Caution Wet Paint – A look back at 2009…

I rarely double post, but this was an imprtant comic strip that I decided to also publish on this blog too…

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Get your own

This is quite a personal comic strip. It has been a tough 2009 for CWP, but rather than blog about it, I decided to illustrate it. The big question I am asking myself is ‘what do I do next?’

And to be honest, I do not know…

A look back at 2009

And so it’s good bye from the ‘Noughties’ (2)

Unlike yesterday, this is a much more personal recollection of the decade. Well, what a decade it has been! The one that is clearest in my memory, and definitely the decade that will shape my years to come. And so how was it for me? Well, that is a very good question, that could only properly be answered in a few years time as I look back and contemplate the happenings of the past ten years. But it has definitely been a decade of two halves. At the beginning of the decade, I started it in revelry on the streets of London. And by the end of the decade I also will be on the streets of London, but not as boisterous as I will be working the night shift. In between it has been an eventful ten years.

The first half of the 2000’s was spent studying and travelling. I studied far too frivolously and travelled far too hard, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I visited a war zone to reconnect with my family, I climbed temples in the jungle, taught English to kids and adults, nearly died in a desert and hiked across the lands of the Moors. And then in 2004, I made an about turn and decided to pursue filming with a vigour. I surprised everyone that knew, me, alienated quite a few of them and got stuck into the business of making films. Now, six years later, and with very little to show for that decision, the big question to ask myself of this decade is ‘has it been a waste of my life?’ After all, these are supposedly the ‘best years’, and if I fail in my quest to make a (decent) living out of writing and directing my own feature films, than I would have wasted those years on nothing more than a pipe dream.

Looking back can be almost as dangerous as looking forward. Fear grips our paths towards the future, regret litters our paths behind us. All that we really have is the present day, and the hum-drum safety net of work, eat, and sleep. And yet, as I look back, I think to myself that it has been an all right decade, but something has to give soon to make it a really spectacular one…

should’ve

Probably the easiest phrase to say to someone in the English language but one of the hardest to listen to. After all, you cannot change the past, but learn from the choices made and continue living with it and improving yourself. That is the problem with fourth dimensional movement – it is only in one direction – forwards. Our existence means that we cannot simply go back and press the reset button, or nudge ourselves earlier on in the course of our lives to take a different path. What we have done is done and one of the certainties in life is that we will always lament the decisions we have made in the past.

Of course, it does not make it any easier to listen to the incessant wailing and whining of those who are supposedly near and dear to you, telling you that you should have done this and that when you were younger. True, but I also see that their own lives are not as rosy. They will also protest the loudest when it comes to highlighting the merest deficiencies in their own existences, usually referring to the weakness of their ’spirits’ or some other mumbo-jumbo to throw you off course.

But I do look back and think maybe I should’ve done it in this way or that. Call it the human condition, but I can’t help but look back and think, sometimes with a lot of regret about the amount of time I have wasted in my life. But this path is myriad in its ways and tugging away at the edges could unravel the tapestry of my life. However there is very little to sing and dance at this moment in time…

Traveling somewhere?

I am of fleeting interest to this world. In about 45 years, if I go by the average lifespan of the British man, I will be dead. About ten years before that, my body would have lost all usefulness. So the pressing question is not ‘who am I?’ but rather, ‘where shall I go next?’

I enjoy travel. It has bugged me that a major European airline has decided to cancel my flight, but with the cash refunded, I am feeling lucky. So where do I go next? Domestic or international? Back to India is certainly a possibility, but how about somewhere more exotic. The suicidal in me is plumping for Columbia, but I really want to see the mystique of West Africa before I pop off. Then there are relatives to see in far flung places, but it has been a while since I have set my eyes on a desert, forcing me back into the West African mindset.

Questions, yet to be answered, but all in good time. Let me have a cup of tea and mull over my options and my bank balance…

So Charlie, are you still making films then?

The answer is very much YES!

Despite the recent posts on this blog which seem to be related to me wandering near and far, my main preoccupation in life has been filming, hence the name, El Director! Lately, I have not mentioned film making on this blog, mainly as I have been writing daily about the process of film making on the dedicated blog to Caution Wet Paint. And if yu want to see what I am getting upto in the world of film, it is usually a god idea to see that webpage, as I almost certainly update it on a daily basis.

So, what have I been getting up to in the world of film? Well, the adventures of Jay and Kay have continued into the world of Hi-Definition. In March I shot the main sequence and since then I have been editing This week, I put the final touches to the DVD that is currently being sent off to film festivals. At ten minutes long it is the longest incarnation of Jay and Kay to date. Go to the CWP website, and you can have a proper gander.

But why haven’t I talked about it. Well, to put it simply, I have actually been busy with the making of the film. Jay and Kay Save the World has taken up pretty much every waking thought of mine for the past third of this year, and I have been busy with the pre-production since 2008. All in all, I really want to talk about something else when I write this blog, hence the seemingly odd distractions for a director.

But there is also one other very good reason why I have not spoken much about the latest incarnation of Caution Wet Paint. Quite simply, I am terrified. For if the latest short from the CWP stable does not work, that is it, the idea is finished, dead in the water. And all the effort, all the highs and lows of the past two years, the fun and advancement that I have had with Caution Wet Paint would be for nothing. What started off as a brief showing the Canary Wharf FIlm Festival has actually given me my first real taste of the film industry. And it is a big, bad world to try and conquer. I have continued with Caution Wet Paint, partly as success breeds success but also as I actually enjoy making it. But two years later, all will be revealed. Is Caution Wet Paint the key to the promised land, or will the efforts of the past two years prove to be futile, an extensive cu-de-sac on the road of life.

You may begin to see why I have not mentioned much about film making on this blog recently.

So what happens if all else fails? Well, to be honest, I am not going to face up to that possibility. I have only just started the distribution and there will be a lot of twists and turns before this road is finished. This will occur that I can not yet foresee, but for the moment I will remain cautiously optimistic. I know what the strengths and weaknesses of this latest film are. They were the same pros and cons that I planned for in the Pre-production stage. In essence, the film making world is now out of my hands. For a director with no contacts, I am being a little ballsy with my ideas, but ultimately Caution Wet Paint has come as far as I can take it. Whatever will happen to this idea, this concept and to my film making career in general is no longer in my hands…

The Blog of El Director

I may talk about a lot of things, in fact this blog is quite soothing as my own min-rant against te world. But I rarely talk about the title of the blog, or my filming. That’s partly due to the fact that I use the CWP Blog to discuss such things. But I felt that today’s blog would be an appropriate tim to write about directing, and the direction of my own films.

The reality is that I should really name myself ‘El Writer’ or something along those lines. After all, I write a prodigious amount and despite my awful spelling and dodgy grammar I seem to write stuff which makes some people smile…but most importantly, I write in a fashion which seems to suit a visual medium. And that is why I direct, to portray on screen as close to what is in my mind’s eye, when I write on the page.

Caution Wet Paint is one such story, big script, a musical comedy. It takes in the best of East London, has a bunch of crazy characters and includes a mad ride on a scooter, a dance on a rooftop and a song about milk. More importantly it takes a look at love, a love that works for some and a love that fails for others. And it is a story the follows the love lives of two characters Jay and Kay.

For the past two and a half years, I have been screening a bunch of webisodes with Jay and Kay doing various things. At first, they may seem random, even farcical, but there is a plan. Each of those webisodes refer to a particular point in the main film itself. They may happen between Jay and Kay during the course of the film, they may only involve main characters or they may involve characters from the movie other than Jay and Kay. In otherwords, I have been road testing out bits of the script that I saw in my mind, but did not know if they would work in reality. Most of them had, although there are a few raspberries to look out for.

In those past years I have worked with Ari and Kuldip as Jay and Kay and with Nick as my musician. It has been one hell of a past two and a half years, and we have all had our ups and downs. But no matter what we have said and done, we have acted like professionals when it has come to getting the job done and despite the lack of time, money or resources have managed to come very far from our first offering to film festivals.

We have all changed in those past two and a half years, and the glitz of youth have slowly faded as we all begin to leave the world of ideals behind and hurtle into the world known as reality. Despite what all of us go through in our own daily lives, we have managed to come together on a regular basis to make Caution Wet Paint. I wrote the characters of Jay and Kay with Ari and Kuldip in my mind, but these two actors have taken those characters and evolved it into something far more than I first imagined.

This weekend saw the final shoot of a Caution Wet Paint short, ‘Jay and Kay Save the World’. It is not the end of the Paint, but more like a beginning. For me, my next aim is the movie, the big one. Now, the likelihood of succeeding is miniscule and by this time next year, I will be in all likelihood trying to make features by hook or crook rather than actually getting paid to make them. But it is a calculated leap. Not a leap of desperation, but one of evolution. I feel now is the right time to take ‘Caution Wet Paint’ to the next level, to the level of a feature film. Yes, there will be plenty of webisodes, vlogs and other sort videos coming out, but my main project for the next few months will be a short made for film festivals and this short is ‘Jay and Kay Save the World’. A showreel for the Paint and hopefully fun-filled entertainment for cinemagoers at festivals huge, large and small; famous, elite and general, worldwide in the next year.

I have worked with a brilliant number of people over the years, and I have only come this far due to the help and assistance of many brilliant people around me. I hope to work productively with these and many more in the months and years to come. To all of you, thank you.

What I am trying to achieve is a tough aim, and I know my path is about to get a lot more interesting. But what the hell, fortune favours the bold…

One picture, a thousand lives….

I love taking photos. Bad habit of mine, but there is a perverse enjoyment in just snapping happily away at whatever I please. Some of my favourite shots have been quite obvious accidents, but they look good, so I will not be telling anyone about them. I almost never use a tripod (unless I am filming), so they are subject to the juddering motions of my unsteady hands.

My travels have also led to an impressive number of photos from around the world. Some on film, a lot on my hard drive and far too many for a normal person to identify. But looking back on them, I feel the emotions I had when I took those pictures. What was going through my tiny little mind and what I wanted to achieve with that shot. Sometimes it was as simple as ‘that’s pretty’ and sometimes it was a lot more profound and inspiring. But all the time, wanted to share the experience with as many people as possible. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so my blogs could be a lot more concise if I took that piece of wisdom to heart.

Is there one picture that sums up my experience of life to date? Is there a picture which I took that could sum up the small number of years I have sent on this planet. Could it express the multitude of emotions within me, good and bad, inspirational and petty? Could it express my joys and anguish? Could it express both the simplicity and complexity of my life so far? And would it be an accurate description for what I believe life to be? Oh well, have a look. One picture to express a multitude of thoughts…

Philosophy of the Movie?

A mere ten days ago, I commented that it can be quite a dull thing to blog/talk about, especially if the reader/listener is not involved in making films. But sod it, I love talking about films, and that is because I am in the middle of making one!

Now while that is a pure pice of geekery, it does provide me with an enjoyable piece of escapism. And that is one of the big reasons why I am exercising my right to futility.

I am probably about a third of the way through my life, give or take, and assuming I live to the average British male lifespan. That’s it, one third of all my days on this Earth are gone, finished, never to return. And for what? Bills dropping though my letterbox, a job that neither is secure nor makes me fulfilled (not saying it is bad, but it is just a job), a life spent in debt so I can own my own two bedroom box only to end up selling it so I can spend my final days pi**ing in a cot looking up at the clouds wondering, what if? Maybe I look too much into life, maybe I read too deeply and should accept what people usually term as fate. But that is a hard thing for me to do, and also a depressing one. To believe that the best days are over and all I have left are an endless spew of commitments that won’t a make a difference to anyone and that instead of living, I am surviving, death by a thousand paper cuts instead of going out in a blaze of glory. Being paid enough so I can pay off what I owe. Seeing the world turn, and I myself powerless to stop it. What is the point of all this intelligence we have as humans, if we do not utilise it for more than just mediocre?

When you see the free spirited, the squatters, the hippies and all those other tree huggers, I can see why the general public, including myself, deride them. They are free from all the material bulls**t that we trap ourselves with. And while they do not have much, there is a happiness in having very little. In all my travels around the world and within this country, it is the people with the least that always give the most. It is the people who cannot afford to loose any more money that are easier with it. While the ones for whom it would not really make a difference are the people who are never any happier within the fortresses they have built themselves.

I need to eat, I need to put food on the table. Pretty much everything else is gravy, especially now that spring has left me without the need for central heating (I use a blanket at night). The path that I have chosen is rocky at best, and downright frustrating most of the time. And the likelihood of success is minute. But the hope of something better is an emotion I cling onto. To give up now would cause a fundamental change in the very being I call ‘myself’. I am holding onto the last vestiges of childhood and I know that eventually I must join the masses. But there must be something beyond that rock I am clinging onto…

Filming this Christmas

While many of us will be spending the holidays on holiday, I will be working like a dog, on two fronts. Firstly, I will be tearing round London’s streets at obscene times of the night to put cash in my wallet. Secondly, I will be spending my days creating, what I hope is to be, a visual masterpiece.

My films up until now have been simplistic affairs. Filmed on the cheap with poor sound, no sense of cinematography and shot quickly. Essentially they have been glorified home videos. But they have got me very far, considering the ways which they were made (poorly), and the experience of film making that I possessed (none).

Starting with ideas and scripts a few years ago, it is strange to see the journey so far. The fear of switching on a camera and editing on a computer has been replaced by cocky manhandling of my precious equipment and an internet presence that would make most spammers proud.

As a person who has never been to film school, I have been clueless about films. My education in film came from the PCC, my inertia towards cinema from my own mad writings (hey, how else do you think I can blog almost everyday) and my decision to plunge into film making from my own lack of foresight. Admittedly, now I see the credit crunch unfolding, I ‘may’ have made the right decision in not chasing after the money. Then again…

The real eye opener to making films came at Cannes this year, when I attended the Short Film Corner. This was where I was able to meet other film makers, see what was being made and see how the ‘movers and shakers’ in the industry were doing things. On a more fundamental level, I actually saw why producers and distributors did business the way they did. That was really important. I got to see what people were not doing as well. Finally, I also saw what was being produced by other film makers in my position.

Skip forward six months and it is Christmas. I plan to shoot two short film by March ‘09 and to have everything wrapped up by May. A tall order. Each time I have started on a new project, I have advanced somewhat. Now this next step is crucial, although it is so basic to the concept of film. Firstly, to make my films actually cinematic. Secondly, to make then sound nice.

Let me tackle the sound first of all. I have got a decent mic, finally. And yes, it does work really well, but I am not going to bother with sound until February, when I make a follow-on to the adventures of Jay and Kay.

For the moment, I am tackling the problems with visuals and finding solutions to them. Creating great lighting, pulling the focus point just right, knowing how to frame the subject, camera movements, etc. Initial results are promising, but there is still a lot of work to do. This first short film should be wrapped up by the beginning of the New Year, and I should have a rough cut by the end of January. And this short film, ‘The Railway Tracks’ is of a very different vein to the Paint. Darker, more twisted and with some funky camera angles to boot.

It is a scary moment for me, as I have to live upto the small steps forward that I have achieved so far. As with many things in the world of film, everything rests on what I can and cannot achieve. And I do not know whether the outcome will be successful or not. Only time will tell…

The Realisation of the American Dream

It is simpler to click here and read my article on OhmyNews on the result of the 2008 US Election. Enjoy!.