Went into town, did some shopping. Came home. Cleaned the Bathroom. Went and hung out with an Oscar winner.
Well kind of. I went to the screening of Wasp, where myself, friend Dave, and 50-odd other people watched the film, which I thought was really quite good. Then we enjoyed listening to Andrea Arnold dish out some very sensible advice, after which a minority of us, including the star of the hour, retired to the Chambers (a subterranean bar round the corner from the venue).
There we chilled for a while and I spoke to a few people, Jo Nolan from Screen South for setting up the meeting with Alex Finbow, and Chris the new head of Kent Screen (previously Kent Hothouse – which I very nearly mispronounced Kent Cockhouse – most embarrasing).
I thought about going over and talking to Andrea but she seemed fine talking to her mates and I really couldn’t think of anything useful to say past, ‘thanks for making the effort to come down all the way from Glasgow just for this and by the way I totally agree with everything you said, I just hope I get an Oscar too’.
As it turned out, my conversation with Chris from Kent Thank-God-it’s-not-Hothouse-anymore went on a little longer than expected during which time Andrea was whisked away for a bite to eat, saving me from almost certainly making an idiot of myself in front of her (I’m not the worlds greatest conversationalist).
So, Andrea, if by some incredible stroke of coincidence you happen to read this humble blog entry, there – I just said.
The conversation with Chris proved far more valuable than I figured it might and he is keen for me to get in contact with him ASAP to update him on the various things I’m up to. He seems like a very enthusiatic man and I think he could be quite a big force in getting the film scene going a bit in this area. In the words of Dr Crabtree, ‘Could be fun!’
One thing I realised today is that I probably need to make another short once SToA is in the bag – whenever that is. I still don’t feel ready to tackle the extra shots and re-edit it just yet, as I’m only just now starting to get what this is all about, really get it into my guts exactly what filmmaking is (at least for me).
The only way I can think of expressing it, and I think it’s what David Mamet was (possibly) driving at in Three Uses of the Knife, is that it is creating in the audience the feeling I get when I watch, say, American Beauty. It’s a magic, it’s something numinous. It’s making an connection with someone you’ve never met on an intellectual and emotional level and then showing them the beautiful hopelessness of life.
At least that’s what I think it should be. Wasp, for all it’s dodgy camera work and cgi, showed it perfectly. It deserved the Oscar.
Now I just have to figure out how to do it properly.
Could take a few years, that one.