Chris Jones Blog

Bilbao Film Fest 51, the first few days... (get me some GREEN FOOD!)

 Red meat, omelette, bread and beer. That’s what I am living on here in Bilbao, at the 51st film festival they have hosted. And the diet is a symptom of the relentless screening schedule of over 80 short films, giving only a few moments sometimes to grab some Pinchos (like Tapas) from a local café, washed down with either a half glass of beer or an ultra caffeinated coffee that leaves you twitching through the films.

To my tastes, I have to admit the screenings have been tough, sometimes an endurance test. This is a high art festival - no surprise really when you consider the museums and galleries in the region, including the world famous Guggenheim gallery – I guess it’s a reflection of the people who live here and their tastes. There is no doubt they like it too, as the evening screenings are very well attended, packed out even. But some of the films last night left me positively baffled, what the heck did I just see?!? We are certainly in Europe, a long way away from the American festivals that I attended earlier in the year.

Still, it’s great to be challenged this way, and it always makes you think about the artform in new ways - and maybe this is the point too? To be exposed to films and film makers who you would not normally meet. And I have made loads of lovely new friends too, including touring American film maker Scott Tuft (in pic) with his very, very cool 3D stills camera (how retro, shoot 35mm transparency film and you look at images with a special viewer) – Scott made a deliciously dark film set in the sixties called ‘Makeup’, about door to door makeup sales women, starring Airplane star Julie Hagerty.

This is a very warm and friendly festival – there is no ‘deal comparing’, ‘agent touting’ and ‘over-competition’ with each other. Just long, long chats about movies, movie making, life and late night strolls along the river as you head back to the hotel room in the wee hours. 

Blissfully, my iPhone does not work at all here – O2 just not seem to have a deal with a network. So, my phone has not buzzed all week. And it’s been a reminder at how we are all losing our freedom through over technologising our communications.  Mobile communications, facebook, twitter and the likes (social networking) are all great, but at the same time I recognise that they all invade my ‘down time’ at some point. And when I do switch off or disconnect from them, I start to feel a little like there is a party going on somewhere and I am unaware of it. Not sure if this is all healthy for us or not. So to have it forced on me is a bizarre relief.

Ironically, Skype does work on my iPhone, so within the hotel at least, I can make international calls for peanuts over wifi. Bonkers!

I do need more sleep though, and I need to eat something GREEN before another 15 or so movies tonight…!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

ZINEBI 51 - Day one in Bilbao

The Bilbao Film Festival has just kicked off – ZINEBI 51 – which translated from local language and dialect means, Cinema Bilbao 51 (51 being the number of years the festival has now been running – amazing huh! And don't you love that poster? Terrific stuff). Bilbao is in Northern Spain, and I must say, it’s a bit of a culture shock - everything seems to get done at its own pace. Nothing appears to be in a hurry. Ever.

Even today, officially the first day of the festival, I enjoyed an extended lunch (actually not extended by local tradition I now suspect) with the festival organisers and other film makers (the food was both incredible and cheap). And I have to say, I kind of like this slower pace. It does seem to work very well, and there is no visible stress - at other festivals I have seen organisers have a full blown melt down over inconsequential stuff – so these guys have got it right.

And I am being looked after by the extremely charming Amaiur who found me this morning, wandering lost in the hotel lobby, without my caffeine fix – I missed breakfast as I forgot to change the clock! Doh! I am glad she is around as my Spanish is terrible. Actually, I don’t know any Spanish and I rely on being that Brit guy who looks a little confused. So far, everyone has been gracious enough to speak to me in English, or the universal language of hand waving.

So Gone Fishing plays in continental Europe for only the second time (Oldenburg being the first) – I cannot wait to see how audiences receive it. I am shooting a video blog as per usual, and will have the webisode uploaded as soon as possible…

Right, now I need a siesta as it’s going to be a long night. Apparently, all the nights are very long here!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Sky Movies Movie Geek Show Now Online... Special Report from the Screenwriters Festival 2009

A couple of weeks back I was a speaker at the Cheltenham Writers Festival (day 1 blog here, day 2 blog here), which was a fantastic event. I recommend you go next year as it’s such good value and superbly organised. During the event, I was interviewed by Sky for the Move Geek Show, which has now appeared online and you can watch here -  part one above… then part two below… And remember, you can watch it full-screen by clicking the icon in the bottom right of the video window.

NOTE - Some people have had problems loading these videos - you can watch on Sky's dedicated site here - Part 1 and Part 2 of The Movie Geek Show)

Hope you enjoyed it. Right, I am about to get on a plane to go to the Bilbao Film Festival in Spain!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Is BluRay finally taking off?

Last week we received more orders for Gone Fishing on BluRay than we had in all the moths since it was released (and I just put them all in mailers today - see pic)! About half were from the USA, and the others from the UK. Could this signify that BluRay has finally got a foothold in the consumer market? I rent BluRay’s from Blockbuster and there always seems to be as many customers looking at BluRay rentals than at traditional DVD ones, and the BluRay is only 25% of the whole store. And with PS3 offering BluRay and players now being sold for under £100, it does look like this Christmas may well be the one where finally, we all have something that can really show off that whopping great HD TV we convinced our partners were essential to life as we know it! (I managed to convince Lucia by buying her the entire Harry Potter collection on BluRay. I know the Twilight saga will follow).
 
So why buy Gone Fishing on BluRay? After asking people who did buy the BR disk, I was surprised by one common theme in the answer… (and I am amalgamating the comments here)

‘It’s a wonderful little movie, everyone who sees it, loves it, and it’s a perfect film to showcase my new TV and BR player as it’s got the big action highs as well as the big emotional highs, and it’s only 13 minutes long – we can watch it in about the time it takes to drink the cup of coffee I just made!’

I had never really thought about it that way – you can ask friends round and show them the film without it dominating the whole evening in a way that a feature film would. Interesting.

Anyway, if you want to buy a BluRay of Gone Fishing, you can do so here (the disk was mastered at Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles recorded that famous album) – and just for the run up to Xmas, if you buy the BluRay version, we will throw in an extra DVD into the mailer bag too (in its own signed case). You can give that extra DVD to your mum for Xmas, I promise she (and her neighbours) will love it!

For the techies, the disk is masterd in full 1080P, direct from the HDCamSR we showed at the premiere at BAFTA.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Postcard from down under... what does it all mean?

Over the last few years I have got to know a film maker down in Australia, Simon VanDerSpoel, who both contributed to ‘Gone Fishing’ and also made a doc called Spitfire Guradians – I recorded a Podcast with Simon about Spitfire Guardians some time back, you can listen here. I also met up with Simon when I went to the Heart Of Gold Film Festival in Australia earlier this year, and there is an epic video blog of that experience here.

Simon wrote to me today, about his current mind set and experiences – it seems that while I was taking off time in Devon, he was also off with his other half, the charming and lovely Evita, but in a place altogether hotter! Our shared but polarized vacations chimed however, as you will see from the edited email below...

The need to refresh and take stock of where you are was something that I had been avoiding, I'd used my holidays as time to work on my own projects, and to tell you the truth it was burning me up. After everything I've seen and everything that's happened to my family, I guess I've been looking at the world with a sense of urgency, a pressure within to succeed, before I too either faded in to obscurity and the mundane, or passed away.
 
Last month I was driving back from a commercial shoot about two hours drive from work, in front of us, driving in the same direction, a log truck lost control and hit a car coming the other way. It was shredded. In all my life I've never seen anything like it. I mean for years I've been attending fatal accidents after the event (note from Chris - Simon is a news cameraman), you prepare your mind for what you will see and it's a job. But to see it actually happen, in the space of seconds, people died right there, it just was numbing.  Needless to say I point blank refused to film it for the news and the emergency services waved us through to leave.
 
It's a fragile existence we lead, and yet I didn't need anymore reminders of this fact as you know (note from Chris – see past blogs). As you said to me before, it should highlight the need within ourselves to get our stories out while we can. But this need is like pushing against a wall, a mental wall within, a metaphorical wall of bureaucracy, funding and powers that be, without.
 
Yet the creative drive inside needs to be expressed, like a soldier with the skills to fight, we look for a side to fight for, a story to fight for, meaning to be found in these stories, meaning to be given to this life.
 
I guess that's why people call you an inspiration, a title you may feel uncomfortable in wearing, but it leads to the heart of your argument. Take action, take big action, for action is experiences, and experiences added up are a life. Not many people do that.
 
Before reading your books, I had put a time frame on success, based on stories of other film makers who had hit the 'jackpot' of making a film young (25) and skyrocketing off to fame and fortune. I read your advice of 'make a film when you're sixty' and nodded, but I didn't truly absorb it, as I found myself in an unconscious race against myself to be successful in film, and a year has passed and I have made another doco, which I'm actually disappointed with. But I learned from the experiences.
 
It wasn't until I'd taken this holiday with Evita, and stopped, truly stopped, and let go that I feel happy. I'm still writing my feature script, but I'm not rushing to get it out, I'm having a glass of wine when I write. I'm reading a fiction book instead of a film reference book, I'm going to the beach as often as I can, I'm trying to enjoy the experiences of writing and living, so I can enjoy the process of production, and enjoy a creative life in general.
 
I hope things are well with you, I hope your endeavors are coming to fruition, I hope you and Lucia are well. Look after yourself bloke and maybe one day I'll see you around sometime,

Simon Van Der Spoel

Thanks for your email Simon. I think that in 100 years, creativity will be diagnosed as a disease. I really do. It’s not something I choose, it chooses me, and often I am it’s servant. I know that at the dinner table, family and friends can complain or exchange knowing glances when I go off into that special creative world in my head. I sometimes wish I could stop having ideas. It seems I can’t. I mentioned on the blog a few days ago that I am reading a book on copyrighting, and another phrase from that book really resonated…

‘The truly creative mind in any field is no more than… a cruelly delicate organism with the overpowering necessity to create, create, create – so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating…’
Pearl Buck

The book is called ‘The Adweek Copyrighting Handbook’ by Joseph Sugarman

And yes Simon, when you come to the UK or I come back down under, we will surely hook up at your mums for another steak on the barbie!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

'Ink' gets ripped and torrented...

I just got an email about a film called INK - many of you will have heard about it. Indeed, we recently interviewed the film makers for the upcoming Guerilla Film Makers Pocketbook. So the story this far is… just a few days before the big fanfare release in the USA, ‘Ink’, a US produced low budget, true home grown indie feature film, a kind if sci-fi fantasy epic, has appeared on various file sharing sites and has been downloaded several hundred thousand times. The upshot is, it has hit the number 16 spot on IMDB and film is pretty much on everyone’s radar. Not quite ‘Paranormal Activity’ yet, but certainly very, very visible.

In the cold light of day, this looks like a stunt (or rather tactic in a wider release strategy) by the film makers themselves as their film will undoubtedly benefit from the incredible exposure. Did they release the film themselves on bit-torrent? Did someone else do it? Of course I don’t know.

It doesn’t really matter either, as the movie being ripped and uploaded is for ‘Ink’ an inevitability. Once a film, album or other piece of media hits a certain saturation point, or interest in fans and consumers, it gains some momentum and will at some point appear on torrent sites. This is just a practical reality in 2009 and as we move into 2010.

The big question being asked, and there are entrenched camps on both sides (and indeed many who are simultaneously entrenched in BOTH camps…) IS PIRACY GOOD OR BAD FOR INDIE FILM MAKERS?

I was asked by Sherri Candler, Hollywood publicist, to post my thoughts as I had posted on this subject previously. I thought it would be a short one… alas!

First off, I don’t like the word piracy.

I don’t think it is an appropriate description in 2009 for the activity of file sharing. None of us are piracy free. Not even the squeaky cleanest of us. Even if you have to go back 20 years, I am sure there was a tape of that Led Zep album somewhere in your teenage past (or other such ‘illegal’ recording).

I don’t have an alternative phrase to piracy, but I think the word suits ‘big business’, ‘enforcement organisations’ and ‘governments’ and does not help the situation for anyone. It simply demonises. In fact, I find it a positively self righteous description.

Second. Piracy is here. It is not going away.

There is in fact no point in debating if it is good or bad for film makers. It’s like debating ‘is it good if it is sunny or rainy on the weekend of our release?’ It is a system, it needs managing where possible (choose June, choose September based on weather patterns?), but ultimately, it is both too large and random to manage IF your film reaches that magical critical mass point.

Of course, none of us want to lose control of our films. And that is not what I am saying. I am just pointing out that…‘when your film reaches a certain critical mass of exposure, it being ripped and shared becomes significantly more likely, and demonising people for this activity does not help anyone either control the exposure or monetise the results either…’

So what does it all mean?

Well in the case of ‘Ink’, I can’t help but feel that there is some excellent marketing going on. If you open a coffee shop in town, what do you do on your first day? Offer free coffee to your customers in the hope that tomorrow they will choose you over Starbucks, or that you will tell a friend, ‘hey those new guys serve great coffee, you should check ‘em out…’ Rule one of marketing is always, ‘the customer must know the product even exists.’ I suspect these guys will make a very serious killing out of the exposure. They will shift a pile of DVD’s (which I believe you can buy direct, so no middle man there), and they will also do well in global TV sales. All in all, I will be amazed if they don’t fully recoup and make a tidy profit. The mistake many of us could make is that we assume that our films will also work in the same way, and it could be that putting your film up on bit-torrent could kill it dead. It’s a numbers game, a timing game, a strategic game, and in some ways a genre game too (sci-fi / fantasy fans are harder core than others and will seek original material such as a signed DVD). For ‘Ink’, to my mind (and heck, remember I am risking nothing here so it’s easy for me to say), it makes a lot of sense.

But beyond ‘Ink’…? As I said in my previous blog, it’s quite clear. Consumers are fed up of being ‘sold’ something and then told it isn’t available just now… either in their town (cinema), country (DVD regioning) or preferred platform (DRM nonsense).

Create a demand and consumers will seek out that product. Again, don’t tell me it’s great, then tell me I can’t have it and then be surprised if I find a way to get it without your permission.

The current business fails because it seems unable, unwilling even, to pioneer simple and effective new distribution channels. Everywhere on the same day, and make it value for money!

Here’s what I want (and what I think others want too – and piracy will exist until we all bite the bullet on this).

Music albums on all of my devices with no staggered releases or DRM. And I want to pay a sensible price of, say $3

Movies on ALL of my devices, not just Apple TV or Sky, with no staggered release, and a sensible price of say $2 to watch it.

Charging more than a cup of coffee for a movie WILL encourage illegal copying.

It’s just human nature. And why not? Look at it from the consumer side. All the consumer sees of the film and music businesses are producers in fast cars, stars and artists making so much money they don’t know what to do with it, and they never ever hear about the majority of struggling and broke creatives who rely on a few sales to make ends meet.

Futher, I believe consumers will ask ‘why does a movie or album cost the same online a physical world disk? With online delivery there are no DVD’s to reproduce, no warehousing of stock, no delivery (sure there is data storage and delivery), so why is it still so expensive?’

Come to think of it, really, why the heck are movies and music SOOOO damn expensive?

Oh right, that would be all the middle men and companies who take the biggest slice for the least risk (it starts with an international sales agent, then the local distributor, then the sales outlet like Amazon or Apple), AND these entities always feed from the artists pie before handing back what they deem a reasonable slice. Look at a standard sales contract and astonishingly, it becomes very clear - when you sign your film, THEY OWN IT! And what do they do in return for you giving your film to them? In my experience, very little (though not always).

I chose not to do this with ‘Gone Fishing’ and held onto the world DVD rights myself, asking Derry at Network Ireland to sell TV rights and online. And I am delighted with Derry so far, as he has made some sales in a very tough environment. And he has also reported back to me in great detail and with simple clarity (the only nut we have failed to crack is iTunes, more on that in later posts).

So right now, we stuck between what once was, and what could be. The ‘once was’ being a few gatekeepers to distribution controlling what gets released around the world, and what ‘could be’, an open access platform where consumers can buy what they want, when they want it, with value for money, and enjoy on any device or platform with stunning quality. When we get to that place (and I hope it’s very soon), piracy will fade back into an underground world for fans and bootleggers interested in only obscure material.

So… if you are interested in ‘Ink’, you can download it, or you can shoot over to their website and buy a DVD - and if you can’t wait for the DVD to arrive, why not buy it now, feel good about supporting the film makers and know you will get all the extras on disk in a week or so, then download and watch it tonight? I think that serves both masters?

You can buy Ink here, and Gone Fishing here.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Where the heck does it all come from?

That’s what Lucia, my lovely girlfriend often asks – ‘where the heck does it all come from?’

‘The incubation process is the power of your subconscious mind to use all your knowledge and experiences to solve a specific problem, and its efficiency is dictated by time, creative orientation and ego…’

That kind of sums it up for me. Of course, that was not written by me, it’s way too eloquent – it’s from a book I am reading right now, about copywriting – ‘The Adweek Copyrighting Handbook’ by Joseph Sugarman. Pretty good I have to say.

This week I am on a creative sabbatical. Every so often, Lucia takes me away for week, usually in the UK, for some time to reflect, regroup, set goals and generally relax. This year I have found myself on our own private island (it’s a small one) with a lake and a boat, a black swan and a very, very nice log cabin… and my plotting for 2010 has already begun!

But back to the question, ‘where the heck does it all come from?’

Being creative is one of the hardest things to be as it’s just impossible to ‘switch it on’ like a tap. Sure I can fake it and appear to ‘be creative’ as I have learned stuff that works, it’s a kind of bag of tricks I rely upon when under very serious time pressures, but the good stuff? That needs seeds that are lovingly planted in fertile soil, watered, bathed in just the right sunlight when they germinate, and lovingly pruned when they blossom into something worth showing to others.

And so every year, I try to get away from my office, my routine and my life, so that I can reconnect with what I want to do next in this grandest of adventures called life. I try to fill that week with as much sleep, as much staring out of windows, and as much stuff I loved to do as a kid as I can squeeze in.

Today it was fossil hunting on the beach at Lyme Regis (where fossils are literally falling out of the cliff walls). Palaeontology is one of my great loves in life, so much so I nearly studied it at university (one day in a geology lesson I had an epiphany, ‘I want to make movies’, went home and told my mum and dad who paused for a long time, and then said… ‘OK! How do you study to be a film director then?’). Thank goodness I didn’t choose to go to Uni and study palaeontology as studying anything can have the rapid effect of turning a healthy interest into a serious dislike! So happily, I remain an enthusiastic amateur fossil hunter. Like so many kids, dinosaurs captured my imagination. And what are fossils if not a direct time machine back to those amazing times, and a time machine that I could even hold in my hand and study for hours on end… imagining what if…?

And that same imagination and enthusiasm flooded back today as we rummaged around the wet rocks, looking to discover miraculous and tantalising evidence of life 100 million years ago - Lucia found a stunning ammonite that had been fossilised in iron pyrites, and I found, deep in the clays of the cliff face, two joining pieces of Ichthyosaurus bone, possibly a rib bone I suspect. They are sat right next to my laptop right now. Amazing!

So what has all of this got to do with making movies?

Well for me, an awful lot.

Awe, wonder and an agile imagination are simultaneously fired when digging for hidden treasure – I have been positively brimming with ideas since I retuned from the wind and rain beaten coast.

Each night, as darkness closes in, my mind turns to next year.

Which of the various adventures should I choose? Each sit like possible doorways, tantalisingly open just an inch. To see inside I have to go inside. And I know that to go inside commits me to the journey - the adventure will never just ‘come to me’, I need to take positive and aggressive action to both seek and demand it.

And so I hope that this week, a clearing in my overly hectic life will open up…

And all this time, my subconscious has been doing dream like number crunching (or idea storming). I just need the space to listen to my subconscious. And I know from experience, my subconscious is where the really good stuff lives, the dangerous stuff, the difficult stuff, the emotional stuff, the entrepreneurial stuff, exciting stuff… In short, the stuff worth doing…

So to Lucia, ‘that’s where, kind of, it comes from’, and when you create that space, as you have done this time (and times before), the magic is certain to follow soon.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

I will send the prize to the embassy of your country in Iran…

I just received an incredible email from Iran…!

Here’s what it said…

‘Congratulation. This is to inform you that the film "Gone fishing'' has received silver prize of the festival. It contains 5 Golden coins plus silver statue of the festival. I will send the prize to the embassy of your country in Iran…
Mahshid Karimi, Artistic Director

WOW! This is the first prize we have won in the Middle East and I feel very proud that our film has been so well received in Iran, a country who is in deadlock with our government, but whose artistic community is clearly open to, and actively celebrating friendship and diversity. Wow! Blown away! Can’t wait to get more details.

Here is their official website, and here is the Gone Fishing page on their website.

Now I just need to get my diplomatic bag ready at the Embassy!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Have you made a 'film' or a 'movie'?

I have received a pile of emails from film makers after I revealed all the stats from the ‘Gone Fishing’ film festival run over the last year. Many were expressing frustration that it appears film makers are often unwelcome in their own countries (bizarrely, some US producers could not get into American festivals but did have success in Europe). It seems festival programmers have a rarefied taste and home grown talent is often simple ‘off the menu’ (most of the time at least). I am also sure that many of said festival organisers would take offence to this statement, but I am looking at cold hard data, being backed up by anecdotal evidence.

Film maker Connor Clements put it succinctly when he said ‘I think Americans are more interested in narrative driven films, and are more passionate about films than anywhere else’. This pretty much mirrors my experience in the US with ‘Gone Fishing’. It’s a sentiment that is echoed in one of my favourite Alan Parker cartoons too (pictured here).

I guess the lesson for us all is to target festivals where you think you have a good chance of getting in, based on the genre, themes and tastes of past selections and winners. As Alan Parker simply puts here... have you made a FILM or a MOVIE. It's an important distinction.

Of course this raises the ugly head of the festival research workload – it’s one thing committing to researching 300 film festivals, then entering a selection of the ones you feel are a best fit for your film – it’s another thing doing it! It’s not hard, but it does take a lot of time, organisation and tracking. 

Withoutabox has helped by creating the paperless submission service (for a fee of course) and recently launched their Secure Online Screeners service – with it you upload your film to a secure server and the festival programmers wo which you submit can then watch all the films online. Very green and cost effective, and will save lots of trips to the post office, but I do question the wisdom of a selection process based on viewings on a computer, especially with regard to movies designed to be screened in a theatre - and when it comes to sound, most people will inevitably watch on a laptop with internal speakers so your film may sound terrible. I guess it’s the ‘YouTube’ generation way of doing things and it is undeniably the right thing to do from a green perspective.

In a couple of weeks we will be playing in Bilbao, Northern Spain, and I will be watching to see just how European audiences respond to ‘Gone Fishing’.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Working at a school for wizards...

Having an open and frank conversation with young people is always a challenge. And that’s what I did today, at the Barbara Speake Stage School – with a group of about 50 or so aspiring performers, aged between 11 and 15… A long and deep chat… about wizardry!

That’s what I believe we story tellers do – we are wizards who cast spells on our audiences, and when we get good at our wizardry, we can hold audiences in that deliciously magical state for the duration of our work (Jack Bauer in '24' manages a whole day!)

Of course actors are on the front line of such sorcery, and having the privilege to speak to these guys at such a formative age was both exhilarating and nerve wracking. I had just one hour which I filled with anecdotes and hard won lessons I have learned on my own journey - about taking courage to commit to an extraordinary adventure, about learning to pick yourself up after repeatedly being knocked down and often kicked in the teeth while down, about helping pick up others when they are knocked down and thereby building a band of brothers and sisters… But most of all, we spoke about the magic that is created when your work powerfully connects with an audience and both transports and transforms the viewers in such a way that they live the vicarious lives of the characters in that work.

It went down a storm I am happy to report!

I also screened ‘Gone Fishing’ to them and got a few ‘ahhs’ and giggles in places I did not quite expect. It’s always a gift to screen your film to a young audience as their reaction is both honest and unrestrained.

At the end, I was mobbed by a sea of red jumpers, all shaking my hand confidently and asking to join my Facebook page! One particularly plucky chap asked if I could introduce him to Megan Fox! Ah, what it is to have ones dreams and aspirations unrestrained.

A great day and for me a terrific mid-week-pick-me-up as it helped re-connect myself with WHY I put myself through this job, day after day.

Now, back to the script…

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Gone Fishing, the festival data is complete!

Well it’s nearly complete. The problem is that I keep getting invites to more festivals, and so, like the making and selling of a film itself, it just keeps going on and on. I am not complaining as it is a fabulous distraction to be invited to wonderful festivals around the world, but it’s not going to get the next movie made!

OK, so I wrote a few months ago on the blog, about the ongoing festival campaign and the spreadsheet we put together – but the data at that time was incomplete. As the main push for Gone Fishing has now ended, I thought I should tally up that data and share it – so here it is.

All in all, we entered 139 festivals… Of those festivals we were rejected from 66. That gives us a success rate of just under half at 47.5%.

And of those 73 festivals we got accepted into, we won an award at 28 (sometimes we won multiple awards, giving us wins closer to forty), resulting in a ‘win award’ rate of around 38% (that’s of the festivals we actually got into remember – overall, if you consider every festival we entered, we had a win / success rate of just over 20%).

This figure is slightly skewed as not all festivals were competitive, but most were. Without doing a lot of number crunching and head scratching I can’t give you an exact figure, but I would geusstimate that about 10% of all the festivals entered were non competitive. 

Now the really interesting stats come from WHERE we were accepted. The map shows we were hugely popular in the USA, but not so popular in Europe. In fact in the UK, we have only played officially in two festivals, being rejected from the others we entered – this trend began with Edinburgh 2008 who declined our world premiere (also note that one fest, the United Film Fest, is a touring festival out of the USA so I don’t count that one). I also know there are a couple of UK festivals that are not in the sheet because I dealt with them before we started logging everything in detail in a spreadsheet, often by handing someone at a festival a DVD and a form – for instance the Leeds Film festival is not in the sheet and I did apply there and heard nothing back.

In the first instance I wanted the world premiere to take place in the UK, but was met with some indifference from UK festivals and so ended up premiering in Rhode Island (which I am glad we did – if you have not seen the nail biting video blog of this, check it out below)

Of all the figures, only Europe and USA really have enough data to display any kind meaningful trend…

In Europe (including the UK), of the festivals we entered (40), we got into 32.% of them (13) and won one award.

In North America (inc Canada) of the festivals we entered (87), we got into 63.5.% of them (55) and won 30% (26) festivals

Quite a distinction. I can say with some certainty that American audiences warmed to Gone Fishing, were Europe was far less enthusiastic. Anecdotally, that was also my experience at the coal face while attending festivals.

We spent around £3,000 on festival submissions, which I funded myself, and continue to fund from sales of the DVD. And as most short film festivals don’t cover expenses, I had to pay for air travel and accommodation when there – so again, I guesstimate a further £3,000 on expenses (though I did manage to run some workshops at some festivals to claw some costs back, and also lived rent free in LA with Gen and Zee when there).

So it’s a costly business for sure.

Right now we are playing in Korea at the Asiana International Short Film Festival and in a couple of weeks I fly out to Bilbao in Spain for a week, to attend their festival.

You can download a copy of the spreadsheet we created by clicking here – we hope you find it useful with your festival run.

But was it worth it? I will have a long think about this and report back on the blog in the next few days. Also, I am filming an extra module for the Gone Fishing online workshop to go into greater detail about festival strategies and help members create their own stretegies for their films (remember, if you sign up now, you will get all updates when they are published).

OK, for those of you who didn’t watch before, here again is the video blog from Rhode Island, crammed with tips on attending festivals.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Make your life easy and avoid the Christmas rush!

It’s getting to that time of year isn’t it – the terror of Xmas shopping for friends and relatives when you have no clue what they could want! For me it’s even worse in reverse, when my close family and friends keep asking ‘what do you want for Xmas…?’ and I just don’t know - I don’t even start thinking about Xmas until sometime around 9.45 on December 24th!

So, I just wanted to flag up, if you want a lovely gift for someone special (and make the choosing bit that much easier for yourself), do consider ‘Gone Fishing’ on DVD – it’s wonderful family film (that you can watch instead of the Queens speech on Xmas day), and there are tons or really great extras too. And if you buy three copies, I will throw a fourth in for free – all signed too for that extra special ‘conversation piece at the Xmas dinner table…’ I sent out a pile of copies last Xmas, and here is some feedback I got….

The DVD turned up on Christmas Eve so I wrapped it and put it under the tree. We watched it on Christmas Day and were absolutely blown away by the film. I just wanted to say what a great story you have here. The film is (as we say Down Under) a bottler, the production is first class and the acting hits the mark; I sincerely hope you get that Oscar. I hope you are having a great Christmas and your New Year is successful.
Mike and Fiona Hardy, Brisbane, Australia

I just sat on the closed M11, at the junction with the M25 for the second night in a row. This time however, I had the DVD to watch as it arrived today.Anyone who saw me would have thought I was taking the delay rather too seriously, because I was in floods! The DTS sound is staggering in a car, and the film even more moving on a small screen. You have produced a work of art. I truly believe that if it doesn't win it's Oscar, then it's a fix! Absolutely magnificent, and I look forward now to watching it on my 6 speaker Harman Kardon system at home. I think I'll be destroying the walls!
David Talbot, in a traffic Jam, M11, London.

I've just seen the full film for the first time and I'm sitting here choking back tears. It IS a great film, everything just seemed so right about it, the story, the light, the sound, everything. My fingers are even more firmly crossed for the Oscar. Thank you for making this lovely little film.
Mike Facherty, Film Maker

I watched the movie by myself and was  in bits at the end. Amazing. I then sat my partner down and the same happened to her. Going kite flying shortly after we were still all teary. So, so beautiful. Well done.
Gareth Jones

I've watched Gone Fishing four times now and never tire of it. It's such a lovely, heartfelt little film. Absolutely charming...
Carol Ann Walters, Journalist / Publicist

Whenever I get that spine-tingling feeling at the back of my neck I know I've been in for a treat. Gone Fishing moves beyond beautiful imagery to give us a warm, touching story with a challenging perspective on bereavement.
Mike Mindel, www.wordtracker.com

You can buy Gone Fishing on DVD or BluRay here. All sales help fund the ongoing festival push and development of the next (under wraps) short film we have brewing…

How exciting!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Request from Down Under for Oscars Insider Tips...

Yesterday, I got an email from an Australian film maker who is now in the running for the Oscars, just as I was this year with Gone Fishing. As I have had a numbe5r of querries this week regarging the Oscars, I thought I would share his thougts and my response. Here’s his email…

My name is Ben Phelps, a Writer/Director from Sydney, Australia… I recently took part in your online workshop for Gone Fishing. It was inspirational and exciting to hear about your adventures during the Oscar shortlisting.  I've recently gone back to re-watch the Oscar video because... we had some great news last week. Our short film, Nice Shootin’ Cowboy, won the Narrative Short Jury Award at Austin Film Festival, USA.  Just like Gone Fishing, we’re now eligible for an Oscar nomination with another 80 films from around the world.  Given that we have to wait until the next deadline on 1 Oct 2010, it will be an anxious wait!
 
If you have any advice or further insights (from your own experience or from your informative contact, ‘Deep Throat’, at the Academy) please let us know!
 
Ben

And my response…

Hi Ben – as you have done the online workshop, I think you will know most of what I know, regarding the process of getting on the long list, then going to the short list, and hopefully to final nominations. I would recommend you consider setting up a commercial screening in LA through Laemmle theatres (I wrote about this on the blog last year). The main reason is that if your film appears on TV or on DVD between now and the Oscars 2011, it might disqualify you from the awards – the win at Austin, as my understanding has it, does NOT protect you from this possibility, but screening commercially for three days in LA will (note – please check Academy rules as they may change from year to year). I know of one film maker whose film was short-listed and the sales agent screened his film on late night TV without his knowing. Someone grassed them up and his Oscar ambitions vaporised. You do not want to have to drown those sorrows!

Also, I would use your time between now and the ‘long list screenings’ (which will be around November 2010) to write a killer script, then head out to LA around the time of these screenings, and start seeing agents and managers and tell them ‘hey my film is long listed for an Oscar… we find out about the shortlist and then the nominations in the next few weeks…’ That alone should get you some traction in meetings. You would be amazed at how few film makers actually use this amazing ‘heat’. This gives you an edge.

Of course you need the killer script too – but then you do have a year from now to get that baby cookin’.

Remember in Hollywood, it’s not how ‘good’ you are, it’s how ‘hot’ you are, and how ‘talented’ you are perceived to be. Work on getting a powerful advocate between now and then so that they can introduce you to Hollywood as being both talented and hot. It may be an agent, a manager, a lawyer, a director, a connected festival judge, a writer, an exec… As long as they are perceived as being powerful and connected, their advocacy will work wonders. Good luck and see you at the Oscars! ;-)

And I just got this response...

Thank you for such a detailed reply.  I honestly didn't expect an answer so I really appreciate it.  From one passionate filmmaker to another, it means a lot.  I'll keep you posted as our Oscar journey unfolds.  We have two feature scripts ready to go so we'll do our best to take advantage of the 'heat' generated by the win at Austin. FYI, see this link. Ted Hope is incredibly inspiring and a true film futurist:

Fingers crossed for Ben and his team then. If you want to see more of his work, you can check out his site here.

If yu want to see all my posts on the Oscars, click here (remember they are in reverse order as they are form the blog).

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Rushes Chat Tracks for Gone Fishing Go Live on Workshop Website

A couple of weeks ago, editor and Eddie Hamilton and myself sat down and spent a whole Saturday recording a chat track over the rushes for Gone Fishing - that’s nearly three hours of unedited 35mm footage, including main unit with sync sound, second unit, pickups days and of course the high speed Phantom slow motion. I have finally edited it all together and it’s now live as an extra module within the online Gone Fishing Workshop (anyone who previously joined also gets access to this as a member). Watching the rushes really did bring back all the emotions of the shoot, and the lessons learned. Eddie kept pointing out the time code on clapperboard as it really did show just how long each shot took to complete. In the rushes, one moment we are in the morning, the next it is late afternoon and we are fighting for daylight! It’s a slow process getting every shot right.

I was also surprised at how few shots we dropped - maybe four of five? Even though we shot nearly three hours of footage in all, we were extremely economical (a result of the extensive planning process with storyboards - one of the real revelations on the workshop is watching the anamatic of the storyboards and comparing to draft 3 of the script and also the final edit of the film).

Above is a short clip to give you a feel for what it is. Already several other members have downloaded the rushes themselves, without chat tracks, and begun editing their own version of ‘Gone Fishing’ – I wonder what they will produce? Will be fascinating to see.

I am also planning the final seminar to conclude the whole Gone Fishing experience and will be announcing that very soon.

The workshop is still discounted to £69.99, but prices will be going up for the Christmas rush, so grab it how by signing up here.

We now have a Vimeo Channel setup too, so you can quickly check out all our best videos – click on the logo on this page for Vimeo or here to jump to the channel.

On another note, I just received by FedEx the crystal award from the Edmonton Film Festival – it’s already become one of my favourite awards as it’s quite beautiful. Lovely! You can read a complete list of all of our awards here.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Free Podcast about breaking in to Hollywood with Toy Story 2 writer Doug Chamberlin

So you want to break into Hollywood? During the Cheltenham Screenwriters Festival I was lucky enough to hear Doug Chamberlin speak on this subject – and Dough should know as he has written loads for all the major studios and TV networks, including ‘Toy Story 2’

I cornered him in the Green Room at the festival and asked him if he would share some of his insights in a podcast, and he was gracious enough to oblige.

You can listen to this half hour podcast using the player here…

Or save to iTunes with the direct download here

As a footnote, I also received a bunch of lovely emails from people who were present at the festival and who responded very positively to my keynote opening speech where I referred to writers as ‘Wizards…’ Here’s a few comments…

‘I just want to start by giving you feedback on your SWF opening speech. As a Welsh writing wizard apprentice - I can report that at the end of your opening I turned to the person next to me  (who I later learnt was another speaker) and said - that your address was the best opening to a conference that I had ever heard. And I go to a lot of conferences (only some to do with writing I admit)…’
Writing wizard apprentice from Abergavenny Wales

‘Great to meet you at the SWF. You're an inspiration - one of the highlights of my week and I look forward to hearing more of your adventures at next year's festival!’
Nick

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Cheltenham Screenwriters Festival Day 2 and Simon Beaufoy's Hot Tips for collaborating on a screenplay

Day two of the Cheltenham Screenwriters Festival began with my old buddy, Peter Bloore, interviewing Simon Beaufoy on stage about his experiences as a screenwriter, specifically in the arena of script development and working with others, a place where a film can often derail (or the writer can be asked to leave the project).

He spoke at length about his earlier films, some of which were re-written by others to the point where he became very angry (at the time). But with perspective, he has realized that screenplays are more malleable and collaborative than he first thought. Here are some of his observations with regard to collaboration, in no particular order…

1. Most people he has worked with are very bright, even if at first glance, their ideas do not appear to be good. He also knows that everyone has the same end in mind – to make the best movie possible. It’s easy to demonise and become enraged when others interfere and threaten to ‘spoil’ your work, but it is part of the process, and needs to be embraced. They are after all paying for it.

2. Momentum is key. It’s important to avoid becoming entrenched or to hit the brakes. If you don’t agree with a point, admit it is ‘challenging’ and ‘will need some careful thought’, and move on. Do not disregard anything out of hand, or the project could falter and you may be asked to leave.

3.  Ask for script notes ahead of any meeting and insist that they are typed up and all on one single page. As soon as anyone has to write down their notes, the process focuses the mind and the notes become clearer (and maybe even self edited before they go to the writer). Keeping them to one page forces people to get to the point. The notes may also be badly phrased, but it’s your job as a writer to move past emotive and infuriating phrases and ‘hear’ what is really being said.

4. You do not need to incorporate all notes given to you. As a rough guide, maybe 60% will do (of course this may vary wildly).

5. It’s important that everyone in the room feels that they have in some ways won their point – of course this can’t be all points, but some of them. Peter Bloore added the old negotiators maxim that ‘everyone should feel they have won 60% of their points’.

6. Having said all of this, there is a point at which you might need to walk away. It’s hard to be specific, but there is a thing, an essence, perhaps even a ‘soul’ of the script that must be protected by the writer.

All good stuff and much of it echoes many of my own experiences ‘in the room’. What resonated most for me was this idea of collaboration in order to maintain forward momentum. I have had experiences where I have objected and the project died, or I embraced ideas and we went all the way.

It’s all important career stuff and certainly not in many screenwriting books.

The rest of the day I bobbed in and out of other workshops, found myself on stage as part of a panel of film makers discussing the notion of just finding some resources and making a film with what you have. It was an entertaining session, but by now I could feel that most of the writers in the auditorium were reaching information overload and thinking more about getting to the bar than funding their own movies!

The day was rounded of with an interview with Sky TV for their ‘Movie Geek’ show which will be aired on November 7th on Sky One I believe. I hope I make it to the cut as there were a whole host of big name scribes pontificating and prevaricating on the art of the screenwriter, where I was just chucking in cheeky tips and tricks! We will see on November 7th I guess!

I am back in London now, and exhausted.

The Festival is still running for two more days, and already I am wishing I could have stayed those extra two days.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Day 1 of the Cheltenham Screenwriters Festival '09

I am sitting with a venti soya latte in hand, in the most astonishingly grandeous building at Cheltenham Ladies College, waiting for the 9.30am seminar with Simon Beaufoy. I am at the Cheltenham Screenwriters Festival and frankly, nice and relaxed and enjoying it all now. This is in stark contrast to yesterday when I gave the Keynote opening speech to the entire delegation of four or five hundred screenwriters from across the UK, all assembled in the Princess Hall – even grander than then very grand building I am sat in right now!

The festival organisers ask me to deliver this opening speech because they wanted something that was empowering and entertaining, and certainly not the doom and gloom of recession and the dreaded ‘it’s a tough business’ line we hear so often - there was plenty of that to follow in later sessions with battle weary screenwriters, sales agents and directors (and of course, plenty of counter balancing upbeat stories, tips and tricks too).

What was tough for me to gauge was where to pitch the opening speech as I was told that the audience could contain everyone from complete beginners to Richard Curtis! No pressure then.

And so I launched into my ‘Hero’s Journey’ speech for film makers, paralleling the mythical story structure with the journey of ‘the creative’ – and it seemed to go down very well too, with people coming up to me all day saying how much they felt inspired. Fantastic!

The rest of the day was a blur as I was whisked from session to session, running seminars and doing one-on-ones with writers. Always super well organised and sooooo much fun.

Stand out moments for me were presentations by Doug Chamberlin, writer of ‘Toy Story 2’, presenting about breaking into Hollywood – he spoke with experience, insight and surprising candour. I hope to get Doug to speak on tape too, and upload a podcast for everyone to hear (fingers crossed). Also speaking was Armando Iannucci, comic TV genius and director of ‘In The Loop’. He talked about how he wrote with a writers group for ‘In The Loop’, ended up with a 240 page first draft, improvised on set, shot for months (at he rate of 25 pages a day!), all with ‘in set’ available lighting, then ended up with a four and half hour assembly which was then whittled down to just under two hours. He also had a great analogy for script redrafting… ‘it’s like a good chicken stock, you add stuff then reduce it, then add more and reduce some more, and keep doing that until what you have is incredibly tasty…’

I also bumped into old screenwriting pal, and original NPA creator Peter Bloore, whose wife, Jane, was the publisher who took on the very first edition of The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook in 1994, when no-one else was interested. That was a memory lane moment for sure.

The day wrapped up with what is now the customary drinks at the Queens Head Hotel, where again I bumped into many old friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in 20 years. Astonishing! 

So far I am very impressed by this festival – the speakers are terrific, and there are loads of them too. The Cheltenham Ladies College, as a venue, is breathtaking and yet very intimate and personal. I am delighted that the festival does not take place in London as I know that would taint what to me feels like a hugely inclusive, philosophically agnostic and relaxed event. I can’t recommend it highly enough and I hope very much I can come again next year.

Right! On with today. I am only in one session this afternoon, so I can relax somewhat right now.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Six hours of new features added to the online 'Making The World Class Short Film' Workshop - sign up discount still available!

It’s a been bit of a frantic weekend – I am prepping for the Chetenham Screenwriters Festival which kicks off on Monday, where I am the opening speaker! I have a couple of other sessions on Monday and Tuesday too, so I hope to see you there.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon and evening with editor Eddie Hamilton as we recorded a chat track for the ALL the rushes from ‘Gone Fishing’ (that’s 3 hours!)

When I created the online workshop, one of the commitments I made was to make the rushes available for other film makers to edit their own version of ‘Gone Fishing’. So in the next few days, that will all go live – if you are already a member, as part of our commitment to you, all these additional features will be offered free, as part of the package.

We recorded this chat track to help explain the choices we made during the shoot, the problems we faced, and the choices Eddie made in post production. There are three hours of 35mm rushes and there will be two versions available – first is a Quicktime of the rushes with production sound (which you can import into your own edit system). Second is the version with with Eddie and myself waxing lyrical! 

We both enjoyed this recording session and it was amazing just how much came flooding back. I can’t tell you how many nuggets of tips and information Eddie was gracious enough to share with us all.

This additional six hours of support material will go live in the next week or so as part of the ongoing expansion to the ‘Making The World Class Short Film’ workshop – a few people have asked why we did not make this workshop  available on DVD, and it’s this kind up evolutionary update that is the main reason! We want to keep adding more quality content and that just is not possible with a DVD set. Plus we can keep the costs down by delivering over the web, a saving we can pass onto the film makers. And finally, the feedback we have had from users suggests that even though they though they thought that they might prefer DVD, they do in fact prefer web delivery as it’s available immediately, updateable, and available anywhere you have a computer and internet connection.

We are still running the discount, from £99 (inc VAT) to just £69.99 (inc VAT – approx $115) for readers of the blog. You can sign up here and get moving on your own Oscar nominated short film right now!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Quick Guide Film Insurance in 2009 for The Guerilla Film Makers Pocketbook

Yesterday, for the new Guerilla Film Makers Pocketbook, I interviewed Paul Cable of  Media and Entertainment Insurance Services Limited. Paul is a great guy and has helped many emerging film makers through the difficulties of finding the right insurance package for their production.

After chatting to Paul, it was clear that there are a number of issues facing film makers working on an ambitious project with specific regard to insurance. There are three main problematic areas.

First is kit hire – here’s why.

It’s not uncommon for a big hire company to help out film makers by supplying half a million pounds worth of camera equipment for free, we certainly got that kind of help from Arri Media Services on ‘Gone Fishing’. But… it needs to be insured, and given the way films are made (you know, hanging out of windows with the camera, working 20 hours a day, using inexperienced crew), and then considering the expense of the equipment, insurance is going to cost a sizeable chunk of the budget. Add you can add to that the problem that the hire companies are also going to need ‘loss of hire’ in that insurance policy too (so if you broke a camera and it could not be hired for three months while it was getting fixed they could claim for loss of hire).

There appears to be no simple way around this and it’s one of those pretty much unmoveable expenses. For ‘Gone Fishing’ our insurance package ended up costing £1,000, but we managed to cover a few other corporate jobs under that same policy, and the clients for those films ended up paying for it (don’t tell anyone!)

So I guess you need to consider insurance as a line in your budget that you are just going to have to bite the bullet on.

The second insurance problem would be ‘Public Liability’ and ‘Employers Liability’, again needed for any shoot really – though Paul accepts that many film makers go without it and just hope that they do not run into problems. These two policies protect you from damage to property and injury to both your film making team and the public – and some councils and other organisations won’t even let you on site without all these ducks in a row. One cheeky way around this is to enter a co-production with a bigger company and sit underneath their insurance policy, and I know of one very ambitious film that did this successfully recently.

The third problem is the old ‘Errors and Omissions’ policy which is essential for features and documentaries (if you ever expect to sell to a major broadcaster or to the USA) – it’s always a shock, especially as it costs around ten grand! The E&O and how to get around it was a major topic in the ‘Delivering Your Baby’ workshop that I ran earlier this year and it really helped to highlight the problems we all face if we are not successful like ‘Paranormal Activity’ (when the studios just take over and remove all the problems).

But, we didn’t need E&O for ‘Gone Fishing’ - our insurance policy just covered equipment, loss of rental and Public and Employers liability, and it cost (if memory serves) around £1,000 (and there is no VAT on insurance). But… I have heard rumours that iTunes is now, or may be, requiring E&O for shorts that it releases. I will do some digging and try and confirm this either way.

Paul also commented that contrary to expectation, HD films do not make many insurance claims for ‘loss of data’. Of course he added these were the films that could afford that kind of insurance cover and that they had excellent onset data backup procedures in place. The problem I see for low budget film makers is that they cannot afford that type of insurance and more than likely, they will suffer data loss as they won’t have adequate backup procedures in place. Now I think about it, most low budget tapeless productions I have been witness to have actually lost some data at some point due to user error, compounded by the lack of any backup system. Doh! I guess the lesson here is, don’t buy the insurance, buy several terabytes of storage and backup every night (and make sure you know what you are doing!).

The whole interview will be in the upcoming Guerilla Film Makers Pocketbook. Paul also wrote an article for Netribution which you can read here.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Gone Fishing plays in Leicester Sq., support for European Premiere of Jaws documentary

I JUST THIS MOMENT FOUND OUT! On Saturday December 5th, 9pm, at the Prince Charles Theatre in Leicester Sq., ‘Gone Fishing’ is playing (on 35mm) as the support to a feature film as part of the United Film Festival. We have played many times as support for features, but this is the first time I am actually more excited to see the feature on the big screen as it is my own film! It’s called ‘The Shark Is Still Working’, an epic doc about ‘Jaws’ and the legacy it has left us (trailer above – their website here).

Tickets went on sale just now and already 27 have been snapped up within minutes of going live - I have another ten headed my way, and the theatre seats 302… So if you want to come to this terrific event, I suggest you head over to their site now and buy as fast as you can!

If you do get tickets, say hello as I will be there to introduce the film… as well as munch my popcorn through what promises to be a very nostalgic documentary about a time and place that all film maker my age can vividly remember... The day they saw ‘Jaws’ in the cinema…  For me it was the summer of '75, and I remember queuing around the corner and down the road in the blazing sunshine – and this was back in my home town of Wigan in the north west of England, at the single screen Ritzy cinema. I had pressured my mum to take my brother and myself as all the kids had to see the movie ‘where that guys head falls out of the bottom of the boat…’ – the only problem was that I was about seven years old and not really prepared for the full assault on the senses that was to follow for the next two hours or so. I have many vivid memories of that screening, with some of the cinematic images kind of tattooed into my psyche forever. Of course, I have watched ‘Jaws’ many times since and have come to realise that it is pretty much a perfect genre film. Damn Spielberg was on form!

And if you have seen ‘Gone Fishing’, you will know that there is more than a passing nod to ‘Jaws’ (you can watch the trailer in HD here)

If you have any ‘Jaws’ memories, do share them with me, it would be great to hear them.

OK, so here are the details again - Saturday December 5th, 9pm, at the Prince Charles Theatre in Leicester Sq. You can get tickets for this screening at the festival website here, and also check out the other films screening at the festival too!

HOW EXCITING! YEAAAAHAR!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com