Lee Kemp

It’s Friday night. I’ve just gone through about 18 months worth of Empire magazines adding all the films I fancy to my Lovefilm list. The dogs on the bed licking my stockinged feet (stockinged as in socks) while I wait for the house to become empty so I can watch Franklyn and I’ve been asked to be a guest blogger in Birmingham’s Big Debate

It’s a good day.

I’ve got a script ready to go. It’s very short, pretty self contained and won’t take too much to do. It’s called Cherry Pie.

Watch this space.

I was on a job today and here’s how it went in reverse order. I was kind of directing, but only in the sense of trying to steer interviews in the right direction. I’ve been in situations before where I’ve found myself as someone who knows a little bit about a lot of stuff and ends up doing six different jobs on any given shoot.

In this case we had someone from the agency (big London agency by the way, which bittersweet as we were incognito for our client) who was doing the interviewing and steering content and a rep of my own client who was mainly concerned with framing and the quality of the key. So I was able to narrow down my own role to some very small specifics.

Doing the pre-interview brief. Telling them what to expect and how it was going to work. Do this, don’t do that. If you think you’ve got it wrong relax, we’ll edit it out. If I think you’ve got it wrong I’m just gonna jump in and stop you. There’s no point wasting anyone’s time or HDCAM tape which isn’t cheap.

Then once the interviews started I was just watching the monitor and listening to the answers. Not in terms of making sure they hit the brief but just making sure they made sense. They answered the question and rolled the question into the answer and didn’t look at the sound guy for approval at the end of each question and paused at the beginning and at the end and all of the other stuff that makes the edit harder if you do it wrong.

The interviewees looked good, the client and everyone else down the chain seemed happy. Again, it was just a small job but it was to have it done well and leave with everyone pleased.

Arrival was under very tight security. The eventual client is a company that has people in the world that don’t like thatm so we went through all the insane security. Once inside the fortress I realised I didn’t have all the usual stuff to crack on with so I could just be a pair of hands lugging boxes and rigging lights and tidying up. It needed doing.

I had a green screen job that didn’t go as well as i’d hoped recently and looking back I realised it was the first time I’d done any green screen at all. Welcome to the twentieth century Kemp. I have two regular DPs that I work with and I took advice from both of them. Then I took more advice from the one that was actually available and got some quotes for HDCam setups. Eventually rented from Pro-Motion in London after another rental house spiked the price. Miles at pro-motion was very helpful so when the client came back a week or so later to request two more interviews to be filmed with exactly the same setup I was more than happy to throw the business Miles’ way. Great service counts and put and extra £1k+ pro-motion’s way in return for being a little bit helpful.

In your face ‘other rental house’.

We used the Sony HDW-790s so we could get the most out of the key. Or at least our client who’s doing the keying could get the most out of it quickly and easily. Apparently the HDCam makes it much much easier as it contains far more colour information. I looked up the 790 and the review I saw said it was 3:1:1 but I think it was an old review and I quickly got bored of looking.

Crew was Phil Wood as DP and Billy Bannister on sound. And me lugging boxes and being generally satisfied. If you ever get chance to drink or work with Bill Bannister, you ain’t going home early. That boy’s got some stories.

And I managed an hour’s writing on the train home.

When I watch films I haven’t seen for years two things usually happen. I realise the film isn’t as good as I remember which is a shame but it does happen more often than I like. But I also spot actors from early parts of their career. I’m pretty good with actor’s names so I tend to go “oh look, it’s…” rather than “isn’t that…?”

I know that makes me an insufferable smart arse. Even worse, it’s a cross I bear with nothing even approaching dignity I’m afraid. But it is a fun game to play. As well as spotting Richard Branson in movies (Superman Returns, Casino Royale) and other little oddities that i’m convinced other people don’t quite spot.

The best example of this is Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover cleverly projected at a certain point in Almost Famous (if you haven’t spotted it, i’m not telling you).

Yesterday it was Paul Giamatti in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

When I watched Rock ‘n’ Rolla I had a reverse “oh look, it’s…” moment. Given that i’ve seen Toby Kebbell in a smaller, far, far, superior in every single possible way kind of movie; Dead Man’s Shoes. He played Anthony, mentally handicapped brother of the protagonist Richard. If you haven’t seen it please go and buy it. It’s probably dirt cheap in HMV, it’s British in a way that doesn’t need a cultural test to prove it (yes Potter, I’m looking at you). It’s got the mighty, mighty Paddy Considine and it’s directed by Shane Meadows. Both of whom score very highly in the “who would you have a lock-in down your local with” stakes.

Then there’s Good Will Hunting. “Oh look, it’s Casey Affleck“. I haven’t yet seen The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford but I have seen Gone Baby Gone and it’s excellent. Casey Affleck just nails this character and here’s when you know it: there’s a moment that Patrick (Affleck) gets into a scrape in a nasty bar and escapes through a combination of being insanely ballsy and knowing when to pull his gun and smack someone with it. The biggest part though is being ballsy and he knows it. He gets back outside, the gun goes back in his pants and relief is pouring out of every sweaty pore as the camera circles around him. Just as we start to fade, just at that final moment with the sun behind him, he cracks the tiniest, slightest relieved smile. It’s a smile that just says “fuck, I can’t believe I pulled that off” and it’s just glorious acting made even more perfect by the editor’s timing of the fade.

So next time you watch Good Will Hunting you can go “Oh look it’s Casey Affleck” because he’s proper famous now, and hopefully on the trajectory he deserves, like Toby Kebble.

*33.3% of the title of this post is punctuation. I’m not sure that’s ever going to be a good thing.

I like to think the holistic approach works. I’ve produced, first AD’d, written, directed and shot stuff before. All of which is at a pretty minor level and generally when the right people weren’t available. But when you’re up against time and the light is running out, pressure tends to build up pretty quickly regardless of the stakes. I’m sure multiplying pressure by the budget has a chronic effect but in those cases where there is a budget to multiply by, there’s a lot more people with their eye on the ball.

If you know how hard someone’s job is then you know how hard they’re working, or you can recognise when they’re not. You’ll know if they’re better than you (they should be) so you’ll know when to listen to them. You’ll also know when to overrule them because you’re the only one that really knows how important any one shot is.

The point of all this is that I think a lot of directing is about getting the best out of people. It certainly helps knowing and understanding what you’re asking them to do.

As always there’s a counter-argument. You have to be ignorant of some things or risk being ignorant of everything (I can’t remember who said that). I have this pinned up next to my desk at work to inhibit my desire to be the best at everything. It’s an annoying trait that is massively counter-productive to my true ambitions. It’s also the one quirk the four directors of my company share. It can be counter-productive there too.

I guess finding the balance is always the hard part.

It’s been a long week. We had scheduling fun all week, particularly trying to fit a photoshoot into an already packed film shoot, but the results always looked good on the monitor. Sufficient preparation allowed us to accommodate a constantly changing schedule, mainly due to the vagaries of shooting in the Dorset countryside in December.

I have some more tips for myself, next time round:

If you’re doing a car film, there is much better stuff around for cleaning it than the first stuff that comes to mind.

Sometimes its ok to step back. If you’ve got two very experienced specialist car photographers (David Shepherd and Nick Dimbleby) and a DP with a gift for lighting putting magic together in front of your eyes, you don’t need to stamp your mark on it. Incidentally Ed put together a great team with Phil Wood as camera assistant and Michelle Arbon, fresh from her MA Screenwriting as pretty much every other job.

A British Army identity card is sufficient permission for filming at Canary Wharf.

If you leave ‘wiggle room’ for soldiers to interpret instructions in a way that is fun and interesting for them. They will. I already knew this. That is not the lesson. Here is the lesson, make sure EVERYONE else knows that.

Write down the relevant name and address of every location you like. You never know when you’ll need them again.

A 5 point harness when shooting vehicle to vehicle doesn’t really solve any safety problems, but it keeps the police happy.

Preparation is absolutely King.

The most common question you will be asked is “what’s next?” Always having the answer only comes from being prepared (spotting a theme yet?)

Everyone has good ideas. If you’re the director, it is apparently ok to steal them. You won’t get to have personal conversations with everyone that watches the film and explain who specifically did what, so people will eventually think it was your idea. That’s really cool for you but sucks for everyone else!

I’m stealing this one from Nick Booth. It doesn’t matter how beautiful it is, if it doesn’t cut together it’s a waste of time.

As Roy Batty was feeling in Bladerunner. Time is very, very precious.

So I’m preparing and planning like crazy.

We’ve got a big shoot starting next week. My producer Rachel has been sorting all the dull logistical kind of stuff. Shooting in London is strangely much harder than shooting in Dorset. Between the Metropolitan Police Film Unit, Transport for London, borough Film services, hotels, convoys, restrictions of ten hour days and the sudden requirement to double our public liabililty insurance  it seems there’s a lot to do with this film stuff. We’ve got assistance from the British Army providing soldiers and equipment (and repeatedly offering to get weapons). Finally, because of our great relationship with Phil Baxter of Creative Video we’re being given the use of a  Sony PDW-700 XDCam to test out for the shoot. Phil Wood is coming along to assist our DP Ed Moore so we’ll have two Canon XL-H1s to play with as well. I don’t think coverage is going to be an issue.

We’ve even got a great pro car photographer called David Shepherd coming along to capture the Armoured Land Rover Discovery in all its 3.5 tonne, 110mph glory. I used to do a job where we had two vehicles to cut about in, one was a Discovery and the other was, somewhat strangely, a Montego. They had the respective nicknames of the Beast and the Skip. This new Discovery definitely deserves the name, and then some.

Mainly i’ve been planning the shot list; working out how to get the most out of our extremely limited time. I wrote the script, planned the shot list and drafted the schedule so I should know it all inside out by now but I’m still convinced there’s more I could be doing. That means I probably won’t be great company this weekend but I plan to be very prepared. Piss poor performance does no-one any favours.

I’m really excited but also a little bit nervous. I think i’ve done everything I need to do to make an adequate film, but whoever got up in the morning and said “I want to be adequate”. More yet!

Elsewhere, two Royal Marines got the good news in Afghanistan today and Indian hotels are still burning. Spare a thought for the families. My best mate Nick flew to Iraq last week leaving behind his new born son Matthew. So if you have some thoughts and prayers to spare, send some his way too.

I think its time for a beer.