Brett Gregory survives a hit and run interview with Hannah Filler about filmmaking
Drawing from the ideals of Ancient Greece, the 19th century English poet and critic, Matthew Arnold, proclaimed in 1869 that culture was ‘sweetness and light’, ‘the study of perfection’, ‘the best that has been thought and known in the world’ and, importantly, could serve as a civilising force, an ideological bulwark against the tides of anarchy. Poetry, opera, art…
Conversely, the 20th century Welsh literary critic, socialist intellectual and cultural theorist, Raymond Williams, put forward that culture was ‘ordinary’, constantly being made and re-made; it wasn’t hierarchical, elitist, ‘from way back when’, but instead was emergent, democratic, ‘a whole way of life’ happening right now. Folk music, dance halls, cartoons …
Those of us on the intellectual left generally pivot towards the vibrancy, vivaciousness and vitality offered up by Raymond Williams’ vision, as opposed to the stilted and stuffy snobbishness forced upon us by Matthew Arnold’s critique.
That is until I suddenly came across a very eager US undergraduate through LinkedIn called Hannah Filler, and realise how slow and old I really am.
HF: Hi Brett! I’m Hannah, a student at Towson University. I need to interview someone for a project and wanted to reach out to see if you would be interested in answering a few quick questions! Thanks!
BG: Erm, sure, Hannah. What about?
HF: Just about film creation!
BG: Oh, right. Would you like to send your questions to my email?
HF: Thanks so much!! I can send them here.
BG: Do I have to answer them in real-time, or do I have time to think things over?
HF: You can think things over! If possible, answers by this Friday would be great 🙂
And, like that, s/he was gone, like a hit and run driver, leaving me with some questions, which I answered as follows:
HF: What do you do in your job?
BG: I’m the Creative Director for a small UK film production company called ‘Serious Feather’ which was established in 2005. My main duties include researching and generating ideas for short films or feature films; screenwriting; storyboarding; location scouting; sourcing crew members; sourcing props and costumes; researching and casting performers; rehearsals; liaising with the director of photography; directing on location or on set; maintaining technical and aesthetic standards on location or on set; editing; sourcing foley; liaising with the composer; sound mixing; publicity and marketing etc.
My debut feature film, ‘Nobody Loves You and You Don’t Deserve to Exist’, was released on Amazon Prime in 2022, and my cast, crew and I have just completed a short film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s parable, ‘Before the Law’.
HF: What’s a typical day like?
BG: Creatively, I’m at my best as soon as I wake up, when I’m still half-sleep, and I still have the memory of the last dream or nightmare swirling around inside my head. In turn, I usually just sit and write, or re-write, or storyboard for about five hours straight. Then I check my emails and social media messages, and spend about two hours replying to them. Then I usually have a snooze in the late afternoon before I carry out boring administration duties, and look through the calendar to see what else needs to be done without using too much brain power. And then I’ll talk to friends, read stuff, watch stuff, play stupid video games etc.
HF: What do you like about your job?
BG: I enjoy creating distinctive yet honest characters, dialogue, situations, scenes, and stories out of nothing. I like the idea that I’m trying to create a more interesting world than the one I usually experience day to day outside of film and media. I also enjoy working with decent, respectful, hard-working and/or talented people who are able to improve and/or motivate me to produce better creative work, and inspire me to be a better person.
HF: What’s the hardest thing about your job?
BG: I suppose the hardest thing about my job is trying to convince non-creative people that the arts are actually about being a human being, and that human expression is more valuable than money.
HF: Is your job satisfying?
BG: Each creative project is satisfying at each stage of its life cycle in sporadic moments. You write a good line of dialogue; you compose a decent shot in storyboarding; you source an evocative location; you discover a memorable actor; you finish the film you’re shooting a day early, etc. The most satisfying moment for me however is in the edit, and you know the narrative is complete, and it just needs tidying up with grading and colourisation, and elevating with the soundtrack etc. I don’t know if that’s actually ‘satisfaction’ however. I think that might just be ‘relief’.
HF: What kind of experience, skills and qualities do I need to get this job or internship?
BG: A knowledge, understanding and passion for film, film history, the filmmaking process, and the film industry; critical thinking and judgement skills; research skills and a desire to know lots of things; an ability to solve problems; a good listener; a good talker, a good writer; note-taking; punctuality and time-management; ordered; hard-working; focused; ambitious; humble. And, importantly, you also need to be a bit of a social outcast. Naturally unconventional, but not troublesome.
HF: What can I be doing now, while I’m in college, to qualify for this job or internship?
BG: I would recommend that you read as many classic novels and short stories as possible from around the world, and not just by US authors. I would recommend that you independently study the history of painting and photography, and decide which styles and types of content you like, and why. I would read and re-read ‘Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts’ by Susan Hayward, and ‘The Cinema Book’ by Pam Cook. You should watch as many films from 1910 to 2000 as possible, particularly German expressionist films from the 1920s and New Hollywood films from the 1970s. You should watch every documentary about filmmaking that you can lay your hands on, even if you don’t like the films that they’re discussing.
You should start adapting very short children’s stories, fairy tales and/or nursery rhymes into short screenplays during evenings and/or over the weekends. You should then storyboard the screenplay you’ve written; and then follow this storyboard, shot by shot, and film it in the real world on your iPhone or similar with friends as actors, or stuffed toys as actors, or whatever. You should then edit the footage and sound you’ve recorded using free software like CapCut. Export the completed film, watch it over and over again, and then try and work out why it just isn’t as good or as magical as the original story, fairy tale or nursery rhyme. Then you should pick another story, and start all over again, learn from your mistakes, and do this once a month for at least the next three years.
HF: What technology and tools should I learn to prepare for this job?
BG: As I mentioned, on a basic level, you just need a smartphone and a copy of CapCut on your PC or Mac. If you’re taking filmmaking more seriously, however, then you need to learn how to use a Canon 5D Mark IV or similar; a Tascam DR-40X audio recorder or similar; a Rode microphone and boom pole or similar; two Lavalier microphones; a basic film lighting kit so you can carry out three-point lighting effectively and efficiently; and post-production software packages like Adobe Premiere and Adobe Photoshop.
HF: What do you wish you knew about your job when you were in school?
BG: I wish that when I was at school that I had stopped dreaming about making films, and had actually just got on with making them. That would’ve probably saved me about ten years of my life.
Hannah Filler is an undergraduate in Electronic Media, Film and Mass Communications at Towson University, Maryland (US)
Brett Gregory is an independent screenwriter, director, editor and producer based in Manchester (UK)
