Today - October 14th - I deactivated my X/Twitter account for Voyageuse. It's exactly 11 years ago on this day I decided to make the film, after receiving a cursory two-line rejection email from Creative Scotland - a long and sorry story - I was and am ineligible for Screen Scotland funding - apparently I don't meet their criteria. It was the first and only time I submitted an application. When I asked for feedback as to why my project was rejected, their response: "we have other, higher priority projects" was a perfect summation of what I already knew.
That I made the film with zero funding remains an achievement. By summoning my inner Imp - I was an Imp in the Brownies long ago - I spent three years writing, designing, shooting, editing, grading and creating a sound design by applying what Robert Bresson described as "he who can work with the minimum can work with the most." It's a mantra I live by. My next three planned projects - God willing - will adopt the same model, if more nuanced and refined - using CGI, live action and life's little accidents, the serendipitous events that occur in real life that can change the course of a story, of a life.
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My husband caught me tapping on my laptop the other night. He asked what I was writing. “A blog post,” I replied, so he said, “Then write something self-affirming, something uplifting.” It doesn’t come easily. It’s over a year since I last posted on this site but on each attempt the words refused to be positive, so I lost heart and pressed delete instead.
On an overcast Friday in early February I’m writing this in my shed. Only I’m not. I’m staring at a set of colour-coded index cards on the wall, each card representing a scene for my ongoing project, Tilo in Real Life. On a shelf, alongside other props, sit three small electrical appliances purchased from eBay who appear as characters in the film, but right now they act as my conscience, taunting me to get back to work. This year, I tell them, this year.
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Like anyone with a stake in the culture game I've heard the plea; Who will think of the poor _____? (fill the blanks yourselves). On social media that plea is loudest among the theatre lobby, followed by live music - and rightly so. Seven months into Covid-19 those who believe the arts are a luxury are waking up to the fact that while bread might keep you alive, circuses are an incentive to not kill yourself.
Curiously silent on the matter of its imminent demise is the film/TV sector which arguably has done more than most to keep the population a) at home and b) sane. However the people who make film and TV are mostly freelancers in an already precarious field and unfairly excluded from the UK Government's furlough scheme.
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As the days grow shorter and colder I'm glad to be back in Glasgow after my travels with Voyageuse. Glad too because I'm able to focus on my latest project, Tilo in Real Life, which after months of thinking, writing, re-writing and testing I'm confident can work as a film, or at least a film I'm able (and want) to make within my meagre resource. How do I know this? I don't, but I trust my instincts more than I trust my government.
Chances are you're reading this via a link on social media which these days is essential for any independent filmmaker even though it's hard to be heard above the noise of all the other filmmakers, writers and artists plying their wares.
Here I marvel at the chutzpah of my peers and the apparent ease with which they promote themselves, their goals and achievements, from winning awards to shaking down followers on crowdfunding campaigns. If only I had the nerve, I tell myself, to make bolder claims for my work.
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