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Focus, plans, ambitions for 2010 January 13, 2010

Posted by joost in : directing, festivals, film, london, producing, reflection, screenwriting, work , comments closed

The start of a new year is always a good moment to write down plans and ideas. My ambition is to…

Specific goals and focus for the start of this year:

November activities December 2, 2009

Posted by joost in : LFA, festivals, film, reflection, screening, screenwriting, work , comments closed

An overview of what I have been working on in the last month:

Funding proposals update (second half of 2008) October 21, 2008

Posted by joost in : film, funding, london, netherlands, producing, screenwriting , comments closed

A quick update on the three scripts and proposals for funding that I had been working on in August and September:

NPS One Night Stand – They received 125 entries, my treatment has not made it to the final 18. A pity, although I gauged that this scheme was probably more oriented towards writer/directors who have a couple of years of film making under their belt, so I wasn’t too surprised. At least they’ve seen my name for the first time, more will follow in the future!

UK Film Council / Film4 Cinema Extreme – In progress, will receive feedback half December. I submitted roughly the same treatment here (but adapted to the UK) as to One Night Stand since it is a similar scheme. Chances of success are slim here as well judging on the winners of previous grants, almost all filmmakers with a number of successful short films on their CV’s. Curious to see what will happen nevertheless.

North London Production Fund – Received a phone call last week, my script and proposal made it to the final round and I was invited for an interview! This took place on Friday the 17th of October. I had half an hour to introduce myself, to talk about my plans for the film and to answer a series of questions on the script, the characters, the visuals, etc etc etc. They will tell me this week whether or not they will award me some funding!

Coming up in the next few weeks are new scripts and proposals for:

One Night Stand August 21, 2008

Posted by joost in : film, screenwriting , comments closed

The past few days I’ve done nothing but writing, thinking, scrapping, pondering, rewriting and reading. I’ve been working on a synopsis for the One Night Stand initiative by the NPS / VPRO / VARA (Dutch broadcasters) / Dutch Filmfund / CoProduction Fund / anyone-who-claims-to-be-anyone when it comes to Dutch film development and funding.

Albert and Karin pointed me to this initiative a couple of weeks ago (thanks again for this guys!). It’s geared towards up and coming writers and directors, and it is a high-quality well-funded plan for 9 “tv films” of 40 minutes each, with a budget up to €230.000 (!). A great opportunity, not only because of the production value but mainly because of the people and organizations involved. If I ever want to make films in the Netherlands – and why not? – then these are the companies and producers that you will eventually have to deal with.

Today I will send off my proposal. I consider it a good way to “test the waters”, to ascertain how third (Dutch) parties will weigh the fact that I’ve studied and made films in London, how they will perceive my relatively lightweight resume and to check out the competition of fellow young film makers.

Best case: hitting the jackpot and getting paid to develop the screenplay and to direct that film :-) Slim chance but hey, can’t hurt to fantasize!
Even getting through to the next round would be interesting, because that will enable me to introduce myself to the aforementioned parties and producers.
Worst case: “Thank you for your proposal. Unfortunately, …”. Which will at least tell me something about where I am now on a professional level, so that alone will be useful knowledge.

No matter what will happen, in the next few weeks I will be writing and submitting a number of other screenplays / synopses for short films, in an attempt to get funding:

By the looks of it I will stay in writing mode in the foreseeable future, which is great because I’ve (finally) gotten the hang of it again after a few slow months (writing wise that is).

Equinox June 9, 2008

Posted by joost in : directing, film, screenwriting , comments closed

Many months ago I wrote a short script which I gave the working title “Equinox”. This story started when a particular image suddenly hit me, an image of a man sitting at the end of a pier, looking over the water to the horizon. While I was writing I saw thoughts and emotions surface that I was going through at that moment. I incorporated those into the story, making it the most personal screenplay I had written so far.

The next few months I focussed on “Rule 2″ and wrapping up my year. For me it was clear that this would be my first ‘independent’ short film that I wanted to make after the LFA. From a production point of view it is relatively simple film (one actor, one location, exterior so no additional lights needed, etc) and more importantly, I really wanted to see this story come to life in the form of a short film.

After a short stint of preproduction I directed this film last Friday, with a small crew consisting of familiar faces from the LFA. It felt good to finally shoot this script, but in a way it felt like an anti-climax. I got all the shots that I wanted, tried some variations in the performance and wrapped before the tide of the Thames made further shooting impossible. I guess it’s just an odd feeling of bringing the script to life that I know inside and outside.
The plan is to edit the film in the next two weeks, so that I can submit the film to two short film competitions that offer publicity and prizes. Once the film is online, I’ll post an update.

Back in action January 26, 2008

Posted by joost in : LFA, editing, screenwriting , comments closed

In case you are wondering: no, I did not disappear from the face of the earth. Somehow I didn’t get round to updating this blog, even though there is plenty to tell! So here is a quick recap to satisfy your appetite.

Christmas and newyears back home were great. You know the drill; family, friends, catching up, boozing. Several good friends offered me their place to stay, which I gratefully accepted.

Part of the visits coincided with showing my work-in-progress version of “Rule 2″. I was really looking forward to this, because I could literally show what I had been working on in the past two or three months. Until that moment, only filmmakers had seen and commented on it. Now it was time for people close to me to watch it and share their thoughts. The most basic checks that I wanted to do were “Does the story make sense?”, “What do you feel (if anything) at the end of the film?” and “Were there parts where you got bored?”.

Of course people try to be nice so every now and then I had to push in order to hear what they really felt. It’s hard to summarize everything that I have heard, but the bottom line for me was that the film seems to work. Also interesting: I am not planning to change anything that I wasn’t already planning to change before. In other words: I received a lot of feedback, but nothing lead me to rethink or re-edit my film. Which is good I think! (or stubborn – you choose :-)

The second week of January I returned to London. Most important news that week was that we reached an agreement on making another (“the 4th”) film at the LFA! I’ll write about that at a later moment, what’s relevant for now is that I am trying to get this thing on the road together with some other determined students. Part of this process is that I have written a new short script that might be selected for this film. The plan is to prepare and shoot this extra film in February. Yay!

My year at the London Film Academy is nearly over. We all returned for three weeks of classes. I nicknamed the first week to “Life after the LFA”. We talked about and practiced how to (make a better) pitch, learned about what an agent can and can not do for us, how to make a filmmakers resume, we had career interviews, talks about wrapping up our production files, an ex-student telling how she managed to get a career going after graduating at the LFA, and last but certainly not least a visit to the Pinewood Studios!

Pinewood is like a industrial complex only filled with studios and film related companies, outside Northwest London. Two of our lecturers gave us a guided tour accompanied with all kinds of anecdotes of their filming experiences. Words are hard to describe what that day was like. It was the best way to finish that week. The start of the week everyone was (or got) worried; “how will I ever get a job in the film industry? how do I make sure I eventually get to do what I want to do?” (etc). The week ended with my whole group being psyched about the visit; “THIS is why I want to make films, this is where I want to be!”.
Not so strange when you know that we got to be on the infamous and massive 007 stage where they were shooting the new Bond film “Quantum of Solace” (!), that we were 2 inches away from Oscars, BAFTAs and Cesars for classic films like Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia (!), that we saw things like gigantic blue screens, special underwater facilities, old 35mm cameras and the preparation for a registration with four top of the line HD cameras of the King Lear play featuring Ian McKellen.

The past week we shot 10 short films in 5 days, with actors from the Central School of Speech and Drama. We filmed scenes from existing films. For them one of the first times they act on camera, for us an extra opportunity to direct, camera operate and to DoP. Quite a high pace, something we could achieve because we shot on a professional digital camera (and not film). And of course because we are a lot more experienced now than one year ago ;-)

Next week is the last week of our course. We have a couple of days left to finish the edits of our 10 minute films. Friday February 1st marks our official last day, with the screening of these films. My aim is to have “Rule 2″ completely ready by then. The picture is pretty much locked now, I just need to focus on the dub. Leveling the overall volume, fixing gaps, hisses, pops, clicks, adding ambient sounds, that kind of work.

In case you are wondering “So Joost, what are your plans after that week, what will you do?!”: February will function as a bridge between finishing my year and getting ready for the real world. I intend to stay in London the coming months, hopefully to work, but also to write and direct (my own) short films. And then we’ll see.

Screenplay round 1 complete June 26, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, screenwriting , comments closed

My screenplay is through to the next round! This means it is one of the five scripts that has been selected and that potential director’s can pitch for. The four most successful / promising pitches will lead to going into production. That means there’s a good 80% chance that my screenplay will be turned into a 5 minute film this summer! More news on the final selection next week.

Connecting the dots June 18, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, editing, screenwriting , comments closed

Last week was all about editing and writing. Although we are editing our 2 minute films and writing our 5 or 10 minute films, the combination was interesting. In one week we were both working on the start and the end of the film making process.

We spent several days editing our 2 minute films. We got assigned to edit somebody else’s film, because “in the real world” you also do not get to edit the film that you’ve written, produced or directed. In my case I got to edit a somewhat sad table conversation with a supernatural flavor. I liked editing it, because it had some technical and storytelling challenges.

From a technical point of view it was interesting because I had to “cut on action” between takes that did not connect nicely. In one take a character for instance said a line of dialogue before picking up a glass, and in the take that I wanted to cut to the line was said after picking up the glass. Which makes a cut impossible, ugly, or optimistically put: “challenging” :-)

From a story telling point of view, the scene cut together nicely but did not really convey what it was about until the very last seconds. It was too normal for a scene that has a supernatural touch to it, but there were no takes shot that gave hints in that direction. So in this case I had to find a way in the edit to get that point across. You’ll be able to judge yourself in about a week time when I upload the film.

At the same time, someone else was editing “my” film. She did a first rough cut, then tweaked that after some comments by the tutor, me and other students. Add some music, minor sound effects, titles, change the volume, tweak the pacing some more, and a few hours before we had to finish editing we decided to add in another shot because it felt that the film could use it. In the end I think we improved it but it caused us some last minute headaches because of awkward timing issues where we tried out several cutting options and where we literally were moving the cut one frame (1/24th of a second) forwards and backwards.

During the day we were editing, which meant that I spent several evenings rewriting my screenplay. Mine is shaping up to be a 5 minute film (about 5 pages).

One of the difficulties of the short film “genre” is that everything has to be spot on. In a feature there is more room for exposition and development, whereas in a short every sentence has to mean and add something to the overall message / theme. This means that you scrutinize every sentence and every line of dialogue that you write; “is this really necessary, what if I leave it out?”, “can’t I make it shorter?”, “does this move the story or the character forward?”.
We also have to take production considerations into account, setting the story in the Middle Ages with two armies in a big battle scene is sadly not an option. A lot of us got the advice to cut down the number of locations, and/or where possible to swap external locations for internal ones.

The cool thing in writing a short is that you’re aiming to connect all the events, characters and story elements with each other. And if you succeed in doing so, it really feels like you’re connecting all the dots. Suddenly it seems like there is only one logical and optimal way of unfolding the story and spreading your message. And you’ve just found it :-) Or at least I try to get closer to this nirvana one rewrite at a time :-)

Personal digital short: Self-portrait April 30, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, directing, editing, reflection, screenwriting , comments closed

Fifteen personal shorts, shot on digital video. Fifteen different stories that one way or the other tell you something about its maker. Here is mine.

Self-portrait, February 2007.

Nun’s knickers March 22, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, screenwriting, sound , comments closed

Last week we had to submit one or two proposals for a screenplay that will possibly be turned into a film later this year. The next weeks we’ll have weekly sessions where we will discuss our rewritten draft versions. Other students and tutors give feedback on each script and come up with new or alternative ideas for your screenplay. In reality it has just as much to do with the resulting screenplays as with exercises in creative writing, giving and receiving feedback and methodically getting to the core of your idea, characters and story.
I am quite happy with the proposal I wrote and with the enthusiastic reactions from the others. Yesterday I submitted the second draft of my proposal, tentatively called “The Number Cruncher”. A few weeks from now, the students can vote on the screenplay they’d like to film, an external screenwriter will give his or her opinion as well, but the LFA department heads have the final say. We’ll see how things will develop.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we received instructions on how to handle the film and audio gear that we will be using the rest of the year. This is every boy’s wet dream if your into technical stuff :-)
For the afficionados amongst you, we’re talking about an Arriflex SRIII Super16mm film camera, filming in 1:66, printing in 1:85 (cinematic widescreen format). Catalogue value is 20,000 pounds, add several (tens of) thousands of pounds for the lenses and other accessories… Audio will be mixed on a SQN Series IIIa mixer and recorded on DAT or a Flash recorder, using a wide variety of microphones. There is a bunch of lighting equipment as well, ranging from 300 to 2000 Watt and accompanied by all kinds of rigs.

Because this equipment is so expensive and heavily used by students of the LFA, there is a lot of paper work involved whenever one wants to use it. Every item in every box has to be verified and checked on a book out form, and the same when booking in at the end of the day (or at the end of a shoot). On our instruction days the paperwork and moving all the gear cost about an hour! When doing a shoot, they reserve half a day to an entire day for the booking out procedure. And apparently, this is the first example of lots of paper work to follow. I will write about this non romantic side of film making when it comes up.

Of course we got to practice after receiving the instructions: aligning the tripod, assembling the camera, loading film stock in the magasin (first in clear day light, then in a small tent without being able to see what you’re doing. Crrrazy!), setting up a lit set, tweaking the audio mixer, doing fake street interviews with different mics, …
One of the many things I learned during these days: camera people have a funny sense of humour. There’s a piece of cloth between the lense and the matte on a camera. This looks very much like something that you would use to tie your hair with. But here they call it “the nun’s knickers”. In a similar fashion, they have something called “the teddybear’s arsehole”… I’ll leave that one up to your imagination :-)