Full circle filming

We started filming last week on my first independent documentary as a producer. For those of you that don’t know, I sort of expanded/switched professions while in London last year.
Canadians now have the opportunity to apply for a 2-year working holiday visa before the age of 31. In a random twist of fate, this change in UK legislation occurred the year of my 31st birthday (it was 23 prior to 2005)
So from Prague to London I went. Knowing about 3 people, into a city where there are more photojournalists per capita than anywhere else… except perhaps New York.
I started work for a couple agencies and quickly backpeddled. My dream was to work for an organization like The Guardian/Observer, but the Independent or Times would also have been nice. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. I called the Guardian repeatedly and though interviewed at The Times, my portfolio was nowhere near strong enough and as the photo editor of Getty Images had to say I am competing against people who have regular images on the cover of Time Magazine. So what to do?
I photographed for one of the agencies I could get work for and realized soon enough that is was not for me. My assignments involved taking the Metro across London an hour from where I lived to capture a murder scene, then a Maxim model party in central London, a couple random sensationalized non-stories and finally a pap request.
Now for those of you that are not aware, “to pap” in the UK is an actual verb meaning “to paparazzi” and it’s used with quite regularity amongst those in the photojournalism profession.
I was asked to pap one of the actors from a popular TV show called East Enders. Apparently this actor was about to leave the show and had sent a press release around to the various newspapers informing them he would be dining with his new employer at an expensive central London restaurant where all those who wish to be seen dine.
I had no idea who this guy was and after looking him up online and then successfully taking his image for the agency, I decided I really didn’t want to pursue this type of photography.
If this was the kind of work I had to do to make it in London, I would rather not work. So I delved into other areas.
I went back to my other roots, the film world. For one month I worked for a very lovely French/English producer for free on a short documentary drama about depression. I learned some of the ropes, met some people and got a credit as assistant producer under my belt. I worked just as hard as I would with a paid gig and as a result ended up working as a producer for a corporate documentary for a major London company. So my start in documentary filmmaking began.
This was followed by a 2-month job in Kenya and Uganda working for a British director/producer that works for trade unions. But this whole experience taught me a lot about the film world.
For my corporate job in London, I did a fair amount of work for reasonable pay for a very lovely director. My two months in Africa involved a lot of work, for little pay and in the end the director didn’t give me credit due. And I am only saying this because I learned a lot from that experience and want to impress upon others the value of knowing where you stand and contracts.
As much as you think that just because someone is working in human rights or humanitarian issues or on a feature where the premise seems just. Be careful, know your rights and get something in writing.
I learned this the hard way and will never make that mistake again. My idealist sense of moral justice completely disintegrated in just one production. Four months of production work and only a stills photo credit to show for it.
I resolved to not let this happen again. And for some time I was at a loss at what to do next. Hence the Vipassana retreat, the trip to the Balkans and return to Prague.
As a photographer I have always specialized in social, humanitarian and environmental issues, but I can’t make a living on that alone. Not enough people care. People care about wannabe socialites and TV, but not about poverty and social justice.
When I previously lived in Prague I was always drawn to the Roma. One issue more so than the rest and this was particular issue was still topical upon my return. I will get more into it once I get further into production, but for now lets leave it at that.
When I lived in the UK I met a few people in the film world. Not only on the productions I was involved in but through volunteer work at a picture library and through friends.
One of my friends is a editor/director whom I’ve always really enjoyed spending time with and respect her opinion, choice in films and knowledge of social issues. She was the first person I contacted to gauge her interest.
The second is an American actor that has developed a media company from a music video filmed last year.
Because the editor/director lives in the UK and has a full-time job, it was up to me to get some material for her to work with. My topic was timely as a major milestone for filming was occurring just as I was gathering together the key players.
Now the actor and I are very different. He’s a rather aggressive American male with a sensitive side and many surprises. He managed to get me an HD camera and car for free and for the day we drove 4.5 hours into eastern Czech Republic to capture an essential part of the story.
By logistics error on the part of the main subject we managed to end up with one of the most prominent women in our car for more than an hour as we traveled to her home near where we filmed and got to know her.
Because she is Roma, she claims the media has been unfairly targeting her and her community. Stereotypes and racism are rampant and she has been unwilling to talk to the media since they unfairly targeted one of the women in her community.
For some reason she took to us quite quickly. Part of it was definitely my colleague. We ended up stuck in a traffic jam that was likely to last for hours. With a couple of curses he wandered over to the police officers and found out what the problem was. Then he pulled out of the queue/line and overtook all of vehicles on the small country road in order to get to smaller country roads that though still on the map, were quite obscure.
The women in the back seat meanwhile were genuinely scared. This is definitely not typical Czech behaviour. As soon as they realized that he knew how to read map and knew where we were he was an instant deity. He need not do any thing else.
Not only did we beat everyone else in our caravan to our destination by nearly 45min. In that time we managed to conduct an interview with one of the women in her home and made an ally.
This is all very important in filmmaking. You have to learn how to get everyone around you to trust you. Whether it’s the cast and crew or the subjects to be filmed and production team.
This was the first of what will be about 14days of filming and although far from perfect, it was definitely a great start.
From here it only gets easier! Well… we’ll see...