Low Budget But Quality Nonetheless
You're much better off getting involved with low-budget, independent productions. You'll learn much more quickly because you'll be in production. That's what best film schools for screenwriting directing is supposed to be working your way into and you've jumped that. Brady took Boy Meets Girl to Cannes this year and got around the problem of paying for a hotel and an official screening by pitching a tent outside the town and persuading a local cafe to let him project the movie against a back wall. The subsequent screening attracted a lot of interest, even if the soundtrack was partially obscured by expresso machines and waiters taking orders.
Brady wasn't the only filmmaker at Cannes this yea who had used film school for his own purposes. Twenty-three-year-old Kevin Smith dropped out of Vancouver Film School after four months when he realized his tuition fees might be better spent on a budget. The result, Clerks, picked up the prize for best first film at Cannes earlier this year.
Perhaps the most telling indicator of the way the DIY ethic has taken hold in the UK is that alternative cinemas like The Halloween Society and the Exploding Cinema have sprung up to screen the work of these film-makers. Philip Ilson runs the Halloween Society with Tim Harding, and has been bombarded with short films shot on everything from 16mm to camcorders. 'I think there's a lot of good work out there that has bypassed the main organisations like film school and the BFI,' he says.
Of course, no one's pretending that there's a potential Tarantino armed with a camcorder lurking on every street corner, but Alex Chandon is one veteran of both the Exploding Cinema and the Halloween Society who seems destined for greater things. A 25-year-old former fine arts student, he and his partner Neil Keenan shot Bad Karma and Drillbit on High 8. They have successfully distributed them in Germany and Holland and are currently preparing versions for the Far East. Displaying the natural arrogance of youth, Chandon reckons there's a lot of untapped talent out there: 'For every Danny Cannon, there's 10 people making better stuff on video.' (Twenty-four-year old British director of Young Americans, Cannon is currently directing Stallone in Judge Dredd.) It should come as no surprises that characters like Chandon are emerging, if only because the advent of new technology has helped make the film-making process simpler and cheaper. At the same time, TV shows like the BBC's Video Diaries have encouraged aspirant directors with access to a camcorder to believe that they can make a film themselves. After all, they reason, whatever they turn out can't be worse than some of the movies gathering dust in the local video shop. And I wouldn't bet against a few of them being right.
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