We wrapped on Queen of Queen Street on Sunday and it's Wednesday now and I'm just about recovering. Shooting in the middle of Wanchai in 34 degrees of heat is very taxing. Even more taxing are the lack of resources. Nobody set up a chair with the word "director" written on it. I had no megaphone nor a pair of jodhpurs. I had to put up with standing up and some safari pants that my recent loss of fourteen pounds had sliding down my hips.
One of the actors mentioned that wearing my dark glasses made me look like a Hollywood Director, but without them, not so much. So with Orson Welles on one shoulder and Ed Woods on the other, I ventured forth and came in fifth, as they say.
Is the film good? Is it bad? In the end only the edit will tell whether I shot a film or a turkey. But I haven't begun that process yet because right this moment I am in a deep post-shoot depression.
A shoot is an intense experience and when it is all over the ordinary routine of life appears trivial and unreal. At the same time as being relieved, one is feeling a need to be back on the front line again. The adrenaline high of battle places you on a different plane of consciousness - not necessarily a higher one unfortunately, more an exhausted and confused one, but whatever it is, afterwards reality is less interesting. Like a drug, making films knocks out the ability to function normally without a fix.
What did I learn from this shoot? As the Oldest Student Film Maker on the planet I learnt that the cartilage in my right knee, or lack of, is in danger of killing my chances of directing anything on a grander scale. A director who falls down a lot, especially if he cannot afford a Director's Chair, is going to have problems. Perhaps a Director's Wheel Chair will have to be part of the budget, but somehow I doubt I will even momentarily look like Scorsese that way. And that is the key to success.
I shall be posting pictures of myself looking directorial to help maintain the illusion. And then I shall try to hype the whole process and make some half hearted attempts at being an egomaniac like many of my compatriots. I shall take all the praise for whatever is good in the film and hint that others are to blame for whatever went wrong. This does seem to be how most film directors work, especially at the lower end where self-importance takes precedence over honing one's skills.
Either that or I shall do as I usually do and let others step up and take their bows. So thank you all my actors whom I tortured for days on end. And thank you to David Attali, The Hong Kong Fixer, for making the whole thing possible. And thank you to Dean Head for being my DOP and patiently lying in the middle of the road in the heat while I walked the actors through the scenes. And thank you to Sasha Wasseem and a bunch of other guys. Oh, and I nearly forgot the writer, Ahmed Ndao. Traditionally in the film world we forget the writer. I'm not a traditionalist though. Or perhaps even in the film world, but this is my world.
So all rest assured that I am presently about to start making my list of the hundreds that made this possible and I will make sure I spell all your names correctly.