Ben Blaine

Director

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About Me
My Work & Credits

My Details

: Great Britain , London

Current Work Details

What I do: Writer, Director, Editor, Curator & Programmer.
Company: Charlie Productions
Website: http://www.charlieproductions.co.uk
Where I work: I run my own company or organisation
Technical Skills: FCP based editing, script factory trained reader.
Availability: Sorry: I am too busy

My Links

: Mobile Cinema
: Digital Sneakers (music videos)
: Ben's Blog.

: Charlie Productions Ltd.

Shooters Q&A

Films I wish I had made: The Big Liebowski, Lone Star, The Third Man, Brighton Rock, though actually I wish I'd made it because it's such a great book and I bet I could do it more justice. On the same logic actually I wish that I'd made Josie And The Pussycats because I'd have done that better. And I mean, I sort of wish that I'd made Burnt By The Sun because it's genius but I don't think I ever could have done that so I don't really wish for it. Oh Casablanca. I'd love to have done that. And the Asphalt Jungle. Loads actually. Most of all I wish that I'd made Russell Square and Bernard better than I did...
I cried watching: Burnt By The Sun, Lone Star, actually John Sayles always makes me cry. Actually I cry quite easily. I once cried whilst watching a yellow pages commerical in which a guy gets old cine footage transfered onto VHS so his aging mum can see her dead husband as a young man. "Oh he was a handsome chap your Dad", hell I'm welling up just writing this...
I left the cinema during: Regeneration - but only because I'd been to the pub first and only decided to see it on a whim and I really needed the loo. I came back! It's a great film, the best thing Gilles McKinnon's ever done. Other than that, actually no. I've never left the cinema during anything.
Directors I love: John Sayles, The Coens kinda, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson - oh, yeah actually stick the Royal Tennenbaums into the list of films I wish I'd made. That should almost be first. And I cried in that too. But I didn't leave the cinema.
Actors I admire: Bob Dylan, though mainly as a musician. Kris Kristofferson, though mainly as an actor. Tom Baker. I can't help it.
My desert island discs: Lay lady lay (Dylan), Ocean Rain (Echo and the bunnymen), Catfish Blues (Robert Petway), Girl Of The North Country Fair (Dylan,Cash), Magnificent Seven (Clash), Stick Around (Special Needs), Idiot Wind (Dylan),
Books I have given my friends: The World Turned Upside Down (Christopher Hill) which I gave Chris years ago and he still hasn't given me back. I gave Kate "Deadkidsongs" by Toby Litt but only because I thought she might like it from a review I read in the LRB and I don't think she ever finished it. Oh and Zee's still got my copy of "Give The Anarchist A Cigarette" by Mick Farren.
My death row meal: Pathetically it'd be pizza. I'm obsessed. It's not healthy. Though on death row this would hardly matter. Once, when we were shooting Chris and the crew stayed on set to rig for the last scene and I went off to get them all Pizza. The day had been a bit tense and me and Chris were a little angry with each other and I'd ended up making a bit of a thing about how I wasn't going to eat (to show how dedicated I was, sad but you know...) safe in the knowledge that my then girlfriend was cooking a full sunday lunch for me back at home. I got to the Pizza place, ordered for everyone else and then I was just gripped by this devasting and soul destroying urge to EAT PIZZA. So I ordered a pizza for myself, just a simple Margheritta, nothing fancy, then walked back down the High Street to Nans' flat where we were shooting. Knowing that I had to eat the pizza before I got there in order to maintain my image as the hardworking concientious one I ate as I walked, folding huge slabs of pizza into my mouth with a visceral satisfaction. People crossed the road to avoid me - there I was, marching down the street clutching seven or eight pizzas to my chest whilst desperately eating a ninth. I must have looked like I was entering some sort of gluttonous competition like Nicely Nicely Johnson. Still I finished the pizza, hid the evidence and was very noble. I can't help it.
The best thing I own: My guitar, but just because I'd be lost without it. It's not a nice guitar, it cost seventy quid. Actually no, the best thing I own is Tom's guitar which I don't own so that doesn't count. Er my shoes? I don't know, I don't really own that much. I've got Johnny Ball's autograph somewhere...