GOOD HOME TURF NEWS

We had some good news there a couple of weeks ago:

Home Turf won Best Short Documentary a the Kerry Film Festival!

We were delighted because we made a Kerry film - shot in Kerry, featuring Kerry people and produced by a Kerrywoman.


Our poster pic (above) even features a picture of a Kerryman - Aideen's dad... Mr. O'Sullivan.

We're really happy that the film is connecting. It's a simple film about cutting turf but we feel there are also a few more layers to it.

The juxtaposition of hand turf-cutting and machine methods visually tell the story of progress and we think, too, that the film reveals a certain type of masculinity that deserves celebration but is perhaps often overlooked.

With winter coming, the film really makes me long for a good turf fire. And a nice cup of tea!

More info on the film here:

http://www.hometurffilm.com/

LOOKING BACK AT THE BAILOUT

 The Bailout was a documentary I did last year while working in Prime Time that used eye-witness accounts to tell the story of how Ireland came to be in the EU/IMF financial programme.

It’s almost exactly a year since we made it and it reared it’s head again this week when it won Best Business Feature at the Smurfit Business Awards. Here’s a pic of reporter Robert Shortt picking up the award:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1119/two-rte-journalists-win-smufit-business-awards-business.html

It was a documentary that changed in form on a few ocassions during the making of it. At first, it was to be a shorter report that would allow in-studio discussion afterwards but halfway through filming an hour-long slot became available and suddenly we were under pressure to deliver a one-hour programme in a total of four-and-a-half-weeks. I think I had a pretty extreme look on my face for those few weeks!

I suddenly realised that I’d never done a full hour of interview-driven TV before. I’d done long documentaries driven by observational scenes and I had done plenty of short interview-based pieces but never a full hour. How to pace it? How many shots would I need?

So, I decided to resort to what I know... it was an unfolding story so I divided the documentary into scenes and thought about the relationship between those scenes and how they would drive the narrative on.

I wanted the documentary to work as a drama that had an “and then and then and then” flow with each scene being motivated by the last. I was working with the excellent and thorough reporter Robert Shortt and we both felt that we didn’t want commentary in the documentary and that really helped. Retrospective analysis would have interrupted the flow. We wanted the audience to stay in the moment and not to be pulled out of it by opinions.

We also had to think about how the reporter’s narration would work in that situation and I felt it was important to make sure that our interviewees revealed the important information, so we looked closely at each piece of voiceover to ensure that it didn’t give away the key information in the upcoming scene. If the audience knew what was coming up, why would they stay interested?

The Sunday Independent said the programme was “gripping” and hopefully that was a reflection of the way we approached it.

The documentary was on the RTE Prime Time website but seems to have disappeared today, so hopefully it'll reappear there soon.

EXCITING TIMES

In the last month or so there has been a flurry of activity. First, I was delighted to programme the IFI Dublin Documentary Festival, Stranger Than Fiction, which was opened by the sensational THE IMPOSTER. Director Bart Layton joined for a post film Q&A and he turned out to be a very sound man - staying until late as audience-members quizzed him about the film well into the night.

HOME TURF won the 'Man and Nature' award at Film Festival Della Lessinia in Italy and then screened again in Los Angeles last week.

LINK: http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&aid=73&rid=4285271&tpl=archnews&only=1

At the same time, BYE BYE NOW has had a bit of a revival and had its Irish television premiere on RTE. A week later it was selected to represent Ireland at the EU Film Festival in China where one film from each EU film will be screened.

LINK: http://www.thejournal.ie/video-film-disappearance-public-phoneboxes-ireland-620475-Oct2012/?utm_source=twitter_self

With all of the interest, we decided to put BYE BYE NOW up on YouTube:

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agRwRf6JoyE&feature=player_embedded

SAVIOURS - a blast from the past - has been invited to screen at a film festival in Madison, USA and BLIND MAN WALKING might also be going stateside with a screening in New York for an event Mark Pollock, the film's star man, will be speaking at.

We've been busy this week working on the next film. The story of how Muhammad Ali came to fight in Ireland. The idea is to get it done for broadcast before Christmas. Wish us luck!

Recent Work

I haven't done this for a while but I intend to get a new site up and running very soon.

For now, here is some of the stuff I've been working on recently...

THE BAILOUT
A Primetime Special for RTE that explores how Ireland lost its economic sovereignty.
http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2011/1128/primetimespecial.html#

HOME TURF
A documentary for the Irish Film Board about the dying tradition of cutting turf by hand in rural Ireland. After debuting in Cork, the film recently had its International Premiere at Hot Docs, screened at  Krakow and will soon have its US Premiere at the AFI Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival.
www.hometurffilm.com

BYE BYE NOW
The little film that could, continues to be invited to screen all over the world after touring festivals successfully for the last two years or so, including winning at Silverdocs, Nashville and elsewhere.
www.byebyenowfilm.com

Film Ireland Galway Edition Editorial

It seems this industry of ours is rarely out of the news. Recent articles in major media both question and justify the continued support for Irish film by the public purse. The relevance and importance of Irish films differs depending what newspaper you pick up and with the economy continuing to struggle the pressure is increasingly on the film community to prove the investment is good value.

The argument put forward so often is that there was a type of Golden Age of Irish film in the early 1990s when films like My Left Foot and The Crying Game were winning Oscars and competing at the very highest level in the worldwide film industry. The same questions are asked time and time again. Where are the new Neil Jordans and Jim Sheridans? Why are filmmakers no longer punching above their weight in the way that actors and authors do? And, what is the point of investing in Irish film if it doesn’t compete at the highest level?

So how can we provide value for money, for this investment that the Irish public, via the goverment, passes to us?

It would be wonderful to turn a profit but that’s difficult in a world where more films than ever are being released and the bulk of the audience veer more towards blockbuster fayre and away from the kind of personal, complex tales that we tell best. And, anyway, even for the most famous filmmakers, profit can be elusive – there is no magic formula and the competition is fierce. Some say we should make bigger films so that we can ‘compete’ but what if they don’t succeed? Bigger failures are not something to aspire to.

All that we can offer financially is that we are doing our best. We will, as much as is humanly possible, sell our films, distribute them, convince people of their worth and return what we can to the pot. And we will push our films to the four corners of the globe in the hope that we can sell some kind of idea of Ireland and hope that somehow this feeds back into the exchequer in tourist dollars.

What can the Film Board do?

They can develop numerous talented, diverse voices that represent the full variety of Irish experience, they can investigate appropriate distribution strategies that give small films a chance of connecting with the right audience and they can seek out international partnerships that bring more money into Irish film and give our films more chance of spreading.

It seems to me that this is exactly what they are doing. At this transitional time in Irish film they deserve some credit for that.

Some of that talent that has come through recently is already punching above its weight, winning awards at major festvals and putting bums on seats in cinemas. Sweeping cuts would stunt the growth of the emerging filmmakers that might just be the next Neil Jordan. It’s easy to forget that The Crying Game was Jordan’s eighth film. Instead of looking backwards, let’s look forward to increasingly skilled filmmakers making more and better films of value and some that turn a profit.

Irish film does its best to represent those who fund it and it seems to me that films like Once, Kisses and His & Hers do that very well. This magazine will launch at on of the world’s great festivals, the Galway Film Fleadh, a traditional birthing place for new Irish films. Keep an eye out, you might just get a glimpse of the future.

Film Ireland Cannes Issue

When One hundred Mornings is shortly released, audiences will no doubt be wowed by the wonderful performances, the stunning photogphy and the subtle direction.

They won’t, for a moment, think about the budget. The film was originated under the Catalyst Scheme and was thus made for limited funds. Yet, it is good enough to stand beside any quality film out there. And it has – at festivals around the world and on release in the United States.

A couple of years ago at an Irish Film Board panel, one of the panellists was asked what had happened to the Micro Budget Scheme. The answer, only partially in jest, was that almost all of the films made here could be considered very low budget, so perhaps there was no need for a specific scheme.

I think we can sometimes get hung up on budgets but when a film like One Hundred Mornings, or His & Hers or The Fading Light comes along, we are reminded that films can be great films regardless of budget.

His & Hers, in particular was a fantastic example. I’ve heard many in the film community marvel at the limited budget and the impressive box office return but when I went to see it in the cinema, I only heard the audience chat about the humour, charm and emotion as they left the theatre.

These films are stand alone works of art and storytelling and I think we in the filmmaking community, in these times more than ever, need to spend our time focussing on our creative vision and making daring, innovative films that surprise and delight audiences.

And when remarkable films come along, let us in the community support them and celebrate them. We should tell our friends and drag them along. If we don’t support these films, then who will? If we don’t support them, then we can’t expect others to support ours!

As the summer approaches, Europe’s greatest film festival looms on the horizon and some wonderful Irish filmmakers will be bringing their films there and we wish them well. In this issue, we have Cannes and Irish filmmaking at the front of our minds.

We talk to Ireland’s Cultural ambassador, Gabriel Byrne, about his visions for Irish film and the upcoming season at MOMA in New York. We have an interview with the legendary French filmmaker Agnes Varda who recently attended the Cork French Film Festival and we look at ways in which Irish and French filmmaking talent have intersected on film projects.

We focus, too, on some emerging creative talent, some of whom will be at Cannes, and some of the many wonderful locations that we have at our fingertips in Ireland.

I hope you enjoy the issue and, as always, keep in touch. If you have something to say, let us know, we have a Sounding Off section after all!

HOW TO MAKE AN EPIC DOCUMENTARY FOR 25K

Well, first things first: if you want to make money, go into sales. If you put your head down and push yourself you can really make a good living.

You’ll probably even get a free car if you’re on the road and each year a few weeks paid holidays.

If you want to make documentaries, you probably won’t have any of those things. Not for the first few years anyway.

When I started out, I tried hard to get a project commissioned. I submitted scripts to all of the normal funding rounds and documentary proposals through established production companies to broadcasters. It seemed to be one rejection after another.

Before long, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I got a loan, bought a camera and started filming. The idea was to make films and sell the finished work to broadcasters afterwards. The revenue from selling the first film would fund the next and so on. It was a great plan. But then I learned nobody wanted my early work and even if you could sell the films it wouldn’t be for much.

A few years on and things have changed. A little. With a few documentaries in the bag, it’s slightly easier to get an audience with commissioning editors but that doesn’t mean they’ll fund you.

Still, when Mark Pollock asked me if I’d be interested in making a documentary about him, I knew we had a task on our hands. I always felt that Mark’s story was fascinating. He lost his sight at the age of 22 but refused to let it ruin his life.

He created a niche for himself doing adventure challenges and giving motivational talks to businesses. Then on the tenth anniversary of losing his sight, he came up with an adventure challenge far beyond anything he’d done before.

He wanted to prepare for and take on one of the hardest races on earth. Like Scott and Amundsen almost 100 years earlier, he was racing to the South Pole.

From my point of view it would be a challenge too. To do it right, filming should take place for nine months before departure and for close to two months in Antarctica. Anyone I asked suggested that I’d need a huge support crew in Antarctica and the race organisers told me that it would cost EUR50k per person traveling – and that’s before you paid the crew!

Then I got sick. Without getting into the details, it soon became clear that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for me to travel. And the EUR300k budget wasn’t exactly prompting commissioning editors to reach for their chequebooks.

So we created a Plan B. Rather than spending my time searching for funding, I spent it filming the preparations. I contacted the race organisers and a Norwegian crew that would be following the race and they agreed to help me out with footage. Mark’s teammates would film as much as they could during the race and we’d figure out a way of putting it all together when they got back. It would still be a great story, even if this wasn’t the ideal way of telling it.

When they returned from Antarctica I was almost afraid to look at the footage. And when I did, I found a mixed bag. There was some ropey stuff but, thankfully, there was some amazing stuff too. The video diary feel to the footage captured in the tent felt really immediate and powerful. There was definitely something there.

A few months later, I had a meeting with Mairead NiNuadhain in RTE Diversity about the possibility of completion funding and she agreed to try to help. A little while later, I got a call from a nice man in RTE’s finance division, who wanted to go through my budget, line by line. “Does this,” I asked him, “mean the project is financed?”

It did.

So, after filming for nine months in Ireland, making agreements with other film crews, putting a camera in the hands of adventure athletes with little idea what would happen, praying that funding would come through and numerous weeks editing, we have a completed documentary about the first blind man to race to the South Pole. It’s an epic, of sorts, and it cost just EUR25k.

Now, where can I get a job in sales?