On a personal note I’ve had to dedicate an hour each morning to setting up and sending the e-mails to all those people. Yoga has gone out of the window and so my mood has taken a drop as well. The approach to my job has changed due to its mundane consistency and I’ve stopped writing my blog on the train or in my luck hour because 1. I’m spending too much money on coffee and 2. I’m sick of looking at a computer screen from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. I feel I am no longer a filmmaker but and annoying marketing undergraduate with no specified focus in what he’s doing. The immature advertising major over saturating the clientele with information, putting people off rather than on to the product. Time is precious. Time is money. Its this time I am trying to hijack, this money, this focus. Maybe I need to re-iterate that I’m not making a penny from this. Not a cent, not a dime, not a Krona. The negativity is deep but not over-powering.
Positively: I had a message from guy I did a days film workshop with saying he’d actually bothered to sit down and watch the whole series. He said he was gripped and thought it was very well made. I recall the line from the SunScreen track that Baz Luhman did, it went something like, “Remember the good comments, forget the insults.” How true. I think about the celebrities that put up with the comments everyday and on a very miniature scale relate to their pain. On the other hand, getting any reaction is better than no reaction at all. I like the series, I like the comments, I like the idea and I like that I did most of the work. I built confidence in myself. I can write, I can be a filmmaker, I can be what I want to be. The biggest problem is getting paid to do it. I’m sure bigger people than me have tried and failed.
Positively again, Pizzaman has given me respect. Respect from people I’ve met in the TV industry. All those contacts I first made. I get asked questions about how to write, how to get into the TV drama industry, how to do what I’ve just done and where did I get the financing. It feels like a compliment when people ask about the financing, as there wasn’t any. If it feels like there is, then we did well to mask that fact. I’m asked for drinks or meetings with people like I’m going to be the contact to know in the future and some places have even given me free food when they see what I’m doing. Sadly this doesn’t translate into a better way of living for my wife and future children but it does make my mind feel better about itself. It has given me conviction in my ability to know what is good and what is not good. This is a hugely subjective concept and I go on what I like rather than what I think works to any particular criteria. Instinct and self-belief in that instinct is very important. I’ve found that the best way to gage this is from the off-the-cuff remarks from people. These are spoken without intent or subtext or if they are then you have to gage the person saying them. Are they genuine? Are they after something? Or are they that smart? Again the problem there is, if they aren’t that smart then can you count their vote of confidence as valid? Of course you can.
The real question is, who counts? In the bigger version of this question I think everybody counts and no-one should be left behind but in the film world then who on earth really genuinely counts? The money providers or the public? This is a bit of a chicken and the egg scenario as the money providers would not provide if they did not think there was a public audience. Therefore how do you persuade them there is an audience without any substantial data. All you really get these days is a poster, a review and a comment on a TV review programme. You may get substantial coverage even and this might translate into the people who don’t have much to do and happen along to the cinema but the question remains, what entices audiences and how do you convey this to them before they watch it? Of course the obvious tack is the choice to be part of this machine by a star or celebrity. If you can’t get a celebrity then get twenty of them to show that either you have a lot of money to throw around (and if you do then why not get a star) or they all like you and have given their approval to your forthcoming product in order for an audience to relate to it through them. It is a strange game. Get an American star and you can truly go global if you live up to their acceptance. The British certainly need this. I mean the recognition of something familiar. A personality that gives credence. I opt for the Patric Stewart or Sir Ian MacKellen gravitas. I have to start smaller of course, be more in control than wildly flinging names out to get attention although it is exactly what I’d do for my films, I would then make sure I had the back up. I mean the story the action the grip of something you need to see because of importance. I’m sure I’ll make a lot of crap but I’m also sure I’ll make something so good that it will set me, my wife and my kids up for life allowing me more time to make more films. For me the writing is key to anything near this. Pipe dreams, maybe but it is what drives me to live each day although I certainly wouldn’t worry too much if I didn’t get there. I let go for it to become what it is truly meant to be.
Getting back into writing is certainly a pleasure. I will get back into the yoga shortly I’m sure. Pizzaman will end completely and I’ll be freer than I’ve felt in years. I have loved every moment and new experience that its afforded me and I love the contact I have made. A wise man said to me that the hardest thing to do is to just keep going, keep focused and keep my spirit alive. DO NOT STOP! I guess if they thought I couldn’t do it or if it wasn’t any good or they did not see some spark of attractive creativity within me then they would not have said anything. In fact I may not have ever met them. These are suppositions but ones that make me believe anything is possible. I do believe that if its not what the world wants you to do then you’ll know pretty quickly.
The other day I had such an experience of not wanting to do something I’d set up. I went to the Westfield shopping centre with Jim Gault and his digi8 handicam to film me giving a review of the Harry Potter movie. I did the review but had not prepared or even felt any guilt for not preparing. I had not even written a review that I could refer to. Incidentally the review of The Social Network for the South Wales Echo was not used and I was thanked for my efforts but that they have their own writers sending them things from London. I would’ve thought they might like a born and bred Cardiffian writing for them but it was not to be. I was not that disappointed but knew that to get that gig I would have to pretty much insist reviews upon them once or twice every week from then on to convince them I was serious. It was one of those things that if they said they would like more then I would’ve gladly done it but as I would have to put so much effort into getting the gig I realise I don’t really, really want to do it. It would take focus off my filmmaking. The same went for the filmed review. One thing I’ve realised is I don’t like being the commenting observer, I actually want to be the pioneering doer. I don’t really want to rip other people’s film work apart either unless I’m analysing for a particular reason. WalesOnline are looking for original content but there is no budget for it. I could end up doing stuff for free for my whole life if I let it happen. In that regard, Pizzaman was a freebee, a freebee that cost me money and time. I did the review half-heartedly. Everything about it and around it felt wrong. Not that I didn’t give it passion in what I was saying but that I gave the review on a less than quality camera in a place I had not gained permission for and I cobbled together thoughts about a film from all the other reviews I’ve already heard. I did like watching it back as I think I’m a good speaker but the content was not there at all. Jim is a lovely fellah but so inexperienced that he was asking me what I meant with some of the terms I was using like ‘non-sync-wide’. I was not prepared and did not wish to do it and I told him as much although making sure I was polite about it.
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