Yearly Archives: 2010

It occurred to me watching a good friend on GM:TV this morning that by separating my personal and professional lives into two blogs is at best an unnecessary separation of my life and work and at worst a betrayal of where I’ve come from and how I got here.

I’ve therefore re-christened this blog – it’s still just me, but I’ve carried over the old SmileThroughIt name to remind myself and everyone who visits just how big a part of my life transplantation and organ donation is.

I originally started a separate blog so I could present a professional face to the world and keep my personal story out of the mix. But I’ve realised over the last couple of days and weeks that who I am and where I’ve come from are inextricably linked and should never be separated.

This, then, is the place for me that will offer not only my thoughts and offerings on the independent film world, writing and other arts-based things, but also my personal journey as I set out to achieve all the things I want to achieve in my life, my work and everything else.

Here’s to being yourself and shouting out loud.

Since the back-end of last year, I’ve been working on a new screenplay for an ultra-low-budget film with just two characters and a powerful, emotional love story.

It’s now at that stage with which many writers will be familiar – the skeleton is there, the bones and muscles, but it still needs that little something to really form it into something special.

What I’m battling with now is the classic filmmaker’s dilemma of just how commercial do you make a script for a micro-budget indie? I know that the market for the film isn’t going to be vast, but I also know that a couple of simple – but major – tweaks could open it out to a wider and more passionate market. If nothing else I’m confident these changes would give it a much better chance on the festival circuit.

The trouble is, I don’t know how big a compromise this is. I’m not as familiar with the environment I’d be re-setting the film in and although I think the story would work just as well, am I betraying both my instincts and my original story in pushing for a bigger audience? Or am I doing the underlying story a disservice in sticking to my guns and potentially reducing the market for the finished film?

As it stands I’m torn between the two, hence this little cry for help. At what point does targeting a market becoming selling out?

A few weeks ago now, I started talking to Matt Shea of Swanky Reviews about joining their team as a UK/European writer for their reviews site.

Swanky is a reviews site with a difference – it’s not solely focused on what’s hitting the screens or the streets this week, but rather in building up a catalogue of quality reviews of great – and not so great – movies, so that any time you’re stuck wondering which DVD to choose from or which of the movies on your satellite channel to pick you can refer to SwankyReviews.com for advice, guidance and heavily-subjective opinions.

None of us at Swanky pretends to be the ultimate in film reviewing wisdom, but we share with our readers what we like, what we don’t and why – then we leave you to decide whether you want to believe us, disagree with us, watch it or skip it.

So head on over and check it out at http://www.swankyreviews.com. You can also follow new posts & reviews via the site’s Twitter feed or subscribe to the RSS.

Procrastination is not uniquely an artists’ disease, but it does seem to afflict writers, filmmakers and our fellow creatives more – or more prominently – than most.

The ins and outs of procrastination are a blog in themselves (or several, depending how much time of my writing day I’m trying to waste…) so I’ll skip over that just for now.

What all artists need to avoid, however, is the self-inflicted, unavoidable procrastination within every day life that can jump up and bite you on the metaphorical creative behind.

Only today I had to address some post and, in doing so, discovered something which led me on a wild goose chase of an afternoon by way of trying to stop being overcharged for an energy bill (curse you Scottish Power). This detour, and its subsequent fallout, has entirely swamped my afternoon, which was to be dedicated to address some script issues on a new project of mine.

Today’s lesson, then: stay organised. If I’d been organised enough to notice the bill issues before today I’d have dealt with them when I had more time, rather than having to fire-fight solutions on the fly and eat into my writing time. I’d also be a lot less stressed out than I am right now.

A friend of mine posted a link to this video on their Twitter feed this morning and it highlights one of the most important lessons anyone can learn in life – whether it be filmmakers, entrepreneurs, sportsmen or cake-bakers:

The need to fail to succeed is one of the most overlooked elements of any career. Many a great man, woman or muppet has said that they have learned more from their failures than they have from their successes, mostly because failing forces you to sit down and work out what went wrong in order to be able to avoid making the same mistakes twice.

Being free to fail is invaluable to any artist when starting out, but if you want to increase your success rate quicker you will need to learn to fully analyse the things you do right and not just pick apart the things that go wrong.

By taking apart your successful endeavours with the same rigour as you study your errors, you can help yourself learn in a positive way. Don’t get me wrong, you will still fail – we all will – but learning analysis is the key to pushing yourself, your work and your career forward.

There’s a great post today by the hugely talented indie filmmaker Gary King (follow him on Twitter here) on the Multi-Hyphenate blog.

In it, he espouses the pros and pros of crowdfunding for his upcoming flick HOW TO WRITE A JOE SCHERMANN SONG, which he’s doing via Kickstarter. The interesting part for me was the following:

One no longer has to worry about the return-on-investment or making money back to recoup costs. Although I’m sure the majority of filmmakers do want to turn a profit with their film, it is not a looming cloud above their heads.

At first glance I paused: surely the people donating want to see the film do well even if there’s not the profit-participation of traditional funding models? Then I realised exactly what Gary’s getting at: it’s about freedom.

What crowdfunding allows is for independent filmmakers to make the film they want, the way they want, without having to worry about who’s breathing down their neck for returns. And the Kickstarter model also means that you have to build your fanbase for the flick ahead of time to get the funding in place.

Gary is now just short of the 25% mark on funding his new project, which is well worth a look. Kickstarter‘s own stats show that once you pass the 25% funded mark, 94% of projects hit their funding deadlines.

Crowdfunding has been a revolution in the US recently and I’m now looking into ways of bringing the concept over to the UK so that British filmmakers don’t have to rely on American sites to run projects, where they suffer at the hands of exchange rates. More on that to come later, but for now check Gary out and contribute if you can.

In the next couple of weeks I’m embarking upon a major new documentary project which will cover the next 12-24 months and possibly beyond, producing frequent web-videos along the way.

I’m looking for a bank of freelance preditors (producers/shooters/editors) that I can work with to produce fresh, interesting and powerful short documentary films for YouTube/Vimeo and the project’s website.  I can’t pay you anything at the moment, but I’ll cover all your expenses for the shoots.

Anyone who’s interested and lives in and around the south of England (particularly but not exclusively Bucks, Northants, Beds, Oxfordshire and London), please drop me a line here and send me a link to something you’ve done.

Experience isn’t key to this, it’s as much about the ride and the journey as anything else, but I do want to know that you can point a camera in the right places and/or cut a good short.

There’s been a mixed reaction to BAFTA’s decision to award the Best Film award to Kathryn Bigelow’s THE HURT LOCKER last night, with many expressing surprise that it won out over her ex-husband’s blue epic AVATAR.

I think THE HURT LOCKER is not only a deserved winner, but the right choice. Best Film (or Best Picture at the Oscars, or the Palm D’Or at Cannes) should go to the film that is the best all-round example of great filmmaking.  That means the best technically, the best script, the best collected performances, the best directed and the best realised.

While that doesn’t mean a film must have all the acting nominations sown up (like Silence of the Lambs), or indeed win Best Director or Cinematographer to justify a win, it does mean that AVATAR’s inherent failures within it’s screenplay – the hackneyed plotting and hugely unsubtle and over-zealous anti-Afghanistan rhetoric – should give pause when considering it the very best film of the year.

Does this mean AVATAR’s Oscar chances are doomed? Unlikely, given Oscar’s reluctance to pay any attention whatsoever to BAFTA’s whims, but it does at least make me proud to be British when we can recognise all-round brilliance in the face of mesmeric and revolutionary imagery.

Congratulations, also, to Kathryn Bigelow for becoming the first woman to collect the Best Director BAFTA and to British talent being celebrated so widely – Carey Mulligan, Colin Firth and Duncan Jones; we salute you!

For the last three and a half years I’ve been blogging my own personal journey through a life-saving transplant over at SmileThroughIt.com – it’s been a true rollercoaster covering everything from life on the list to this post, at my lowest point when I honestly didn’t think I’d see Christmas 2007, through the transplant that not only saved but transformed my life.

Now, however, I feel that it’s time to move on.  I’m emerging into a world of professional writing and filmmaking and I need a blog that sells my talents to the wider world in a way that’s not focused on the day-to-day minutiae of a life that’s far more normal (and therefore less interesting) than the previous struggles I faced.

So this is is: olilewington.co.uk – a place for me to talk about what I’m up to and to broach topics related to my various projects, from revolutions in the indie film industry to tips on how to achieve more with your writing.  As I sit to write this, I’ve no idea really what kind of animal this blog is likely to become, but I’m open to and excited by the possibilities.

In the words of a friend, filmmaker and all-round guru: “Onwards and Upwards!”

It’s been a while. In truth, I didn’t want to blog until I could find something positive to put down on these pages. And after a month like January, that’s been very, very hard work.

In addition to the funeral of K’s aunt, who died in late December, this month has seen us lose Jess (as detailed in my previous post) and then, last week, a very close friend’s baby brother, too. It’s been an absolutely heart-wrenching start to the year, especially after 2010 began with such excitement and promise.

I’ve also been hinting and nodding towards a new project which was supposed to be up and running by the end of January, that still hasn’t taken off. However, the reasons for that delay are more exciting than they are dispiriting, but all the more frustrating that I can’t share any details of what’s happening just yet.

One element of the project I can talk about is the attempt – along with my band of merry men – to complete the 3 Peaks Challenge in May this year, the weekend before my 28th birthday. It’s a truly daunting task and the most common reaction I get when I tell people about it is, “Why?”.

So I’ll tell you all now to prevent the mass of comments and emails about it following this post: because I can. Because I’m now able to push myself physically; because I’m able to see what my mental strength can carry me through; because I survived when others didn’t and have been given the perfect opportunity to do the things I want to do; because I can help to show the world just what an amazing difference organ donation can make to someone’s life.

This time three years ago, I was still recovering from Christmas and wondering if I’d see my 25th birthday. From then to now I’ve been able to go the kinds of things I only ever dreamed of and pushing myself physically and mentally through the toughest of challenges is something I’ve always wanted to do. And now I can.

There will be more details on the Challenge itself as well as the wider project as things progress, but today felt like a good day to sit myself down, slap myself round the face, pull myself out of my funk and start moving forward with the gift that is another year of life. Today was my first session at the gym in preparation for the 3 Peaks and it hurt like hell – but the pain of physical endeavour pales in comparison to the pain that my friends and their families have been through in the last month.

This is for everyone who can’t, everyone who wants to and everyone who never will achieve their dreams.