Next Year In Jerusalem

Yesterday I attended the first public showing of a doco I've been working on for the last five years, editing and producing. It's the story of a play about NZ poet James K Baxter, and the group of people who defied the odds to take the play around New Zealand and to the Edinburgh festival.

The doco weaves together the failed dreams of Baxter to establish a community, and his haunting presence with the cast and crew while they, 30 years after his death, sought to bring his message back to life. The making of the documentary had been beset with various difficulties, not the least of which being a certain cameraman who managed to record over the irreplaceable tapes of the journey.

Nevertheless, yesterday was the launch of the 60 min film, and it was an outrageous success. I was prepared for many reactions, but not the enthusiastic endorsement of it which came from audience members.

I found it very affirming. Especially seeing I was cringing throughout the screening, aware of all the glitches and shortcomings. It renewed my belief that story is king - that if there is a narrative heart to a film, the audience will be very forgiving.

The title, Next Year In Jerusalem, is a play on words. Baxter's community was in the small New Zealand town of Jerusalem. But the phrase is also a refrain from those caught up in the Jewish diaspora, and represents their profound and enduring dream. The doco examines the role that people's dreams have on their lives, if in a somewhat tangental way.

The filming of The Insatiable Moon is a seven year dream. At many times it has seemed an impossible dream. Yesterday's screening has helped me to maintain the hope that the cameras will roll this year.

City of My Youth

Ahh, Dunedin... it's not the city of my youth actually, but that's a James K Baxter poem and I couldn't resist the title. I love Dunedin. It's a city of only 120,000 people, and yet there's so much going on in the creative sector - more so than in much bigger cities.

Last night was at the opening of the DocNZ festival in Dunedin. Great night out. But alongside that, the Dunedin Festival of Film & Television Craft begins today, and the Fringe Festival also kicks off. So everyone with a vaguely creative bone in their body is racing around in circles... I'm down here to do a premiere of a doco which has been 5 years in the making. It's a real Dunedin story and no better place to launch it.

Off to a seminar this morning run by NZFC about making short films as a pathway to features. This is a time-honoured pathway, but I wonder how often it is followed? There's a huge step up from shorts to features - almost might as well be a different sphere altogether. While shorts hone skills, it's a big ditch to jump to get into the world of features.

Meanwhile, out into the streets of Dunners...

Bread on the Waters

Yesterday I did one of those very difficult tasks - trawling my networks for potential investors. Like most people, I hate mixing friendship with money. But where else to start raising NZ$500k for this end of our equity investment?

Fortunately I had some very positive responses. I tried to phrase the covering email as gently and graciously as possible, and was surprised at some of the enthusiastic replies I had within hours of sending it out. Time will tell if these bear fruit in terms of investment.

I had one over-scrupulous lawyer who implied I might be in breach of securities commission regulations. Yada yada... Fortunately we have NZ's leading film attorney representing us, so no concerns there.

Being a producer is about making decisions - many of them difficult. It's also, as one of my friends says, about not looking down! Anyone who has seen Man On Wire will appreciate this sage advice.

A mad scramble today trying to get a final copy of a doco I produced ready to screen in Dunedin this weekend. My friend and sound man missed the courier last night, and so his son is driving the soundtrack down from Auckland!

Ah the life of making films...

More on Adaptation

Been away in Nelson for a few days - back into it today.

Let's talk about adaptation. The funniest and most insightful commentary on this is the Kaufman's film Adaptation, about the process of writing a screenplay based on the book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean.

Early in the script, Kaufman (a character in the film) says about transforming the book:

"I just don't want to ruin it by making it a Hollywood thing. You know? Like an orchid heist movie or something, or, y'know, changing the orchids into poppies and turning it into a movie about drug running, you know? ... I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases. You know? Or characters learning profound life lessons. Or growing, or coming to like each other, or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. You know? I mean, the book isn't like that, and life isn't like that. It just isn't."

Which is pretty much a description of exactly how the movie ends up.

When it came time to adapt my own novel, two things were necessary. The first was enough distance from it to be able to look at it as a story without feeling overly protective toward it. The second was the willingness to travel in new directions with characters and subplots. Fiction can meander, and the reader enjoy the distractions. In a film people will begin to drop off the narrative, and suddenly you've lost your audience.

And the hardest thing to get used to is an army of people reading your work in draft stage, each with their own bright ideas as to how it could be improved. Some of these insights, or 'notes', can be helpful and make for a stronger story. Some are so dumb that you just need to keep your lips pursed and think of England.

In the end, the screenwriter must live or die by their own sense of what the story is, who the characters are, and how the whole thing holds together. No one else in the team can take that responsibility, not even the director. A film is nothing if not an original insight into the human condition.

The trick is to recognise you're performing a heart transplant, and not just doing a precis of a book. Writers, like heart surgeons, struggle with the issue of rejection...

Script Lock

Yesterday I sent out the scene numbered and locked script for preparing budgets and schedules. There's still a bit of work going on between director Gillies and me, which will involve a few tweaks further down the track. But this is a major step along the way.

In discussions with the NZ Film Commission about the possibilities of an application for production funding at their June meeting. A great deal of documentation has to be collated before we can get to that point. Deadline is mid-May, just before I head over to the UK to consult with our partners over there.

Some discussions taking place with potential distributors - interesting how the resolve to make the movie seems to attract interest.

I'm enjoying the broad mix of production tasks, though at times I forget which hat I'm wearing. But I'm a firm believer in writers learning production skills and being aware of all aspects of the filmmaking process. It helps to soften the feelings of lack of control...

Finance

The most difficult part of getting a feature film up is of course raising the finance. Making a movie is, unfortunately, a very expensive business. Currently the market is as tight as the proverbial, with some of the studios having taken big hits, and distributors about as risk-averse as it's possible to get.

One of the concerns in such climates is that people retreat to what they imagine to be 'safe' - genre movies following tried and tested patterns. Bread and circuses to distract the masses from the difficulty of their lives. What suffers in such circumstance are the truly original and creative projects, which by their nature take audiences down unexplored paths.

The Insatiable Moon is one of those films. We've had to be extremely creative about our finance plans in order to get it moving. One of the necessary steps was to pare the budget to the bone. Another is to trawl our contacts for equity investors. We're looking for people who are willing to take the risk of investing in something which has no guarantees, but is one of those instances when money works for the good of life.

Perhaps the current 'recession' is a useful reminder that life is not completely summed up in financial terms. Certainly that's something which Arthur, hero of The Insatiable Moon, would want to get across...

Networks

A great time up in Auckland over the last few days, making steady progress. I met with several people, and managed to secure another major location in Ponsonby.

Also a good friend of mine, Mark Pierson, brokered an introduction to an extremely helpful and inspirational Ponsonby businessman, who was full of enthusiasm for the project. As a result, we have secured a production office and shoot base, been offered links with the local business community, and introductions to potential investors.

If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a city to make a film! So much of the process relies on relationships and networks, with everyone bringing their own energy to the project and working together to realise a dream.

Just Talking

A long conversation with Marilyn Milgrom, Head of Development at NZ Film Commission, the other day. I outlined the recent background to our project, including the fact that we now have a new draft of the script, and that I was now the NZ producer.

It was the latter point which creates most difficulty for them. Despite the fact I've produced a play which toured both nationally and to Edinburgh, a short film and a feature doco, I don't have experience on a feature. Even with veteran Tim Sanders looking over my shoulder and assisting in the process, my producer role is a stumbling block for the Commission.

However, Marilyn was as ever helpful, suggesting that as the development phase of the project was virtually finished, it would be more helpful to pass things on to Mladen Ivancic who handles the production financing side of things. The current aim is to try to get a meeting with him and me and Tim sometime in the next week or two, where we can thrash things through.

Were we to get the go-ahead to apply for funding, it would be at the June board meeting, and there's a ton of paperwork to be done before then.

Meanwhile, as I said to Marilyn, we have a steely determination to shoot in November, with or without the Film Commission's participation. We're going to make a movie, despite the odds...

Bleeding Words

Well, the draft of the final draft is drafted! One of the requirements was to lose about 8 pages of script (which equates to 8 minutes of film, and a lot of setups which our budget may not bear). I managed to do that, but at some cost. Part way through I wrote to the director telling him I couldn't cut any more without hacking into my veins.

He replied that he was pleased I was going to be cutting my veins, as a little pain always helps the process! He also repeated the old adage that writing is simple - you just need to sit down and open a vein.

Anyway, we're heading toward lockdown. Notes to come back, a polish to complete, and then I can get back to production tasks. Trying to engineer a conversation with the NZ Film Commission, but not getting very far at the moment.

The other issue is casting the female lead - a great part for the right person. Gillies (director) is of the opinion we should be raising our sights and looking for a good international actor. Or maybe there's a NZ unknown just waiting somewhere...

Back in the Engine Room

Chasing a self-imposed deadline to get the final draft of the script ready for locking so that budgets and schedules can be done. Of course, the word 'final' needs to be interpreted liberally. I'm under orders to cut 8 pages from the screenplay - pure agony, but I see the point.

Can a hardened television journo be redeemed? I've taken the optimistic view, and rather than take her out (as suggested a couple of posts ago), have decided to rewrite the character somewhat. The trouble is that everything affects everything else in a screenplay, especially when you start screwing with the characters.

Changing hats back into writer mode is proving satisfying, but there's also a number of production tasks hovering in the wings. Multi-tasking is kind of what filmmaking is all about. That and the ability to hold waves at bay with the simple gesture of a hand.

On top of it all, there's a screening of a doco I produced in Dunedin in a couple of weeks, so a bit to do on that as well...

Moneychangers & Merchants

Yesterday I attended a NZ Film Commission sponsored seminar in Auckland, entitled 'Wowing the Buyers'. It featured several international acquisitions people from companies such as Metrodome and Fox Searchlight. It was a fascinating insight into their world. The highlight was definitely NZ satirist Tom Scott speaking about his 25 year journey to try and get a film about Ed Hillary up. And especially his story about an American producer who had pubic hair transplanted to his head.

Another positive was to learn what high regard the NZ Film Commission's sales department was held in by all of the distribution companies. Big ups to Kathleen Drumm, who does a brilliant job.

Lots of networking happening of course, with a big crowd of NZ film production celebs, as well as the usual cast of wannabees. I was surprised by how many people I knew, having always considered myself an outsider.

I'm not sure about these acquisitions guys, I have to say. I have this tragic feeling that they are people who used to love film for its own sake, but have now sold out and see nothing but dollars. All of them are living off the back of the creative work of filmmakers, but somehow they seem to me to have crossed over to the dark side.

One of them was the very person who stifled a deal on Insatiable Moon, because it had been proposed by his predecessor. Maybe that contributes to my jaundiced view.

The commercial aspects of the industry are a necessary evil, but it's not a pleasant world to encounter. I think Gerald Manley Hopkins had it right:

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod:

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

Murder

Yesterday I completed the move to my new office/edit suite, which means I now go out to work - even if it's only a walk of 20 metres. I feel like I have a real job now.

And to complement the physical process of shifting, there's a certain rearrangement of elements called for in the screenplay of Moon. Some of the changes are relatively easy to make. Others require a little contemplation. The director and I are pondering the place of one of the prominent characters. Either to find more reason for her being there, or to excise her altogether.

In many ways it would be simply to engage in a little authorial homicide. But I need to think carefully about what would be lost (to the story as well as to the vital life-signs of the aforesaid character).

As so many have noted, the process of writing is so often about 'killing your darlings'. It's unusual, and possibly more complex, to have the author of a novel adapting his own work for screen. The darlings are somewhat more adored.

But that's not my problem at the moment. It's whether the moider would enhance or damage the story, not to mention the structure of the script. All too easy to pull one thread and watch the whole garment unravel.

I've decided to brood on it, harbouring these dastardly thoughts in my heart. To kill or to transform, that is the question...

Riding the Wave

Over the course of all the years of development, there are highs and lows. Sometimes it seems more lows than highs, and you begin to get resigned to disappointment and knockback. Easy to live life in a fog of muffled depression, and to lose hope.

But the good times, when they come, are all the sweeter. Today I received a readout from my director Gillies on the last draft of the script. He made some excellent suggestions which I could instantly see would be improvements - the value of having an experienced eye, and that of someone who is a writer himself, cast over the screenplay.

As well as the suggestions, he had some accolades - "As before, I saw it all playing in front of my eyes as I read... the characters and dialogue sparkle... " Such encouragement in the life of a writer is not to be underestimated.

Of course, the changes to the script need to be made, and I need to get onto them pronto. But I do it now with a song in my heart.

Also yesterday I had coffee with my producer friend Tim Sanders and his wife Ava, as they passed through on their way up to Auckland where Tim will be overseeing a new TV series. Great to catch up and swap a few war stories.

Making a film is as much about relationships forged in the long haul of the creative process as it is about the madness of the actual process.