How I Made An Award-Winning Film With No Money, No Ideas, and No Camera

lukeofkondor (61)in #story • 8 years ago

You don't need a camera to make a film. Honestly. I did it. It turned out pretty good too.

"Why did I make this film?" I said as I looked out to the audience.

I was onstage. Award in hand. 300 people with their eyes on me. I tried to move my balding head out of the spotlight. Not a good look. These were important people. I needed to impress. People in the know. Faces from the TV. I'd never done this before. I was sweating, shaking as I tried to remember ... why did I make this film?

8 months before and I thought I should give up. I'd applied for every single funding scheme available and nobody wanted to give me any money. I was either too old, too young, too far away, too close, didn’t have the right smell, and in some cases, I didn’t have the right film.

Every day I checked my email, hoping to find a pleasant surprise but nothing came.

I wanted a big fat man in a suit with a beard and bottomless pockets to put his arm around my shoulder and tell me I was fantastic. No, not even that. I wanted him to tell me that I was good enough. I wanted his approval.

But there were no fat men, no emails, no phone calls or once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. There was nobody out there who was going to give me a shot. Nobody to give me any money and the message was clear. I was shit. I was useless. I must’ve been. Why else would I be shunned in such a way?

Now I’m a little (b)older and wiser I completely understand that when you apply for funding, you’re entering a lottery. A lot of people want that money and there’s no room to take punts on people without a proven track record. The only difference with this lottery is that the cost for a ticket is a finished script, a logline, director’s statement, details of your life plan, and a fresh DNA sample. A lot of work for a chance at a shot.

I don’t mean to be all down on funding because I think it’s fantastic that there’s anything out there at all, but at the time, I took it as an affront.

"Why don't you just make something anyway," my girlfriend said. "Just use what you've got."

"No that will never work!" I said, berating the love of my life.

A second later and the cogs started to grind. The ideas began to form. The clouds parted and the sun peeked out its cheeky face.

I jumped to my feet and announced, ”wait I've got it! I'll just make a film anyway with what I've already got!"

If people weren’t going to give the shot, I was going to fucking take it. I was going to carve something out of nothing and prove to them that they missed out. Hell, they should be applying to me to use their money. I was mad as hell. I stood up, raised my finger to the ceiling and proclaimed:

Not only will I make a film with no camera, no actors, no scripts, no props, and no money, I’ll do it in 7 days!

And I did it.

Somehow, within seven days I coughed up a surreal glitchy thriller called KEITH.

I used screen capture software instead of a camera. I used myself, some fake accounts, and my girlfriend instead of actors. I used royalty-free sound effects and repurposed music from previous projects. I found everything I needed right there in my bedroom.

As Jeff Goldblum said, “Life ... err ... finds a way".

I will say that the deadline was important. Without giving myself the 7-day window I would never have finished the film. It was labour intensive. I had blisters on my fingers from all the clicking and the scrolling, but I did it. I finished it. And the reception was pretty damn good.

I think the reason this film turned out quite well is because it’s 100% unapologetic. I didn’t have time to worry if a joke made sense, if the film was too weird, or if I should spoon-feed the audience more. I just had to concentrate on making it.

And what came out was pure authentic me. In today’s world, I think that’s what people want to see more than anything else — authenticity. Even if it comes without a budget.

It showed me that you can be 100% unapologetic in the kind of story you’re telling. You can make yourself a character in the film. You can make a film without a camera and maintain pacing, drama, and tension.

HITTING THE PUBLISH BUTTON

I threw the thing online not expecting much of anything. Regardless, I was kind of proud. I’d made this little thing and … it wasn’t too bad.

And then within 24 hours people were talking about it on Reddit, a few days later and Vimeo decided to feature it as a Staff Pick, blogs around the world were talking about it. It got watched 40,000 times within a couple of weeks.

The Vimeo Staff Pick E-Mail

Top Link on R/Filmmakers

... not too bad at all.

Convinced by some friends to send it around to a few festivals I sent it to the cheapest ones I could find. I spent more on festival submissions than the film itself (about £30).

CUT TO 8 months later and I got that surprise email. The one that said my film had won the Best Low-Budget Short Film at The London Short Film Festival.

They wanted me to collect the award at the award ceremony.

“Great,” I said. “When is it?"

“Tomorrow."

“Okay, I better put some clothes on."

I was all kinds of grateful for them to play a clip of the film on that giant screen in front of all those people, for them to call my name out, to hand me that lovely award. I was even more grateful that I didn’t slip on the stairs to the stage.

“So, Luke, why did you make this film?” the presenter said.

“Why did I make this film?” I said, trying to recall the anger, the outrage I felt, that gave me the impetus to start in the first place. “Well, I made it because I could."

Maybe I didn’t say those exact words. I think they were less cohesive and a tad more mumbly, but that’s what I meant to say. I meant to tell people that they were good enough. That they had all the approval they needed.

All this time, I’d been telling myself I wanted to be a filmmaker but nobody would let me. I didn’t realise that we become filmmakers by making films. Simple as that. We verb therefore we noun.

Somebody asked me recently, “What next?"

I smiled and said, “Well, make more stuff I guess.”

WANNA WATCH THE THE FILM?

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Luke Kondor is a filmmaker and writer. He started writing on his computer in his early teens and never looked back, and now he’s got really sore eyes.

He’s part of the digital story studio — Hawk & Cleaver where he helps to create the best new stories for you to watch, read, sniff, and absorb. Go grab a free book here

#fiction #writing #art #inspiration