In the end, my filmmaking partner P_ and I each made one phone call to producer’s we knew had traveled to Cannes.

The feedback from my former producer H_, a past attendee and award-winning short-film producer at Cannes, was that I definitely should go, although she was concerned that it was already too late, seeing as Cannes had started the day before.

I remember her specific advice was to wear comfortable shoes, as there was much walking to be done, and to hang around not at the Hotel Majestic, where people and film business conspicuously hung-out, but at the little hotel just behind it.  It was to smaller, more discrete retreats that true film biz heavyweights would congregate for an after-work tipple.

H_ also sighed that meetings took weeks in advance to set up, so there was little likelihood of getting a meeting at this late stage.  Nevertheless, H_ felt it was mandatory to attend Cannes, if only as a learning experience.  She said “In the first year you attend Cannes, you won’t do any deals, but you will learn a lot.  You have to have a first year sometime, so it may as well be now.”

That was enough for me.  All along P_ had stood beside me as I made the call.  After I filled him in on H_’s advice, it was his turn to call his contact.

Judging from P_’s responses as he spoke on the phone, it sounded like P_ had a very different relationship with his producer contact.  P_ was evidently in a much more junior position in the view of the person on the other end of the phone, and the advice sounded part sermon, part lecture, part scold.

Practical Tip:  For those who are new to “the Biz”, it is common to get this kind of condescending attitude.  You will note I never assumed P_ was an incapable producer – just an inexperienced one.  I was confident with my guidance, and our mutual eagerness to learn, that we could do a sufficient amount of the producing to get the film financed.  In retrospect I am sure I made the right decision.

Again, the contact advised P_ it was too late to attend Cannes seeing as it had already started.  Again, the contact affirmed that Cannes was a very important destination for filmmakers, however, the contact implied P_ was too junior to be attending such a lofty event as the Cannes Film Festival.

On the subject of meetings, yet again, the advice was that it was too late to book meetings.  That should have been done months ago.

On the basis of these two phone calls, and Sh_’s advice the night before, P_ and I decided to proceed with booking tickets to Cannes straight away.

To be continued… 

I had made the decision to go to the Cannes Film Festival then and there, in Sh_’s living room.

The only hurdle now was to convince my filmmaking partner P_ that he should be going too.  This was not going to be easy.

I had already noticed P_’s penny-pinching ways.  Even in our first meeting he had not purchased himself a coffee, asking instead for tap water at the café where we met.  I had wondered then what would happen if I didn’t buy anything either.  My guess was that he would still refuse to buy anything at the café, despite using their chair, tables and waitstaff’s time.

In the ensuing weeks I would test this theory to come to a singular conclusion.  P_ would indeed refuse to buy anything, leaving the onus upon me to pay for something so we didn’t get moved along by an angry proprietor.

Another P_ ‘party trick’ was to load up on his favourite “goon wine” (the cheapest cask wine he could find) and get drunk on the cask wine before going out.  A true “Cadbury” man, it didn’t take much to get P_ drunk.  A glass and a half of alcohol was sufficient to change his behaviour completely.  Whilst P_ would normally keep his high opinion of himself in check, after a whiff of alcohol, his lofty self-sentiments came thick and fast.  Self-serving comments and then insults would soon follow.  The annoying thing with P_ was that if you made a rejoinder, his uncanny memory and shameless ersatz behaviour would mean the rejoinder would be used against you the next time, or he would copy your wisecrack word-for-word and claim it as his own.

Sh_, whom P_ had submitted parts of our script complained P_ had stolen his lines that Sh_ himself had used in his pick-up forays.

I knew I had my work cut out for me trying to convince P_ of parting with $3000 for what may well have been a fruitless trip.

Fortunately, for all Sh_’s snarky comments, he was at least consistent with his own argument that we should be in Cannes.  Although Sh_ did not volunteer any arguments that would encourage P_ to make the trip to Cannes, I was easily able to force agreement from Sh_.

Y: P_, what’s $3000 compared to getting our film financed.  If we want our film financed we have to go to an international market like Cannes.  Isn’t that right Sh_?

Sh_ (reluctantly):  Oh….. Yes.

I could see Sh_ was bewildered by my audacity.  In his mind he was asking himself the question: “Is Y_ really going to fly out to Cannes after it’s already started?”

After nearly four hours of continuous, but never angry debate, P_ finally agreed that he needed to go too.

There was one check I myself had to make before I felt 100% confident myself.  I needed to make a phone call to an upcoming producer, H_, who had a year earlier approached me to make a screenplay I had shown her into a feature film.

She had already some success at Cannes, but only at the short film level.  A film she produced had been submitted into the Uncertain Regard section of the short film competition – still a major accomplishment considering the hundreds of entries they receive.

What was unusual about this request was that it came some six months after I had initially approached her with the script.  Belatedly she called me telling me I had a “unique voice”.  I was skeptical of her change of heart, noting it had come just two weeks before a deadline for original screenplays from emerging filmmakers.

I hesitated before making the call.  Although we had not had crossed words, I was disappointed by her earlier vacillation on my script.

Still, it was no time to let the past concern me.  I had to make an important decision on whether to spend $3000 on plane tickets and expenses flying to a place I had never been before.  I also had the added responsibility of my partner’s $3000 investment, as well as our combined time.

In the end, the decision was easy.  It was only one phone call.

To be continued… 

Cannes begins in only 2 days, so as promised, I have fast-forwarded my blog to a more appropriate point in time, some three weeks later.  At this point in my journey, P_ and I had hastily completed the first jointly written draft and submitted it to the peak Australian film funding body.

Now that we had finished the script and handed it in just before the deadline, we had more time.  P_ and I had decided to approach recognized Australian producers to help us find funding for our film.

Already we had attempted a few meetings and phone calls.  No-one appeared interested in our idea.

Nevertheless, we pushed on.  P_ needed to assemble his showreel, and I had to assemble my own.  My allies were back at my alma mater, the Australian Film Television and Radio School (www.aftrs.edu.au)

I called in for a few favours from around the traps, and soon enough, I had 50 DVD’s on track to be picked up in a couple of days.

For his showreel P_ had turned to his friend Sh__, an unusual looking individual who chose to dress in completely in black.  Jeans, jacket, shirt and hat, were all worn regardless of the season.  Perhaps it was to cover his bald patch at the back of his thinning red hair, I wondered.  His plaited ponytail and inch long finger nails made him even more distinctive in appearance – almost repulsive.  “Goth” was the stereotype I thought of straight away.  I assumed he would be into horror films.

Although he fulfilled that stereotype, having made a feature-length low-budget horror film, his corridor was crammed with an amazing video archive.  In contrast to the grimy surrounds, Sh__’s library was neat and ordered with a pedant’s attention to detail, and a true conneiseur’s breadth and depth of selection.

That night we were camped in Sh__’s lounge room telling him of our situation as he dutifully cut P_’s reel.

I’d only met Sh__ once before, and P_ had shown him some of the work I had done at the AFTRS.  That time, Sh__ had scoffed at it, saying it was very “student”.

The very same work Sh__ scoffed at would later wow an executive from the distributor of ‘The Passions of the Christ.’

That day was still nearly a week away though.  Tonight, Sh__ was in his usual form.

“If you guys had any idea, you guys would be at Cannes right now where G_ is.  G_ has the right idea.  He knows more than you guys do! Fancy that!”, Sh__ sneered.

G_ was a mutual friend of P_ and Sh__’s.  I had only heard of G_ second-hand.  Suffice to say, his reputation preceded him.

He was Ed Wood and Rupert Kathner all rolled into one.  At the time of this discussion G_ had shot sixteen films, and only completed one.  Sh__ had been the editor of this final film, and it was this film that G_ had taken with him to “sell in Cannes.”

Even the shorts I’d seen from P_’s showreel had been appalling.  Fat Pizza looked like the Shawshank Redemption compared to this schlock.

I had seen G_’s work and had met many people who had worked on his shoots.  It was like a rite of passage for amateur Australian filmmakers to have been ripped off by G_ for one of his schlock films.  With titles that would have made Monty Python proud, G_’s talent for outlandish titles and pulling together people had somehow skipped his filmmaking abilities.

And yet despite my considerable exposure to amateur filmmaking over the previous 5 years, I had been fortunate enough never to have had the dubious honour of meeting G_.

Now, Sh__ rocked back in his desk chair facing us, his back towards his bank of computers behind him, occupying one corner of the room.  A smug smile revealed a set of teeth that would have an orthodontist rubbing his hands in glee.

At first I considered the comparison to Australia’s most notorious amateur filmmaker just another self-serving insult.  I had heard from P_ just before my first meeting with Sh__ that Sh__ had wanted to direct the film on the subject matter P_ and I had embarked upon.  In fact, it was Sh__ that had put P_ first onto the Pick-Up Artist stuff.  Of course – it had to be a nerd that would discover this type of thing.  Sh__ was a Goth-nerd.  Or Nerd-Goth if you will.

I attributed the rise of the Pick-Up Artist to the advent of the Internet. Now, socially awkward men could collaborate on cracking the enigma that was ‘Woman’, pooling together what used to be secret silos of information. 

But even despite Sh__’s obvious prejudice, I could see the sense of what he was saying.

Cannes was the second biggest film market in the World after the American Film Market.  Every year, anyone who was someone in the film business would pay pilgrimage to this palm-lined strip of the Riviera.

Stunning both Sh__ and P_, their mouths agape, I remember hearing myself say:

“You’re right Sh__.  I think we should be at Cannes too.”

The only problem was, Cannes opening night was tonight, and I was on the other side of the World.

To be continued…

At our third meeting, P and I decided it was best to collaborate on writing our feature-length screenplay.

We set to work a few days later, working from my digs, in a suburban warehouse.

Despite the size of the warehouse, P and I sat side by side, huddled around a keyboard and monitor.

It struck me almost straight away that P had a good appetite for work.  Being able to work long hours side-by-side would be a great asset for our filmmaking partnership.  I had noticed in past working relationships that others found my work ethic somewhat intimidating.

At one former workplace, the management was not used to people working after 5pm.  It took me fully 12 months before they got used to the idea and found a solution.  One of the accounts people loved playing computer games and would stay back and play Doom or some such thing as I did my work.  There was never any question of lack of work ethic with P.

Those first few days, we did around 3 hours at a time, but one day, P mentioned a chat he had with his father about our project.  Although P described his father as emotionally distant, in the typical Chinese fashion, his father was very enthusiastic about the idea.

Hailing from Mainland China, his father had absolutely no idea of Western youth culture, but felt an idea about “How to Pick-Up Women” was a sure-fire winner.  It was something that everybody understood – even him.

P’s father, CP, raised another point.  If this phenomenon were truly traveling around the web-sites of the World, then other people would be working on the same idea.  We were in a race, but we could not see where our competitors were, or who they were.

P and I immediately started scanning the IMDB and Variety websites for any news of upcoming movies with the same theme as ours.

We immediately accelerated our work schedule, working late hours into the night.

One day, we checked the deadline for film funding rounds and realized the peak film funding body in Australia had a deadline in 3 weeks.

We now had a clear deadline, and a clear motivation to push our project as fast as possible.

All the time, we wondered, would we be first to get our film up?

To be continued…

In our last instalment, my new filmmaking partner, P, had finally touched upon the thematic core of the screenplay with his half-guess, half-answer: “Um, it’s about how, umm, white girls just don’t respect us Asian dudes man?!”

“Yes! That’s very good”, I said. “But there’s another theme that this whole subject matter of picking-up also brings up. It’s absolutely central to this story and to the Hero’s Journey. Can you guess what it is?”

P began his usual parroting trick:  “It’s the Hero’s Journey. Um. It’s central to the story.”

P ground to a halt.  After a moment or two, I realized this was his “answer.”

My sigh must have been audible, because people outside our study cubicle looked in through the glass separating us from the main library. 

I could tell this was going to take a long time if I insisted upon the Socratic method of question and answer.  So I flipped over the piece of paper before me and pointed to the second point:-

2) “What is it to be a man?  Is it all about picking-up, or is it about something deeper?  Isn’t it more about being responsible?  Nevertheless, it is still an essential part of man to be sexual.”

I saw P’s eyes deliberately trace over the words.  He was a slow reader.

Even when he finally finished reading the words before him, he looked up, his eyes still searching for meaning.

Y: You don’t agree?

P (swallowing): Sure I do.

I could tell he was lying.

Y: Tell me about it then.

P (looking straight at me in a remarkable feat of memory):  The second theme is: “What is it to be a man.  Umm, Is it all about picking-up, or is it about something deeper?  Isn’t it more about being responsible? But it’s really important to have sex.”

Y: Mmm-hmm.  Well, what do you think is most important?

P:  Having sex?  Umm, with a lot of women?

I was impressed.  P had somehow, throughout his schooling mastered the art of memorization without being able to understand anything that he’d memorized.

No doubt, he was telling the truth here.  It was indeed what he thought was most important.  P would go on to reveal that the most important things to P related to tangible quantities.  Box office numbers, amount of territory conquered, personal wealth, how many movies you’ve been in, how many people know who you are.

It was no surprise then that P had been a Maths and Finance major, and had been a trainee trader for Macquarie Bank, the most aggressive and exclusive merchant bank in Australia.  Quantitative ability and ego seemed the two common themes for both careers.  This somewhat flippant observation would come back to haunt me.

To be continued…

Hi Y__,

Remember me? Nick’s mate. I’m living in Sweden now and planning

to go to Cannes next month. Just wondering if you’re going this year so

we can hook up.

If not, do you have any tips for me? Did you buy accreditation? Is it

worth going without?? Know anywhere cheap to stay??? Still haven’t

organized accommodation yet.

Anyway, let me know how you are getting on. 

Cheers,

C

 

I received the above e-mail from a friend’s friend, and it has finally prompted me to do what I’ve been postponing for 2 years – Blog about my crazy experiences when myself and my filmmaking partner, P, decided to take our film script to Cannes to seek financing, and hit the Big Time!

So thanks C___! I will forgive you the pint of beer you owed me at the Quarryman’s last time we met before you flew off to Sweden.  Or maybe you can buy me that beer some point down the track if you find any of the following helpful.  Make it two beers and a dinner.  I’m still smarting over being dudded a pint. 

As with all practical guides, the advice I proffer to you, my humble acolyte, makes no sense unless one understands the context in which the advice is formed.

Two full years have passed since I did these deeds, and circumstances may well have changed in Cannes, and the World is definitely a different place for obvious reasons.  Also, myself and P are two very different people to you, with our own strengths and weaknesses.  We knew what they were, and covered our weaknesses, and exploited our strengths.  Like us, C, you will have to identify your own strengths and weaknesses and devise your own strategies to make the most of your own circumstances.

But, C, I can sense your impatience.  Without further ado…

I’ll start at the beginning.

P had approached me in late January 2007, to help him write a feature film script.  Although both being Chinese, we didn’t know each other.  Yes, even we Chinese assume we’ll know each other, and half-expect we’ll be somehow related.  But no. We were not related.  And what little we’d seen of each other was in the amateur film context.  P was an aspiring actor, with from what I knew of him, one small low-budget Australian independent feature film to his name, and a few bit parts in commercials, usually as the token Asian.

P had auditioned for my own short film which I never ended up making.  I hope to write about this experience at a later point in time.  P was conspicuous to me through his terrible audition, well-intentioned though it may have been.

During the audition, as P did his best dead-pan “nerd” impression, wearing his father’s glasses, increasing his difficulties and distractions, my production assistant could not stifle a giggle.  I shot an angry look at her and she quickly brought her hand to her mouth, but to no avail.

Summoning all my own reserves not to laugh myself, I choked down the belly laugh coming up my oesophagus.  To my left, my utterly professional dramaturg, CY, was also quivering in contrast to her decidedly serious expression.  She was clearly struggling too.

So it was that this day P called me and asked to meet me to discuss an idea he wanted to pitch to me.

We met at the QVB for a coffee, his girlfriend J also in attendance, presumably to offer him moral support.

“So what’s the ‘hot idea’?”, I asked.

P looked serious for a moment.  Oh dear.  Was he going to try his “serious nerd”-look again?  I wasn’t going to be able to keep it down this time.

“Have you heard about the “Pick-Up” phenomenon?”

Y: “Yes.  I read an article about it in the Good Weekend a couple of years ago.”

P: Oh?  What did you think?

Y: I’ve done it myself, and I was checking to see if he used similar methods.  I think our methods overlap.

P was aghast.

P: So you know what it’s based on?

Y: I was using Pavlovian conditioning, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

P: I’ve tried these techniques myself.

P’s girlfriend shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

P (noticing): But of course I never follow through with it.  It’s based on being the alpha male.

Y: It sounds a little different to my approach, but there still sounds like a lot of overlap already.

P: So you know what my idea is?

Y: Yes.  You want to make a film about this pick-up artist stuff and you want to star in it, and you want me to produce it. Right?

P: (Gaping).  J: (Also gaping)

P (spluttering); H-h-h-ow did you know?

Y: I’d already had the idea myself.

P and J were aghast again.  Upon recovering himself:-

P: So do you want to produce it?

P had last seen me studying producing at film school.  But something I’d learned in producing school was that I did not want to produce anything I was not completely passionate about.  I told P this.

P: So you don’t want to produce it?

Y: Not if you write it.  If I had a hand in the writing process I might be more committed to it.

P (stumbling over himself): S-s-so would you like to co-write it with me?

Y:  Here’s the deal:  You star, we co-write, and we co-produce.  I direct.

P:  That sounds great!

J smiled in appreciation and support.

P and I met over the next few weeks to discuss the film.  Being the senior filmmaker in this relationship, I acted more as a mentor, asking questions of P, and guiding him.  What was key to me was to see if P had enough “fire” in his belly and enough motivation.

What most people don’t realize is that “talent” is secondary to motivation, even in a business like film.  It’s like Sun Tzu said – “Heart is the most important fighting quality above all others.”

If P and I were to embark on a film project together, I had to see if P had enough fire to last the distance.

In our first meeting I asked P to tell me about the film he had envisaged.

P distinguished himself by presenting a very sound 5 minute précis of his film idea, with a beginning, middle and end (3 act structure.)

P, at the very least, had an excellent memory, a quality that would help our exploits balancing out my poor memory.

But P struggled with the next step.

Y: What is your film really about?

P:  About picking up.

Y: I mean, what is it about in a thematic sense.  You quote Star Wars a lot.  Those films were all about the hero’s journey.  All hero journeys are about self-discovery.  In the Empire Strikes Back, the hero’s journey is very clearly written out, with Luke Skywalker facing numerous challenges – but ultimately his biggest challenge is to confront himself.  What do you think your pick-up film is about?

P: Umm, it’s about self-discovery?

OK.  P was a good parrot, but did he really get the thematic subtleties that were needed under the surface of a well-written and tightly plotted, well-characterised film script?

I had to make it easier for him.

Y: What is your film really about?  What is the central message that you wish to convey with your film?  See, for example, Silence of the Lambs, although a psychological horror film has a central message beyond just wanting to scare the pants off us.  The writer was really saying that in life, we need to change, but change is painful.  See how, despite all the fireworks of Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins performances, and great dialogue, that the central message lies under the surface of every scene?

P gave more attempts, but he really didn’t get it.  As with everything with Paul, his themes and needs were staring me right in the face.  Story after story of how he’d faced disappointment in the dating scene.  It was so obvious what he wanted and how it would fit into the hero’s journey.  Only he couldn’t see it.

Y:  OK.  I want you to think about this issue of “theme” and come back to me with what you think it is.  In the  meantime, I want you to also try to write down the first draft of what you just said to me.  It already sounds like a 3 act structure.

Just before we parted, P turned on his worn-through sneaker heels.

P: We’ve been talking a lot about strengths and weaknesses and knowing ourselves.  What do you think is your greatest weakness?

I thought for a moment.  It was clear enough to me what my weakness had been in these past few years.  After running a film competition only to find others were less competent in filmmaking than myself, after producing yet more films at film school to the same effect, I knew what my weakness was.  But should I tell him?  I shrugged and told him.

Y: My greatest weakness is the flipside of my strength.  I’m very good at understanding what other people like and want, but sometimes I ignore what it is that I truly want.

P did one of his characteristic, exaggerated nods of acknowledgement, before turning quickly and bounding up the stairs for his train.

A week later P and I met again, in the same location.  P had dutifully completed a first draft of his script.  I asked him again what he thought the theme of his film was.  Again, he stumbled, and grasped at straws, throwing back at me whatever words he could remember I’d said.  ”Uncanny memory this boy”, I thought to myself.  But it didn’t disguise the fact that he was no closer to his thematic core than last week.

I read through his script quickly.

I was puzzled.  It was as if he had read from a book called “How to write your screenplay in three easy steps”, and did exactly what the book told him, word for word.

And the results spoke for itself.  It was as if he’d grabbed the scriptwriting cookie-cutter off the shelf and stamped it onto the dough.  Voila.  A script.

All the characters were two dimensional.  The scenes were formulaic, and everything was telegraphed and predictable.

P was like that student in primary school who always finishes first, but has done the task so hurriedly in their effort to finish first, they have missed the point of the exercise, be it art, or creative writing, or even a maths problem.  P was all about “end result” and nothing about process.

Nevertheless, the themes I had surmised P was wanting to write about in his screenplay were all too apparent.

Asian guy wants to pick up Caucasian chicks, but can’t because he’s Asian.  Already two themes cried out from this premise.

1)    Asian guy can’t pick up because society’s negative stereotypes emasculate Asian men.

2)    What is it to be a man?  Is it all about picking-up, or is it about something deeper?  Isn’t it more about being responsible.  Nevertheless, it is still an essential part of man to be sexual.

In that second meeting, I even taunted P by writing down the answer I thought it was, on a piece of paper, and placed it face down before him.

I spent the next 20 minutes again probing P for the answer to the question that so obviously sprawled across the pages of his first draft.  It was an exasperating game of “Hot” and “Cold”, with P just doing his party trick of repeating exactly what he said when I said “Hot”, without ever getting any more insight into his answer.  He was stuck, and because he insisted upon parroting, instead of understanding the game continued, with much hand-waving and gesturing and hinting from me until finally…

P: Um, it’s about how, umm, white girls just don’t respect us Asian dudes man?! 

Y: Yes!!!

It had been stated more as a question than an answer by P, but he had finally touched upon one of the basic themes that would underpin the script, and be its beating heart.

To be continued.