Jet-setting “Sea Change style” has been the defining characteristic of May 2009. Beautiful scenery (Lake District, Cote D’Azur), hiding dark secrets (VOSA fines and Cannes Film Festival)! The legacy of the production continues to haunt us just as the edit pulls us forward.
We spent 7 hours on trains up and down from Penrith in a day to attend the hearing at the Magistrates Court for an overweight art department vehicle unluckily caught on the road up to Scotland back in November. We’d known we’d be fined but by how much? My right leg wobbled uncontrollably in my only smart suit as I stood whilst they delivered their verdict….
No sooner had we returned to London then we were off again, taking the early morning Easyjet flight to Nice from Luton. With a deliberately packed, ’short and sweet’ schedule of 48 hours, we crammed in 6 meetings a day plus the inevitable parties by night.
Our friends Nick Scott and Fiona Brownlie of The Winners Productions had space for us in their perfect little apartment at the end of the Croisette in Palm Beach, just the right distance from the frenetic mass of humanity around le Palais. Getting there however meant bypassing Jim Carrey and Colin Firth as they threw ’snowballs’ in the 25 degree heat to promote yet another version of A Christmas Carol, bah humbug.
Meetings took us from hotel room to hotel room (not in that way, ahem) and café to café to meet with foreign distributors interested in buying the film. The first day ended with us moonlighting as Times gossip columists and attending the Spandau Ballet party at the appropriately named Nikki Beach. I fell in love with Martin Kemp who has just directed his first low budget horror feature. He’s awesome. On so many levels I felt we really bonded but he hasn’t called me since.
Struggling for the majority of the second day with shin splints and a sore head, we continued our meetings like troopers and ended on a high note at the superb Scottish Screen party right on the beach. We saw Anne Sheehan, our Exec Producer now at Prescience, Nigel Thomas of Matador, Carole Sheridan of SS, Frances Harvey of Soda and the usual suspects padding around in the sand.
Our male escorts (not in that way, promise!) Bertrand “the Muscles” and Rob took time from their busy sunbathing schedules to catch up on the day’s events over a bottle of wine at the Grand. We finally returned to Luton feeling very satisfied if a little disjointed by the whirlwind of activity…and straight into the arms of producer Charlotte who had managed to secure funding for the flashback sequences in Kent!
Roll on the summer!
PS More podcasts to come very soon so please stay tuned.
Just back from a whistlestop trip to Mull. I flew up and back in 36
hours in order to get the main house location in order. In the last
five months, a lot of our beloved props (including Calum’s ‘treasure’
and the false walls of Nikki’s room) have been languishing in the
barn and needed sorting out. It was great to see the
island in the daylight and relative warmth, and to return to a place
full of memories with just me and trusty sidekicks Ryan Hendrick and
Rob McCroary. We needed a van and our friends at MacKays Garage and
Hire automatically handed the keys over to Ryan so familiar a sight
is he!
We had dinner with some old friends at Macgregors Roadhouse in
Craignure and reminisced on the good, the bad and the ugly of the
shoot. Despite the brevity of my visit, it was sad leaving and
driving the A82 back to Glasgow. I was also devastated to find my
Caledonian MacBrayne Coffee Express Loyalty Card wasn’t valid on the
ferry to Oban…two stamps left to get before my free capuccino
(usually the first sign of civilisation)
Meanwhile down South, the edit continues apace at Speade – we are
excited to now include Matthew Herbert’s temp tracks in the assembly.
There is a genuinely fun atmosphere that abounds along the corridors
of their Poland Street premises and the awesome contents of their
orange Smeg fridge….
Brek and Clare remain very busy with their respective films The
Wolfman and The Infidel (yikes, frightening combo!) as they approach
delivery and production respectively; it’s been fascinating watching
the projects unfold.
I’m preparing to fly out with Emily on another whistlestop tour of
wild landscapes and even wilder people – Cannes Film Festival! More
as it comes!!
It’s now the end of March and plans are still afoot to go up to Mull to finish off our shoot in mid April. Sam is busily putting together a rough assemble which will determine how much extra footage we actually need! Emily is busy prepping the logistics and Geraldine is trying to ensure we don’t get ourselves into another financial pickle!
Elizabeth has her finance head on and is researching away into pockets of money, one which will hopefully come into fruition very soon – fingers crossed!
Brek has been very busy this last week not on The Sea Change but rather making a short video for Downham Library – Downham Library – part of a new innovatively design community centre. It should be online in the new few weeks so we’ll post the link. It’s a pretty amazing place and worth checking out if you are in the area.
In the downtime from everything Sea Change related we are also making some headway with developing new projects. Something that gets us all very excited, flip charts at the ready!
Remember to follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/Theseachange and add us a friend on facebook if you haven’t already.
You have another guest blogger this time! I am Emily Bray and have been working on The Sea Change on and off since June 2008 as Production Assistant. I have been working closely with Brek, Liz and Clare since their return from Mull, together with our super-efficient new line manager, Geraldine Hawkins.
It has been absolutely fascinating (if not ever so slightly hair-raising) to witness the evolution of The Sea Change from its development days to this last push to get the final chunk of filming completed. Having watched some of the rushes, I was really excited by what I saw; it brought back all the excitement that I felt when I first read the script. Not only was I impressed by the quality of the footage but, having not gone up to Mull in November, I was stunned by the sublime beauty of the landscape. These have been challenging times but now, touch wood, it really looks like things are coming together.
First off, we have an awesome editor on board, Sam Sneade, who cut SEXY BEAST and BIRTH, and recently completed work on WHITE LIGHTNIN’ which premiered at Sundance this year. He is currently putting together an assembly of the stuff that has been shot so far and his assembly will determine exactly what needs to be included in the schedule for the days of additional photography.
We aim to return to Mull in late April for 3 days with a couple of days shooting in London and at Pinewood. I have started to prepare for this second shoot and, learning from the November shoot and all the logistical difficulties that we encountered, I am looking into ways that this shoot can be made as simple and as efficient as possible. This involves everything from researching cast & crew travel options and liaising with rail networks and stations to researching facilities deals & requirements.
At the same time, I have also been wading through various mounds of paperwork in the way of completion funding and British Film Certificate applications that need to be completed and sent off. It is definitely all go in the tailormade office and our sleek and chic new abode in Market Place seems to be giving us the psychological boost we need to push ahead. Although, admittedly, its proximity to Bagelrama has done nothing to quell my serious bagel obsession….
As our personal fortunes dip and wain, our work environment keeps getting more and more flash. We are moving offices for the third and hopefully final time to Marketplace off Oxford Street thanks to a close friend who wants to support the arts.
The colour scheme and minimalist design of the space will be ruined by our arrival as we come laden with two house plants, some garden furniture, twenty boxes of props, a huge roll of bubble wrap, half of Viking Direct in spare stationary and two ‘Welcome to Mull’ tea towels. Luckily there are also three state of the art, sound proofed meeting rooms so our frequently impassioned exchanges can be appropriately muffled.
We have spent the majority of our time on the film working out the details of the budget: both costs to date and future spend. The strategy for raising completion funds is multi-stranded with all of us busy pursuing one or other. The six minute promo has been working its magic but it’s clearly time to get cracking on the main assembly as this will inform our 6 days of additional photography. Fitting these days around Colin Morgan’s availability as he heads on to his second series of Merlin in Wales and France is another major juggle. And then there’s the insurance claim…the mix of the sublime and the ridiculous never fails to amaze and amuse us.
So the latest chapter comes to close as we’ve managed to find the money to pay our crew back.
For a time there it was incredibly difficult to think straight with the chasing phonecalls, trying to financially strategize the rest of the film and make creative decisions on where to go next and all whilst worrying how to pay the tax return, bills and eat. There is no hint of glamour in our film-making lives. Even this morning in the corner shop I had to count out 21 1p pieces to help pay the milk. But hey now we know when it gets really bad you can survive it, you just have to keep going and swallow the pangs of guilt, embarrassment and frustration. For Liz, Clare and I think we feel incredibly reassured that we have such a good relationship out of all of this and thats a crucial investment for making it work both now and in the future.
In the meantime we’re getting a great response to a promotional piece we edited together and hopefully its got us 2-3 investment deals to help us finish the film too. We’re now starting to pencil dates for a 2nd shoot to help us achieve some 2nd unit material and working with an editor on the start of an assemble.
One of the artists we worked with (Orly Orbach) is also exhibiting at the Hackney Empire and we’re starting to look at some animation ideas with her. And we’re hoping to meet with Matthew Herbert week after next to start sound/music ideas off.
Slowly, slowly we’re whirring back into production again.
New year, new plans for The Sea Change as we tackle an extraordinary sequence of events!
Recently we’ve been asking ourselves some rather existential questions such as “is this it?” and “can we be any more stressed?” or “is that production knight in shining armour, armed with an up-to-date cost report and full paperwork really just a figment of our imagination?”
The reason for such philosophizing?
After the on set challenges of shooting on a very remote scottish island, we now face the grueling prospect of getting the film through post with one less producer after Johann Insanally was taken seriously ill the day after wrap. hospitalized over the christmas period, johann is now making a slow recovery, we hope.
the rushes do look amazing however and we are very very pleased with the results – a truly different, magical and disturbing (in a good way) piece of work.
Brek, Clare and I have resumed producer duties, working with a brilliant new line producer to cost out post and a few days of additional photography in late February. we’re also meeting with new editor candidates, financiers, our sales agents, foreign distributors and trusty online marketing team to plan the forthcoming months.
Can’t quite believe we’ve just returned from Mull, it felt like we’d spent half our lifetime there and then all of a sudden we’re back in the grey bleak metropolis of London. Everything feels a little cramped and sped up just now and where has the sky gone?! What’s more the energy has been sapped from Liz and I and we find ourselves gawping more than usual at each other with very little to say. Having just come back from a lunch with Rain we’re reassured to find her in the same state and eating more food than ever. Seems we can’t drop the routine established in Mull of eating every 2 hours (and even during the night sometimes).
Complaining over we’re very excited bout the rushes we’ve returned with. The performances are brilliantly enticing and the camera work and pacing of scenes works a treat. However, we have returned not having shot the whole film and so we’ve all got to knuckle down now and get orgnising again to make a 2nd return trip to Mull in early February to shoot 2nd unit material and a few pick ups. Everybody agrees its a huge benefit to be able to rough assemble the material and get a strong overview of the piece and reflect on what is and isn’t needed. The poetic thriller look and atmosphere is dramatic and exciting but not an easy one to achieve so more time reviewing the process and balance of picture and sound is blessing.
Other issues for now include raising finance for the return trip and some post production money, so the applications are being sent and further phonecalls made.
Meantime Liz and I are doing our bestest to get as much done as possible before Christms takes over – think its going to have to be homemde Christmas chutney for everyone this year as my piggy bank is very much empty.
This film has been in development for the last three years and we are proud to announce the start of principle photography on the 24th of November in Glasgow and the Isle of Mull.
The Sea Change is being produced by Tailormade Productions and consists of a magnificent crew including Johann Insanally - Producer, Rain Li - D.O.P, Chris Wyatt - Editor and Matthew Herbert - Composer.
Stay tuned for more information.....
