“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster filmmaker.”
Hi, I’m Adam.
At the time of writing this I am 28 years old. My Birthday is the 11th April. I’m an Aries, which according to some explains my often short-fuse and significantly wound-up temperament. Perhaps this is the first little insight into explaining why I’ve decided to take to blogging, but more on that later.
I was born in Oldham, Greater Manchester — funnily enough the same hospital where the first IVF baby was born — and Brian Cox, would you believe? (The physicist, not Logan Roy).
I grew up and still live in neighbouring Saddleworth; a cute little collection of old villages close to the West Yorkshire border in which serval older inhabitants still consider it to be a part of despite the borders being pushed forward in the 70’s making it an official part of Greater Manchester.
It’s a whole thing, don’t worry about it.
Saddleworth is lovely. It’s a medley of new-wealth, old farming communities and remnants of times gone by with hundreds of former mill-worker housing dotted about from the once booming cotton trade in which Oldham had a central role in. I love it. It’s remote enough to enjoy cosy walks on the canals, and meandering trails of the moors, and close enough to civilisation to be able to hop on a 25 minute train into town and enjoy the booming soul of the UK’s greatest and most developing city.
Anyway. Does any of this matter? Probably not. Let’s get to brass tax.
What’s this all about?
Well. I love cinema. I always have done. Frankly, love is too soft a description – I’m obsessed with cinema.
I can happily say that this obsession is less invasive of my day to day life nowadays, but remains an obsession, no less. I don’t honestly know where this comes from, I mean who knows where most obsessions comes from, right?
If I really think about it, I can attribute it to one significant point in time:
My earliest memory.
I feel a huge subculture of mid to late 90’s babies share this memory – we were that crossover generation of kids that weren’t quite millennials but certainly, nowadays can’t relate to most gen z’s and their ‘rizz’. I was a little over three years old and one afternoon was given a film to watch – most probably serving as nothing more than an eighty to ninety minute distraction for my Mum to get some ironing done or catch up on her soaps. I’m sure she didn’t think the viewing of this particular video would be something her child would be writing about 25 years later, describing with clear, poignancy as a defining moment in his life. A moment that would indeed cast the sail for a life of dedication and admiration to cinema.
I remember the cover of the VHS being entirely blank spare a generic, local video shop logo which was common for most, if not all, video shop rentals way back when; I suppose a comparison by today’s standard would be that of what cigarette packaging looks like nowadays in Britain: stark, cold, completely nondescript.
My mum slid the video into the player and I sat with wonder as a blue canvas with hand-painted clouds filled the screen. Shortly thereafter, this little three-year old toddler with a tendency to climb and break shit, sat motionless, wild eyed as he embraced for the first time the beauty and unparalleled genius of Toy Story.
The moment it finished a series of words crawled up the screen, disappearing out of view as more words replaced them — my feeble underdeveloped brain not understanding the concept of end credits. I was inconsolable to mum as she just informed me that the film had finished and that it was time for tea. I demanded more of Woody and Buzz and Rex and Ham and of course Mr. Potato Head, but alas this had to wait until tomorrow where I would enjoy my second viewing, followed by my third viewing the day after, and my fourth the day after, followed by my fifth the next day.
After my sixth viewing, I had studied my Mum’s VHS rewinding skills enough times — using a pencil to spin the left spool anticlockwise — that I decided to try myself. After failing to insert the pencil in the correct manner, I instead opted to use my finger, resulting in devastation. The video tape ejected out as I pulled on the spool and as so often is the case with toddlers, this turned into a hilarious game; uncoiling layer upon layer of tape until there was nothing left. My mother was outraged upon the discovery and informed me that there could not be anymore viewing as I had destroyed the tape. Toy Story was no more. I was appalled, spiralling into what I can only describe as a “hissy fit”. Later I would instead invent my own version of Toy Story using the stuffed toys at my disposal, which I think is a credit to the importance of saying no to a child.
Nonetheless, this experience cemented into my brain a love for all things movie related. When I think about it, all roads lead back to Toy Story. For it was not the film itself that I specifically adored, but merely the sense of adventure and wonder Toy Story unleashed upon me. I was there with Woody and the gang, and each viewing made me more and more a part of that gang.
The desire to watch Toy Story over and over was shortly thereafter replaced by it’s sequel Toy Story 2 in 1999; then some years later, Monster Inc.; then of course, Finding Nemo, and who could forget the best of them all, The Incredibles (eponymously named in my opinion).
And it was not just Pixar films. Sam Raimi’s Spider Man in 2001 convinced me that climbing walls and shooting silly spray from under my sleeves made me the coolest dude in the world and totally not annoying in the slightest.
As I grew a bit older, the understated genius of the Simpsons was something I had to religiously tune into after school on Channel 4.
By the time I was entering secondary school, the wonders of Mr. Steven Spielberg had entered my life. A little while later my Dad would show me a disastrously traumatising film called The Thing, an event my dad loves to bring up and laugh about to this day — seriously, that shit was wild.
Following this, the advent of YouTube would allow me to discover movie clips and draw in a desire to find and watch these films. The explosive opening of The Matrix: the mesmerising vista of Los Angeles, 2019 in Blade Runner; the gritty brutality, and cheeky street-wise narration of Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. My first viewing of Pulp Fiction was a series of 15 minute Youtube videos labelled in order to help the viewer not lose track of where they were up to.
By the time I was entering my teenage years, the obsession was in full swing. Filmmaker after filmmaker entered my aura: Kubrick, Scorsese, Coppola, PTA, Fincher, The Coen Brothers, Gilliam, Danny Boyle, Shane Meadows, Wes Anderson, De Palma, Peter Jackson, Terrence Malick, Sidney Lumet.
It was like a domino effect really. A filmmaker would pop up – usually through a link between filmmakers; for example my early love of Tarantino was supported with hours of obsessive viewing online of interviews, vox pops, dvd commentaries etc. until eventually discovering a clip from Tarantino’s ‘Take Over Sky Movies’ in which he reviewed There Will Be Blood, warmly lauding the magnificence of this picture whilst also comparing his career in a friendly, competitive nature to that of a Paul Thomas Anderson. I therefore viewed There Will Be Blood, falling in love with it and subsequently spiralling down the rabbit hole of PTA’s work, instigating a new obsession for all things Paul Thomas Anderson before moving on to another filmmaker.
This became the trend throughout my teenage years until before I knew it I was deemed the ‘film guy’ or a ‘movie nerd’ or a ‘cinephile’ for the more lexical minded amongst my peers and family. This was a label I of course enjoyed, providing me with a sense of faint vanity in the form of intellectual superiority over a particular topic. Moreover, this label provided an avenue with which to socialise amongst extended friend groups and other circles during my schooling – a handy tool for an anxious, non-sporty, scrawny introvert which was my fate.
And so as previously alluded to, the sail had been cast, so to speak and my love for film grew as organically as I did.
Film was my passion. It is my passion.
Film is a window into a world of wonder and intrigue.
The heart of film (and my love for it) is the beauty of storytelling:
the drama,
the humour,
the excitement,
the wonder,
the spirit,
the good,
the bad,
the (sometimes) ugly,
the brilliance,
the human condition.
Film has always provided a sense of escape whilst also driven an idea of intellectual curiosity. It has tugged at my heart strings and broadened my understanding of the world we inhabit. It has offered me a safe refuge to explore my compassionate side and emotional development. It has welcomed an openness to ponder a deeper sense of wonder to the existential questions all intelligent beings ask themselves. It has made me laugh when I feel down. It has made me clench with fear in times of vulnerability. It has offered a shoulder to cry on when no other source seemed available. It’s a haven and a sand box full of open-mindedness and self-expression.
It is life.
Ahem.
Okay then.
So here we are then.
I thank you for reading this far down the page and implore you to please bear with me.
We have now established who the author is and his self-confessed obsession for the world of cinema and so you therefore may be wondering why the need to blog? If this love of cinema is as deep as he may be suggesting then surely it would be imperative for the author to enter into that world with work of his own as opposed to remaining on the outside, merely writing about it. After all film is a visual medium, not one of prose.
The first thing I have to say right off the bat is that I agree. To put it simply, yes the dream was always to become a filmmaker. A dream I pursued with varying intensity for quite some time. Alas, the rollercoaster of life shifted the perspective of this dream over time and allowed myself to question it objectively, removing emotion and spearheaded recklessness as the driving factor and weighing up numerous components with a level-headed mentality. It is fair to say upon reflection that this dilemma of creative frustration plagued my entire adolescence.
I shall try to explain my journey thus far and in doing so hopefully shed some light for as to why I have taken to blogging:
I straight away do not wish to sugarcoat this, the filmmaking journey I have ventured upon to this point has been one of frustration (as the heading suggests) and emotional strife. My heavenly solitude into the world of cinema as a viewer and admirer has never properly extended into the filmmaker within me, as I had naively expected it to with great enjoyment.
Though I have, of course, had some enjoyment (otherwise I would not have stuck it out for so long), I can honestly say that when deciding to shelve filmmaking and focus on my overall mental and physical wellbeing, I have never been happier.
My journey into filmmaking began as it does for many, with a handicam and a couple of mates goofing around the streets. The idea of a ‘YouTuber’ was starting to become a thing (though still a mystery to anyone over 30), and I began experimenting little skits and action scenes – often with bb guns, water balloons and other ‘entertaining’ gimmicks. The main source of inspiration being freddiew, smosh and of course the cultural phenomena known as Jackass. These would be uploaded to YouTube in which thirteen people would view and after the anxiety became too much, they would shortly thereafter be removed.
This tomfoolery developed a heightened layer of sophistication when the productions started to grow in scale, incorporating a larger assembly of friends and stringing together cohesive narratives and ‘bigger budget’ set pieces – a retelling of Steinbecks ‘Of Mice and Men’ as well as a contemporary remake of J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Call’s being our finest work. The latter featuring a non-linear narrative, a car chase at the mid point and a full scale shootout in the third act. It really was our magnum opus. Our Year 10 english teacher thought so, anyway.
As secondary school drew its conclusion, the desire to ‘make stuff’ never left (and still hasn’t). The twisted world of ‘content-creation’ – a term I abhor – was evolving and reaching higher levels of popularity and this seemed like a good outlet to pursue. Though, as I was reaching a higher cognitive thought-process about what it is I wanted from my creative satisfaction, I soon realised YouTube was actually not the place for me. It was, and in many ways is significantly more so today, a melee of fast-paced, low-fi, reactive content designed at seeking huge audiences in order to fuel other revenue streams. It’s a business incentive, not a creative outlet for the sensitive artist. This is by no means a dig at YouTube, or indeed its creators, it’s simply not my bag. (This probably needs its own future blog post to clarify my perspective.)
Anyhow, I struggled for a while. I wanted to make films but had no collaborators around me and too much self-consciousness to extend my network. I was beginning the early stages of scriptwriting with a host of ambitions and a world of creative thought locked away in my head. These thoughts desperate to find their way into reality rather than being lumped onto a word document, left to gather metaphorical dust.
After realising that I was drifting into something of a closed-off rut, I decided I had to make a change. In what can only be described an act of sheer impulse, I applied and was admitted to the Met Film School in Ealing, London in September 2016. With a healthy mixture of excitement and trepidation, I jumped into the arena of student life.
By the time I left for Uni, I was already fairly well versed in a number of rituals and lifestyle choices the typical student can expect to adhere to. Due to this, the anxious, introverted little boy within me was not quite the level it had been during my teenage years and as such the height of self-doubt was not quite so overbearing. The most notable example of this was indeed the bearer of all evil – booze. By the autumn of 2016, at 20 years of age I had accumulated enough experience with differing levels of significance in the art of drink, thus not reaping the chaos of what so many fresh faced eighteen year olds endure when commencing their ‘studies’.
What I was not prepared for, however, was the sheer intensity of my surroundings. The grand metropolitan of London is of course world renowned, and as a tourist I had experienced the grandeur and heritage this great city is famous for on a couple of ‘mini-breaks’ as a child and teenager. This sense of excitement did for a time stimulate my young, impressionable self when moving down there which did for a time override any minor claustrophobia and intimidation; but once the dust had settled and the ‘tourist bit’ was out of the way, I began to feel a real distain for the city and its occupants. Coming from a small, rural district, the simple act of everyone and everything being on my doorstep was a hard pill to swallow. I have a very finite social battery; when it’s up and running I can be the light and soul of any occasion, the moment that battery is depleted, I feel a real urge to close my curtains and recharge. With such a disproportionate amount of socialising, and so close to my habitat (sometimes within it), there was never ample time to recuperate, thus feeling far too exhausted from too much social secretion.
I too could not seem to gain an understanding of London itself, as such never quite developing a sense of belonging. I can only really describe London as a geographical Goliath. It’s bloody enormous. Having been a whisker away from another bustling metropolitan – Manchester – I did not consider London to be much different, but in fact the two are virtually incomparable. Manchester, though teeming with a host of highly distinct and charming neighbourhoods, is a fraction the scale of London. Its diversity is rich, though intimately compact. My darling fiancé summed it up best in saying that everywhere is a fifteen minute walk. You could be soaking in the vibrant, bohemian bars of Northern Quarter, take that quarter of an hour walk down Deansgate and find yourself on the other side of town within the financial centre of Spinningfields, with its sea of recognisable chain restaurants and over-extravagant cocktail bars. Should you walk fifteen minutes from where I had lived in Ealing, you would be lucky to be in South Ealing, or West Ealing depending on the direction you travelled. Point being, it was just far too big for a simple minded specimen like myself to get to grips with. I also sensed this lack of identity with Londoners as a whole, never quite feeling any ironic humility or free-spirited welcomeness from them.
Yeah. London wasn’t for me.
Uhm. Where was I?
Oh, film. Yeah.
In fairness, the overelaborate description for my disliking to London pretty much sums up the general feeling I had towards my studies and peers. I approached my degree the same way I approach most things, with an openness and a perhaps naive, under-preparedness; in this instance proving to be a real weakness.
The course was a 2 year B.A. in Practical Filmmaking which broadly covered the overall process of filmmaking in the form of several, month long, intensive courses that specialised in a specific area – screenwriting, cinematography, directing, post-production etc. Further along into the degree we were able to pick and choose certain modules in the hope of streamlining our focus into a more specific area of filmmaking. Each module had a different lecturer / tutor whom had had experience within the industry – a personal favourite being a cantankerous D.P. from Leeds by the name of Joe Dyer who loved to recount industry stories of times gone by – one of which being his hatred of Kubrick when Joe had worked as a camera trainee on Full Metal Jacket. I recall him describing one of my ‘heroes’ in the bluntest sense as having been ‘a cunt.’
Brilliant.
The course was structured clearly and had enough of a variety to learn a great deal, which I did. Having had years of obsessive film knowledge, it was very welcoming to start to learn the very mechanical and in some ways binary process of filmmaking: the militaristic hierarchy on a film set, the fundamentals behind framing and blocking, the technical synchronicity involved in lighting and camera, the tentative guidelines in structuring a screenplay.
They were all great learnings; fully understandable, bearable and completely approachable. I quickly became comfortable within this environment picking up a great deal of knowledge and practical experience. As the course progressed, I worked on a number of short films for other students, ranging from being a production assistant, to AC, to data wrangler, to a bloody van driver. Whatever it was, I was more than happy to get stuck in; reminding myself that I was finally immersing myself within the twisted world of filmmaking.
All sounds great doesn’t it?
Well…
Whilst my understanding of filmmaking was broadening and my practical experience was noteworthy, my overall creative itch was still not being satisfied. This dissatisfaction came down to the fundamental fact that I hadn’t yet taken the plunge to make my own film. I’d worked on everyone else’s, but something from my brain had not been fed through the meat grinder of the filmmaking process and spat out as something I could put my name on as a writer/director. This was down to my lack of belief and cripplingly low self-esteem, the significant reason being the overriding sense of competitiveness that my university experience was riddled with.
Labelling was a common trait other peers liked to dish out. “Oh he’s an editor.” “She’s an art director.” “They’re a really good line producer.” ” Oh I thought you were a spark.” This labelling would then shortly be followed by the question of, “What are you?” My answer would simply be, “I don’t know.” And that was partly true. I just wanted to make films yet I didn’t want to isolate myself as solely a director because I enjoyed immersing myself in a variety of other roles in order to gain a deeper level of as many aspects of filmmaking as possible. I’m sure having the confidence to articulate this opinion would be respected but the little boy within me did not yet have the maturity to take this stance. I would therefore allow others to shape what I was and this was the majority of my experience.
Because of this, it took me a long time to make film. Until I finally did.
As part of our graduation we were all tasked with undertaking a project. This project could be in whatever form you liked – short film, advertisement, music video, tv pilot, screenplay etc. – and your role could be your choosing too. I saw this as ample opportunity to finally gather the courage to direct a script of my own. The script in question was a gimmicky little short entitled Tequila Sunrise in which a moronic protagonist wakes up the morning after a blackout sesh in what can only be described as the aftermath of a gang shootout, only for the audience to discover it was in fact a film set. If you watch Josh Brolin approaching the drug deal gone wrong scene in No Country For Old Men, you can see the inspiration. I had essentially stolen that setting and movement, incorporating a comedic spin at the end in order to create a cohesive and hopefully entertaining little narrative.
Although wholly unoriginal in many ways, I enjoy Tequila Sunrise and consider it to be the peak of my satisfaction with filmmaking. There was a real innocence about the whole process of making it. It felt kinda rock ‘n’ roll, somehow. We created one badass of a set in an old disused mill which has since been erased from existence (turned into the local school). The site was wildly gritty and beautiful as a backdrop to the story, which I loved. With help, I sourced a number of old vehicles which we littered with bullet holes, dinted the bodywork and properly battered to create the illusion that they’d been peppered by gunfire. I amassed a full scale crew, to this day the largest I had ever worked with on one of my shorts. It was frankly overkill, but that was part of the madness. We all stayed at my folks house as they were away on their holiday and of course didn’t tidy the place properly, resulting in a mess by the time we wrapped.
The shoot days were a whale of a time. The focus and energy I felt was incredibly rewarding. The morale was fantastic. The sense of collaboration, yet total control from my end was perfection. I really had a vision and when looking down that viewfinder and rehearsing & blocking with Mitch, our main actor, it was really coming to life.
However, despite such a rewarding shoot the same feeling can not be said for the post-production experience. By the fourth day after wrapping, having said sayonara to the energetic crew, I survived on takeaway pizza, locked myself away with the late great Socks Bentley and constructed the assembly edit.