour long tapes) and began to watch all of the two and a half thousand takes. I was watching them on the camera itself because we didn't have the correct equipment let alone a computer to drop it onto. I made notes on everything. We then had to hire a night club for one of the final scenes. In the most stressfull act to date, I took my wedding money and paid it to a night club owner in Cardiff. We charged £5 on the door and spent a week on facebook and everywhere else promoting the hell out of it. The gamble was horrible, I hated every second of this one. I'm not a club promoter by any stretch of the imagination. I was stressed and stressed everyone else out. It was a weird night with a weird set of acts I won't go into. That over, we actually made my wedding money back and some which affoded us to buy the much needed internal hard drives for the editor to store the footage on. We sent the tapes to him and waited, and waited, and waited. You have to understand that we didn't pay for this. Here was the kindest of gestures, Gareth the Editor made his livelyhood from editing and was about to spend nigh-on four weeks making this good for us. We waited. I took a job in London whilst living in Cardiff, the commute almost killed me. We waited. My wife decided to find herself a London based job. We waited. In December 2009 I moved back to London. We waited. Teilo decided to practically move in with the editor. I couldn't afford to get there from London so he sat in for a full two weeks to make sure it got done. I was gutted that I had to let my baby go for that long and trust what came out. Suddenly a rough cut emerged. And another, another and another. Finally it was happening. In the mean time I was sourcing music and promoting like crazy but the films were finally there. Wow! I made exhaustive notes and got them back to the Newport based editor as soon as I could. A new version with music would be sent to me. I phoned all of the musical artists for permission. I got straight back into note making. The final edits came just before the launch night. We had five out of the fifteen complete. To tell you the truth I needed this over. It was in June 2010 and I was scrapping through financially due to taking any job I could get to stay afloat while i spent all my free time e-mailing, or arranging more filming to bridge the gaps in the edit, or arranging the launch night. There always seemed to be something to do. Media Wales were great, The South Wales Echo were fantastic and all the other publications that got behind us were mind blowing. Every now and again I'd get a rush of excitement when someone said they'd help promote it. The press release Teilo made circled BBC Wales, The Guardian, S4C. People knew. People like. People supported. Again I'd stay up until 4am some nights just making contact with all the Cardiff based websites. And then there was the launch. It came to the final week when we realised the server we had fell apart with our videos and needed to be changed. We hadn't found a web-designer to make something pretty to go around the videos and I was worried that the rest of the completed films wouldn't be complete if we launched on the 1st of July. In hindsight, by sticking to the 1st July it prompted the work to actually get done rather than linger any more. I found a comedian, a few rappers and a poet to perform at the Cardiff Arts Institute on the night and myself and Teilo hosted the event. We showed a few vids and the first two completed episodes. this was the culmination os two years, yes two years work. I found out exactly, from the raw end, how things/films are made. Why they turn out the way they do what they do to you financially, physically, mentally and spiritually. I got toughened. I got broke. I got arrogant and I got a huge dose of self belief. I love Cardiff and I've loved using it as a medium to tell stories. I just hope that it backs this little gem. I am finding out a lot about internet use as time goes on and althought people I know have seen a few of the episodes they probably haven't seen it all. I don't think it's the story that has let it down, I think its the amount of time to site through something on the internet that has been the learning factor. I've always pitched my sale as the TV/Internet Merge Revolution and a smart man said to me that we were on the crest of a wave that is due to break but that we were ahead of our time. I didn't want to believe him but time is proving him right. Rather than leaving it on a sombre note I wish to answer the opening question. Yes it was made for virtually nothing but it has given me such deternination to continue that I don't think I could ever feel it was pointless. I'd love to get some substantial feedback yes. On a personal note I must continue to learn all I can from this and keep going if I ever wish to grow as a film-maker or a person. The real upside is, I love Cardiff and I've made a really fun Internet Drama Series where Cardifians can see some of their home city when they've got 5 mins procrastination time on the world wide web. I really love that thought and hope I can provide such a gift again in the future.