My girlfriend currently has the builders in. This is not some obscene euphemism but a banal and commonplace fact. What makes the builders interesting is the way that every morning they listen to a unique radio station which is surely broadcast on a special builder’s frequency. It plays “Baby Love” by the Supremes. Every morning. Without fail.
I’ve seen the radio. It is suitably battered and plastered in plaster dust and has a single speaker from which “Baby Love” and a select playlist of other builder classics issue forth. My girlfriend hates the radio. She claims it is because it has, in the past, woken her up. However she is a woman of strong natural instincts, like a dog barking at ghosts (in a good way) and her mistrust and hatred of the device makes me strangely fear it as if it were some evil talisman.
On previous mornings I have found myself wondering if the builders use Builder Radio to shore up their identity, in the way that we all drift into cliche and stereotype to make social interaction bareable or even possible. Amongst strangers I often become more of a “filmmaker” than I ever need to be when with friends or alone. The job of domestic builder forces them to regularly intrude into the intimate early mornings of strange households and, perhaps, in some subconscious way the blare of “Baby Love” enables all parties to avert their eyes from the private horrors of the internal life.
But the mistrust of the actual radio, the way it squats on the table, makes me question this simplistic sociology. What if these men were not builders until they accidentally fell within the thrall of the radio? What if the station, along with “Baby Love” broadcast some deep controlling force?
With our usual mix of mutters and nods, I say bye to the builders and miss three buses and a train on the way back to my own house. Down the road from me another house has builders doing some drastic to the front which involves a middle aged man standing in the sunshine staring out across the road. He is topless, his beer gut bronze, his face oddly blank in thought. From a radio on the scaffold behind him comes a tune that chills me in the sunshine.
“…Screen East is celebrating as its Digital Short film “After Tomorrow” is nominated in the Short Film Official Selection at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival to win the prestigious Palme d’Or.
“After Tomorrow” is written and directed by Emma Sullivan, and produced by Annalise Davis from Wilder Films. Sam Burton [executive producer for Screen East] says: “Emma is a very talented filmmaker with a great instinct for storytelling. We are delighted to have been able to give her and the team the opportunity to make this fantastic film. Cannes is the perfect place to showcase her work on an International level, and provides an opportunity for people to see the filmmaking talent that the region has to offer….”
If you do not have distribution, you are not ready to play film festivals if:
* you do not have your trailer made and up on the web;
* you do not have clips selected and up on the web;
* you have not been writing a blog regarding the film for a significant length of time;
* you do not have a plan on how to keep that blog interesting for the next year;
* you do not have a website for the film up on the web;
* you do not have a simple way to collect email addresses for fans;
* you have not set up a way for fans to subscribe to updates about the film;
* you have not joined multiple social networks, both as an individual and as the film;
* you have not created a press kit with press notes for the film;
* you have not identified the blogs and critics you think will help promote your film;
* you have not built a study guide for the film for film clubs;
* you have not mapped out a festival strategy that builds to local releases;
* you have not made several versions of a poster, and have enough to sell & give away;
* you have not made additional promotional items for your film;
* you have not manufactured the dvd, and made great packaging for it;
Obviously he’s talking about feature films though now there are plenty of places a trailer for your short could play it’s increasingly less of a daft idea to cut one together. After all, you don’t want your whole film online until it’s finished it’s first burst of active life but having a tease at the end of a link is something I would have done back when I made them…
Anyway just thought that was a brilliant little checklist for whatever sort of film you’ve made and one that hopefully will stop you drifting around Cannes wondering why you bothered to turn up… Obviously too late for this year
