I was trying to make a film about a David Blaine style street magician called Dennis Turner. The joke of the film was that anyone he tried doing tricks for would simply run off, so the film itself wouldn't actually contain any street magic. One of the scenes was to contain some footage of the magician getting punched out, so I took my camera into an office I was working in at the time and got my mate Simon to fake a punch. Some months later, after being made redundant from the office - but not, I hasten to add, as a result of filming - I still had the punch scene but nothing else and wondered how I could incorporate that scene into something new, without having to go and film tons of new stuff. Thus was born Lies We Tell Our Friends . . . Simon agreed to take on the role of the boss and discovered that saying "You're fired" in a relaxed and matter-of-fact way isn't as easy as you might think. Here's the finished film:
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW WAS ONE INCH HIGH?
'Can I make a film in ten minutes?' I wondered.
The answer was yes, I could. And I did. The proof that I did is below.
What Would You Do If Your Mother-In-Law Was One Inch High? is obvious, not very inventive and won't have you rolling in the aisles. But I literally made this in ten minutes. I know this because I timed myself from the moment I pressed record on the first scene to the moment I finished transferring the film from digital video to the PC. I suppose if you include the time it took to do the opening and closing credits and add sound effects it would total up to just over 15 minutes.
And no, my mother-in-law hasn't seen it.
DRESSED TO KILL
In 2004, I entered The Nokia Shorts competition with a 15 second film entitled No Smoking. I didn't win the competition, but two years later I was asked if I'd like my entry to be part of the retrospective planned for the launch of the 2006 competition. Naturally, I said yes. This not only included having my film on the Nokia Shorts website, but having it screened in a West End cinema, along with all the others. It was seeing the film on the big screen that made me go home and make Dressed To Kill as a possible entry for the 2006 competition. I also made Lies We Tell Our Friends When They Have Much Better Jobs Than Ours which you can see elsewhere on this site. I entered that one for the compeition which, incidentally, I didn't win. So maybe Dressed To Kill should have gone in instead. Who knows. The point is, seeing that one film, that I'd made very quickly and never expected to hear of again, up there on the screen made me want to try again.
THE LONG WAIT
I didn't always want to make 15 second films. Oh no - I once had ideas way beyond my abilities and wrote a script for a 25 minute film based around the premise of a man waiting for a phone call. The film charted his descent into near madness as he has to spend his day warding off phone calls from other people as well as fighting against the boredom of the ticking clock.I shot all I needed, got down to editing it and discovered that I was able to tell the whole story, without reams of dialogue and pointless exposition in a fraction of the time. So I went with the short version. Here it is:
DON'T OPEN THE BAG, ALAN
This one started out life, believe it or not, as a very short piece of writing ina self-published book of short bits and pieces entitled I Am An Apple. It was called What's In The Bag, Frank? The idea - someone having a bag and not knowing what was inside it - stayed with me and it formed the basis of the following film. Again, the film started out about 20 minutes longer than the finished version, with a load of dialogue and the main character engaging in a series of telephone calls to his mates and family who all goad him into opening the bag and taking a risk for once in his life. Again, the shortened version tells the story adequately in a lot less time.
THE McDEATH TRIO (LIVE IN BETHNAL GREEN)
The title says it all really.
The McDeath Trio, apart from being three of the most outstanding chaps you could hope to meet, are also my mates. Hence the last sentence. The three of them are all ex-members of Mondo Wray instrumental legends The Charles Napiers. Not unsurprisingly, The McDeath Trio continue along the same musical path, but with a sparse, stripped down approach that works very successfully. Sparse and stripped down doesn't have to mean quiet, though. You'll hear what I mean when you watch the film below.
Just a quick note about the film. Originally I'd wanted to cut in interview footage with Dan that I'd intended to shoot in the car on the way up to/back from the gig. I left it until we came back and wished I hadn't as the batteries in the camera had run out. So, rather than wait for another opportunity to interview, I decided to cut some scenes of myself into the film instead. They proved to be unfunny and unneccessary, so I stripped it all back and did the straight performance footage. I was using one camera, so had to cut in footage from other tunes later in the set for close ups, otherwise the film would have been from one angle and, consequently, visually boring. Admittedly, it's not full of ground-breaking camera expertise but that's not what I'm making these films for.
For further information on The McDeath Trio, The Charles Napiers and the countless other musical offerings and alter egos of guitarist Dan Whaley, I really would suggest that you look at the highly entertaining http://www.danwhaley.co.uk/. It's a cracking read.
THE RICHWOODS: LIVE AT HORSHAM FOLK CLUB - 4th May 2008
I happen to be one third of The Richwoods, a ukulele instrumental trio. They have a website of their own which can be found here. It's worth a visit as there's a ton of information on there.
We made our public debut on 4th May at Horsham Folk Club in Sussex, where my mate Simon took a turn behind the camera and captured the whole proceedings.
Oh . . . and Simon? You're fired.
INTERVIEWED BY A DOOR HANDLE
I just thought it was a funny idea.
WELL WORTH THE WAIT
Likewise.
