Bryan Makes Films

Just watched On A Clear Day on BBC iPlayer which you can get to here…

I had seen the film before and really enjoyed it. Being Glaswegian I do like a Scottish film or two. I don’t know what it is but everytime I watch one now I also end up with watery eyes. If I watch this film, the flying Scotsman or even braveheart I can’t stop myself.

I do want to make a Scottish film and in my head I wrote Booked Out as a film set in Scotland but for practical reasons it will be easier for it to be set in London. I do have an idea for a great Scottish film though and think I might attack that after I get Booked Out finished!

Why make one film when you can think of making loads!

I really like Peter Mullans performance in this film. He really embodies the life and soul of so many people that I have seen and spoke to in Glasgow. I think he is one of the most talented actors and directors that are currently working in the UK and will always look to check his work out whenever it comes out.

The film is quite simple in terms of the standard underdog formula but it is executed well and resonates with me. You should all go and watch it while you can!

Today I decided to visit an exhibition on Polaroid photographs to see if they gave me inspiration for the Polaroid pictures that will be taken by Ailidh within the film. I want to be able to create a Polaroid collage.

This exhibition was at the Pumphouse Gallery in Battersea Park and was put together because the Polaroid factory was shut down earlier this year I believe and the last film is dated October 2009. I have stocked up on Polaroid film for Booked Out though and have crossed my fingers that it still works ok next February when we come to make the film.

The exhibition was a bit of a disappointment if I tell the truth. There wasn’t enough Polaroids for my liking and with the ones that they did have there wasn’t anything particularly interesting in them. There was a couple of nice ones that were composed nicely and had vibrant colours. I started to take some general pictures of the gallery before being told that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures.

Call the cops… I took a picture!

I never understand why galleries are like that. Especially an exhibition about the loss of the Polaroid image. You think they would want you to take pictures to preserve them or to give some support for them! Grr!

I would like to say though that for all of you Polaroid lovers you should visit The Impossible Project who are trying to save the Polaroid film medium. Fingers crossed that they produce those lovely Polaroids once again!

I couldn’t wait to see Fantastic Mr Fox. Wes Anderson is one of my favourite directors and I was one of those children who was never without a Roald Dahl book so there was big expectations on my part.

As with anything that you hype up I don’t think it can ever really hit your expectations. I think it is a good film and kept me entertained throughout. My problem though is that if I go to watch a Wes Anderson film I expect to watch a film that will be one of my favourite films of all time and he isn’t going to be able to deliver that every time and he doesn’t here.

Saying this I really loved lots of things about the film. I really liked the look of the stop motion animation and the choice of direction. I also liked the secondary characters in the film. I would love to have watched the Owen Wilson character for a lot longer and Jason Schwartzman.

The funny thing that I thought was that I didn’t see this as a kids film and was unsettled when I showed up at the cinema and there was lots of kids there. They were ok though – not too much noise!

In summary I liked the film and it is definitely a Wes Anderson film but not for kids.

Another weekend… another film at the film festival… another disappointment unfortunately. I went to see Alexander The Last by Joe Swanberg. The director was there again and I found listening to him more interesting than the film that he had produced.

The film was really low budget and he had improvised the whole film and shot it himself, so the film had a documentary style commentary to it. My problem was that I didn’t really feel anything for two of the main characters. I just feel that they were a bit wooden which is surprising as it was meant to be ad-libbed so that it felt more natural and real but that didn’t come across for me.

The best part was when Justin Rice was on screen but he wasn’t on display enough for me. I really got a feeling for him and the girl that was in his band.

As an interesting side note for me, Joe was talking about being attached to a project that had been written by Jeffrey Brown who is one of my comic book authors. I found it really bizarre that of all the films that I chose that I went to one by a director who knows my favourite graphic novelist!

I thought I would go along and rub shoulders with the film festival crowd this weekend. I seen two films which I will give my opinion on below!

Like You Know It All at ICA 1

This was a bit of a random choice as I left the booking quite late and it was one of the only things available. I think I would summarise it as amusing in parts but probably not cohesive enough in an overall story. It was also overly long in my opinion.

There was a great section of the film about half way in between where this film director meets an old friend who was a bit of a character and a series of crazy things happened to him and then it culminated in his friend throwing a rock at him and smacking him in the face. This was definitely the high point in the film for me before it started getting a bit boring really.

Trying not to follow my sequence of complaining about cinema experiences but it was in one of those old school theatre style cinemas that mean that my 6 foot frame struggles to fit into the sits meant for a small man born in the 1800s.

The Exploding Girl at NFT3

I was really looking forward to exploding girl from the story outline that I had read and from the stills that I seen. It seemed right up my street. I was a bit disappointed though. The film looked stunning and I think the shots were well thought out but the story lacked any sort of bite from my point of view.

I didn’t feel anything for the characters that I was watching. There can be films where nothing happens but they really evoke something inside of you and I think this was where this film was trying to get to but for me it failed. Some of the imagery was stunning though. They filmed it predominantly using long lenses I believe and it give it a really nice dynamic.

The director was there afterwards answering questions and seemed like a nice guy. I was sitting there thinking that I am going to be scared to death answering questions from the audience on my film! Especially with some of the pretentious questions that he was asked afterwards. I get the feeling that people only ask questions because they want the rest of the audience to think how clever they are.

I have been a big fan of the Guerilla Film Makers Handbooks so I was quite excited to find out that one of the films by the authors was going to be on TV. I watched it on BBC iPlayer though as they had scheduled it for some ridiculous time of night.

I was particularly interested in watching the film to understand what they had came up with with a budget that was in the same ball park as my film.

Overall I found the film keep me interested all the way through and I enjoyed it. I think the following things were interesting to me:

• The actors all spoke in Glaswegian and being from Glasgow I really liked this. I wonder though if there was some thought in this area in terms of saleability of the film with regional accents. Personally I really like that and would do what they did as it suited the film and gave it an authentic quality.
• Billy Boyd strolling in as the “hard man” was great. I could have watched him all day.
• The young actress Heather Ann Foster was really impressive and believable within the role.
• Their special effects were really good for the budget they had. In some aspects I felt that they were too good and seemed slightly out of place with the rest of the film.
• I thought that there could have been more jump out of your skin moments than there was.

I would definitely recommend you to watch the film if you get a chance and especially if you are looking to make a micro-budget film although the imagery looked slightly dated now.

Other than that I regularly read the Chris Jones Blog and would advise any budding film-makers to do the same.

This is probably one of my favourite films that I have seen this year to date. Maybe I will attempt a top 10 next… watch this space. I just really love indie films and that is part of the reason why I am making Booked Out. I have about 4 other film ideas that I thought about but I think the one that was closest to being part of me and what I am really about was Booked Out.

Of my other films I have one Sci-Fi Robert K. Dick style story, a political melting pot thriller, a love story and a coming of age type story. Each has a similar style that is tailored to what I like and find interesting in films. I really want the characters to be unique and interesting and to make the audience really care about what they are doing and this transcends all of the films that I have written or are in some state of being written. I don’t think I set out to write films in different genres but these are just the ideas that have germinated from a line on a piece of paper to being a story that I want to tell.

Anyway… this was meant to be about Adventureland. Although good and probably one of my favourites I still think it falls short of a Napoleon Dynamite or Wes Anderson style film but it did tick a lot of the boxes for me.

The style of the characters, set design and overall tone was perfect. It really created that world and you believed that the characters existed within this wacky world that they were living their lives within. The music was great and I couldn’t stop laughing whenever “Rock Me Amadeus” came on. If you haven’t seen it then that is a reason to watch it!

Rock Me Amadeus

The story was sweet enough. I really liked the Kirsten Stewart character and in some ways felt that she wasn’t explored enough for my liking. Perhaps if she had then it would have taken away from the story a bit so I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

I think the richness of all of the supporting characters did it for me. They were all really defined, unique and funny and this makes a real difference when creating the world that they live within.

There is too many of the supporting characters that I loved to mention. Just go watch the film and be prepared to laugh.