Mcbrions is the blog of designer Rut Briones, where I intend to write about ongoing projects, new updates and any curiosity that I find worth of commenting on. Feel free to leave comments and honest feedback is always welcome!
And the last one for today, I said it's been hectic and I'll explain it. Apart from trying to distribute Phobia around as much as we can (I think we're doing a pretty good job of it), we've started the pre-production of 2 new projects.
The first and most advanced one is The Dress, a feature about a dramatist and his obsession with writing the perfect play. The film is set in 3 different locations, including Spain and UK, but the bulk of it happens in Poland, country of which we have acquired a fairly amount of knowledge recently on account of research. I have to say I already wanted to go there, as I have some very dear friends and they always tell me stories about it, but now, now I'm simply starting to fall in love with it. I'll write a post exclusively to Poland one of these days, although not today.
Going back in track, the first draft of the script is already finished, Hugo is on the writer role once more for this one and I'll be sitting on the director's chair (woohoo!). As with Phobia, Edgar Wittek will be the cinematographer and Pilar Barrio will take care of the Production. More on the crew when we know it ourselves.
The second one and more recent runs under the (maybe temporary) name of Berlin; and it is an online drama/thriller series around the dissappearance of a woman and the subsequent investigation. This is my turn to sit down in front of the keyboard and resume my writing activities, but I cannot disclose too much yet as we still have a lot to decide. But I can say that if it goes forward, it's exciting.
Tomorrow we'll have a ToDo Films meeting, after which I'll post news on these two projects and anything else we decide to give away. For now... it's been enough for one day! I know I haven't said too much yet, but hold on!
Meanwhile, in the ToDo Films HQ (if we had anything similar to that), life is turning hectic. And we love it.
Some of you went to the screening of Phobia in Kino London, it was a very pleasant night. Kino is an international initiative that started in Montreal, in which they do an open screen night (or the filmmaking equivalent to an open mic) where new and (we like to think) upcoming directors showcase their work. To screen is free, to watch is £4 including popcorn and a bite of sushi and you get to watch a dozen films and a performance. That's at least what we got and it was more than enough. In our case the performance run at the hands of Dan Smith and it was pretty interesting. Regardless of whether his style hits you or not, you cannot deny the guy has an amazing sense for composition and puts his soul into it. If you have the opportunity it's definitely worth seeing him live. He's fresh, he's passionate and he's talented. What else could you ask for?
From all the films that we saw in there, I would say my favourite was that of Lola Clavo, No Love Lost:
Visually strong and with pretty straight forward symbolism, I found it to be one of the best technically and one of the most interesting in terms of content. In my opinion, No Love Lost is a brutal and unapologetic denouncement of self-destructive relationships, specially from the woman's point of view. It's crude, but it is still simple. I liked it. I will follow this director's work, because she got me interested in what she's got to say.
It's been a whole month since I last wrote an entry. Time fflliiiieeees... literally. But it hasn't been an empty month on my part. So I'm going to spread news and updates in a couple of posts to make them easier to read. First things first:
I collaborated with Met Film by the end of last month on the project A day in the life of a PCSO, in which I was the filmmaker following the PCSO in question around for a whole day. That was quite exciting, I have to say, and it turned out to be quite an adventure, although not in the way I expected it. The truth is I had a couple of equipment complications, namely the batteries run out way too soon, but thanks to the cooperation and disposition of the people at the Ealing Station we managed to come back with a couple of tapes of material.
Being unsure myself of the duties and obligations of a PCSO, I have to say I got a lot more respect for them now. I didn't understand before what my responsibilities towards them were if they were not police but were supposed to be even another form of authority. What? Now, after having met them, I got to the conclusion that they are more or less like the police, but are in general a lot more unprotected (which means that in more than one situation they cannot do anything without calling their bigger brothers). So respect.
Going around in the van with the guys, they actually made their jobs easy and even attractive for us (I took an assistant with me when I realised I had a boom mic and no mount for the camera... oops!). Most of them will tell you that this is the previous step to becoming a police officer and most will tell you that it is indeed a good experience to have, as you spend many hours in the streets interacting with lots of different people, from different backgrounds and, more importantly, with different intentions.
The most surprising thing for me was all the knowledge they actually had of the local (and neighbouring) gangs and their members, their relations to each other, their enemies, their way of work. That was pretty impresive from them, it felt like an episode of The Wire: London calling. It was fun.
By the end of the day, we felt like we've had a mini adventure and a new little notch on our revolvers to tell about in the next social encounter (it proved true). We were escorted to the doors of the Ealing Studios in a police van, which is a lot more glamorous than arriving in a taxi, and felt that for a few hours, we were part of the guys.
By the way, the donuts myth? It's absolutely true.
Thanks to Claire, Graham, both Sarges and the rest of them lot.
They say there's two creative outcomes in a time of crisis: the fatalistic (social dramas, future dystopias, etc. belong to this category) and the uplifting (mostly comedies, fairy tales). It is usually easier to find the first one than the second and I've been wondering about why. My conclusion is that it is usually easier to find the dark side of things than being optimistic without sounding cheesy, the same way that it is usually easier to complain about what we lack or we don't like than to praise what we like on our lives.
Can you imagine a conversation that starts by: "Oh, man, today I'm so happy and gratefull for my life!" without the listener running away to throw up in the nearest plant pot? When we are happy and positive we tend to not give an explanation about it. You just say: "Today I feel happy, don't ask me why, but I am...", which runs with the hidden line that you actually shouldn't be happy, nonetheless you are.
That's probably why when we find something positive that manages to overcome the cheesiness and leave you with that "yeah, that's true" feeling; well, it sort of makes your day, doesn't it?
Today I came accross this piece on the net:
It is a piece nicely crafted by students (students!) of the VFS and all I have to say is: it actually made my day (it sort of depressed me as well for a while, but I managed to forget about it). Not only the technique is good, the pacing appropriate and the music and the girl's voice over match perfectly; but it also touches a place that everyone over 20 can recognize. But hey, it's not that bad...
Don't forget to check the rest of the videos on Jr.canest vimeo channel and visit the other guys websites as well, it is well worthy... Here are the people involved and links to their websites whenever I could find them:
Jr.canest (his website is still under construction, so I added his vimeo channel) Kasey Lum (again, vimeo profile) Marisa Torres online portfolio Alexander Badr (I'm afraid I couldn't find much about him...)
This is just a quick update. I haven't been able to write in a while because I'm in the middle of a very time-consuming project that has me stuck to the computer monitor!! It's curious how sometimes the most interesting projects are the ones that are (probably) less healthy!!
Anyway, I'm in the middle of an exciting project right now, where I can play with special effects and test my hand to see how far it can go, which is really good. That means that I haven't had time either for writing or anything else, but as soon as it's finished I'll come back and post a couple of things that I have reserved.
But hey! Thanks for holding on me! Nice day for everyone ;)
