Becoming An Independent Filmmaker (Or How I Made Myself Unemployable)...







 

 

For years I struggled with two sides of my life: one very creative, buzzing events and arts life, with performance, writing, filmmaking, singing and tattooing. The other, a sucked up suit working long hours for multinationals as an optimization specialist and project manager. I managed to balance my creativity off by borrowing cameras and office buildings to film shorts, roping in the facilities guys to lend me stuff such as lenses and lighting. By the time I worked at a Soho media hothouse, I had even filmed a short in Charles Saatchi’s personal toilet and scenes from Shakespeare in an abandoned unit waiting to be filled with chairs and tables again for poor souls to strangle their creativity in designs for banner ads and web pages for products they hated, after years and years of film or art school.

I could see people dying in these offices. Men in their 50s who really wanted to act or be in a band or write a book, but somehow they just ended up taking the money. Women who intended to go traveling and take photos but ended up instead marrying some guy from the post room and getting pregnant, therefore having to work to afford this new family life.

I carried on as one of them, but I still had this secret life, my tattoos covered with cardigans in summer (two of which I had to actually stop me getting a poky job) broiling me to death, watching blankly as they drank beer and ate sweets at their desks on a Friday, plugging in a Guitar Hero at 5pm, truly believing they were living “da vida loca”. Some would stay late and get drunk actually in the office, and a memo went round on Monday morning to ask “Who puked on the Guitar Hero and left it in the girls’ bathrooms?”

And then I realized I had to get over the fear. What was I afraid of? Well, not having money to live on. Not being able to eat or pay rent seemed quite crucial. But then I realized the worst thing I could do was die without trying.

Around that time, I moved to Spain and took a job in Gibraltar, the gambling central of Europe. I worked for a gaming company and frankly I hated it. I felt like the girl who knew too much. I knew this was all unimportant to me. No good would come of it. The people seemed to live for the job and I didn’t. I spent my wages on my own camera equipment and started filming anything, everything. My colleagues would tell me how drunk they got while I found it impossible to answer that I spent the whole weekend filming roads for segues in the documentary I was now making on the morals of bullfighting across Spain, to be released shortly “The Bull and The Ban“.

 

 

 

Gradually I think I alienated myself. I was relieved to be ignored on the chats and office jokes but others thought I was “weird” and wondered why I was bothering to try and make a film on my own. Well, because I have no choice! When I was made redundant it was a relief. I couldn’t get the image of a ticking clock out of my mind – every day sat at that desk was a day I didn’t create. In Cloud Atlas, Cavendish, played by Jim Broadbent, says, “You will not apply for membership, but the tribe of the elderly will claim you. Your present will not keep pace with the world’s. This slippage will stretch your skin, sag your skeleton, erode your hair and memory, make your skin turn opaque so your twitching organs and blue-cheese veins will be semi-visible. You will venture out only in daylight, avoiding weekends and school holidays. Language, too, will leave you behind, betraying your tribal affiliations whenever you speak. On escalators, on trunk roads, in supermarket aisles, the living will overtake you, incessantly. Elegant women will not see you. Store detectives will not see you. Salespeople will not see you, unless they sell stair lifts or fraudulent insurance policies. Only babies, cats, and drug addicts will acknowledge your existence. So do not fritter away your days. Sooner than you fear, you will stand before a mirror in a care home, look at your body, and think, E.T., locked in a ruddy cupboard for a fortnight.”

Terrifying to think you could get to this place and still have achieved nothing for yourself!

The odd thing was, when I tried to interview for another job, halfhearted and yet somehow self-menacingly accusing myself of not acting responsibly, these interviewers would ask, “Why the big gap here? What did you do?”

I would say “I made a film about sociopolitical issues surrounding the Catalan ban on bullfighting. Oh, and I wrote a book to go with it.” You’d think that would be impressive to any employer, but every time a look of either jealousy or “does not compute” would wash over their too old already faces.

I was being interviewed by people ten years younger than me who never even tried to complete such a huge project that involved filming a film in thirteen locations, project managing it, producing it, line producing it, location scouting it, writing it, making the subtitles for it (I had to learn Spanish at an astonishing rate) editing it, narrating it, making part of the soundtrack and then marketing it, making the stills for it – and writing the accompanying book and marketing that as well, doing the website doing the blog, answering press inquiries, writing interview replies, writing articles for books, appearing on TV to say what I thought of bullfighting, working on the trailers, the re-edits for different markets and dealing with fans. (I probably left something out here).

And then, I couldn’t work out why, but I started turning down these offers of work. Because, I am the girl that knows too much. Literally. I have made it so clear to anyone who talks to me that I can do everything on my own, that maybe I should do it on my own!

Since I embraced the fact my career is over in the office, I have found worlds opening up as if fate is rewarding me for making the correct choice. Because I couldn’t get an agent/producer/funding body to take me seriously, I did it myself. And now people are coming to me, asking,”Did you really do this by yourself? Are you sure?” Yes, I am sure. You read about mothers lifting trucks off their baby’s stroller after an accident. I’m the mom and in that stroller is the dream I hung on to. But for ages I was suffering from what I call “Bedroom Window Syndrome”. Maybe someone will come by one day, some important “film person” and hear me reading out a script? Or maybe they will walk by and see my film as I watch the rushes on a TV, because that very day I forgot to close the drapes!
In fact, as an aside, when I was about eight, an art dealer from Holland pulled my father over on a motorway because he saw me drawing a portrait of Belinda Carlisle (of all people) as I sat in the back seat that he immediately wanted to buy. I said no (why?) but he still tried to win me over with Dutch chocolates and a letter weeks later. Oh the folly of youth! You think you can pass by opportunities like rain in a puddle.

But life is geared to the young. And suddenly nobody’s looking in your window. Suddenly it’s a puddle of tears. Sweet tears of regret!

So most people that make it, make their own luck. Some go to film school, while others wing it. Kevin Spacey stole a party invite, Harrison Ford was feeding lines and convinced George Lucas he was better at acting than line feeding. Kathryn Joosten was in her late 40s and a nurse when she went to an open casting and got the job, just as Danny Glover, then aged 40 and working for the city council, went to an open casting for The Color Purple.

And today, another creative woman got taken into the world that rejected me: Alicia Keys is now the creative director of Blackberry. And so what if it’s a publicity deal? She is the one up there taking the greens home! One thing I know is that that job was prime estate for many Blackberry employees, but they didn’t get it. Something has shifted.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of a recognition that the corporate world needs creatives as gods, not as the hobbyists we are often made out to be and maybe the film industry will start rewarding those brave enough to go it alone as pioneers.

So don’t wait. Let your passion take you. Because it’s amazing that somehow, you don’t starve, or become homeless or go insane. You may just make it.


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