Thursday, June 22, 2006

(mostly) blurry pictures update







once i'm done getting mad, i post pictures i guess.. and you seem to enjoy those..

you have blurry pic of meetings, you have pics of meetings and pics of me..

sometimes i wonder if a producer should be this vain..
but whatever, we're all for setting new standards, aren't we ?

aflakete the wunderkid at 1:35 PM

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casting and stuff..

The Hard Life of a Mouvie Produceur..
(french accent here)

So your director missed his plane.. you got angry, you got sad, you went clubbing, got a lil'tipsy, slept and found a solution for your biggest issue.. the already set up and announced open audition..

you decide to do them yourself and tape them so you can shortlist the actors with him before he sees more..

so for 10 hours you're in an office listenning to the same parts over and over again, some good some average some horrible. Some bland "reading" , some "overacting".. from amateurs and pros.

see. casting has been an interesting issue for us since forever.

- we don't like the way nollywood acting style
- *I* personally don't believe in Good Acting, i believe in Good Direction
- we want the actors to look good (or at least interesting)

so we've had some lucky episodes on that part.. the 2 leads were found incredibly fast.. we had a first choice as far as the female lead that latter got complicated for many reasons..

at that point we just had to go to Calabar and just cast.

and we found.

well, first of all, we found the Guild and it's regulations that kinda make sense but could have been problematic in our case.
i.e. "they don't exactly have everything we want."

Thanks to the mediation of an official body, the misunderstanding got cleared, options were openned and cooperation became the rule.

i still feel quite weird about it. It sounds like the only thing the Guild care about is registration. a database ? some guidebook about the working conditions ?

so anyway..
on that bloody saturday we found almost all the female parts.
let me even admit that on a personnal level, at some point i was happy to talk to anything but a-beautiful-young-woman after a point..
then Uchenna came, we watched the tapes, he approved most of our shortlist (or at least the ones me and koko agreed on).
and then we went to have him meet the one we shortlisted for the lead female part..

she wasn't at the audition (we taped her the day before)
she never acted before
she didnt know if she "wanted" to act when we first talked to her

but she's a model, a very pro one. conscious of every inch of her body at any moment. perfect. Uchenna approved. I think he was also happy that his akward way to question people (well he quickly got better) didn't scare her off, lol.

so that was resolved, the other female parts are more and less set too (and when it's less, it's because we're still torn between 2 or more choices).

The male supporting cast..

First we had blantant luck.. people bringing someone who brings someone who brings someone..
found a dancer with a great diction, found a 7 feet guy with huge hands...
and we had another audition.. less hectic, no tape this time.. and we found pearls too.

so our cast ?

IT'S DONE.
(well there are 3 or 4 minor minor parts that are yet to be taken)

why aint i posting pictures ?
i let uchenna take care of that, lol



yeah this was written a few days ago..

aflakete the wunderkid at 1:01 PM

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one year ago...

1 year ago...

a little more than one year or so ago i dropped out of film school.. 1 or 2 weeks before my finals.
overwhelmed by the production paperwork on a 8-minute documentary (that was part of my finals actually). i just couldn't do it anymore.. i was tired, annoyed by the futility of all that and kind of depressed.


and the main reason i haven't blogged in the last days is that i was thisclose to actually walk out again..

now the interesting thing is the reasons.

basically i was in the other position.. i felt there was an issue about our commitment, our speed, our rythm. Now don't get me wrong. We are commited, we are working.. but like.. this is moviemaking, not only that but this is independant, lowbudget moviemaking in a hostile environement (nepa alone makes nigeria hostile). So you cannot afford to just work "hard enough". We have to push beyond our limits on a calm day and go harder on the worse ones..

so i wasn't sure we were doing that so i was wondering if spending more money, spending more time away from my family and people i love (i love koko and uchenna, but i'm not that exclusive, you know ?), going through more anxiety-intensive periods would actually pay-off... i.e. will this ever get done ?

see, my little experience of moviemaking taught me one thing: Even The Best Prepared Shootings Are Miracles. your lead actor can get into a car accident, you have rain, civil wars, lightning, your film (or tapes) can disappear, your camera may stop working suddenly. And THIS WILL HAPPEN.
So whatever plans you make or have, will have to be changed.. you will run, adapt, get anxious, get desperate, feel like the world is plotting against you..
Now except for a few flat tires in this car (substory is that i intended to dedicate an entire blog entry to this swedish silent and hardworking employee of ours but i decided to scratch it off... momentum passed apparently) and the horrible Lagos traffic (NEVER SHOOT IN THAT PLACE UNLESS YOU HAVE HELICOPTER BUDGET, people), the "slow us down" events we experienced weren't that unavoidable. so yeah i got scared..
my other main belief is that nice people don't make movies.. they work in cubicles, sell cars, farm may be.. The Film Industry is made for assholes.. People who are able to put "that thing" they do on top of their priority list.. People who can spend weeks not talking to their friends because they don't have time. People who are able to mobilize any and all the ressources their entourage can provide in order to get it done.
and i know we're in Africa.. and i know that this is probably the main unafrican thing i do.. i get assholish..
example: some photocopy place a few nights ago in calabar: we drop a script to be photocopied and binded. we run to meeting and say we'll be back in an hour. AN HOUR AND HALF LATER, we come back. the binding is not done and that 50 years old woman tells me "come back tomorrow, my day's done".
i raised hell. mentionned that she should be fired. cursed a bit. asked to be paid back because we were already late since her lazy ass couldn't do it on a notice SHE AGREED ON.
later in the car, Uchenna was telling me i overreacted (may be) and that this was Africa... and that wishing that someone should be fired is horrible (because of the high unemployement rates)
NOW PAUSE. on our beautiful continent, crowds of young, energic, able people can't find a job and we're not making the connexion here ? so yeah let me say it again. "SHE SHOULD BE FIRED, as should be all the useless unproductive motherfuckers to make room for able people."
but i'm drifting here..

Producers raise hell, that's what they do. they raise hell because NOTHING in this world is more important than the PRODUCTION. And the only reason they even sleep or eat is because dying may slow down the PRODUCTION.
and if your movie has any inherent difficulty, you should do even more.
i don't care how un-african of me it may seem to be (fuck lowered standards, i feel insulted by that idea). i will raise hell, starve, kill people if that's what it takes to deliver TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN to you, dear moviewatchers.

and i'm just glad this is fully understood in the Production camp.. and i wouldn't have given up anyway, no Producer would give up on such a beautiful project.. so now i can get back to blogging about sunset or i may have even more bitchy entries about how i want all Producer on the set..


July 3rd is the date, people..

aflakete the wunderkid at 12:54 PM

1comments

Thursday, June 08, 2006

someone talked too fast..

what do you do when around 10pm you get a text message from your director/partner saying he missed his flight ?

- you call him back
- you argue for 30 minutes with your other partner
- you brainstorm for 40 minutes with that same guy
- you come up with a possible solution
- you type a letter to local authorities for 1 hour
- you get dressed
- you get in a car and blast some Ghetto Tech OUT LOUD
- you hit a club
- you drink
- you get home and call your flight-missing partner and for the first time ASK about what happenned (priority is to find solutions)
- you wake up with a fresh fresh mind and get back to work


peace

aflakete the wunderkid at 6:22 AM

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this movie (TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN) got me, got me, working day and night...



now really.. i can't wait for the rest i'll get when this is all over.

(sad truth is that i have like 2 other ones planned and about 5 or 6 diverse ideas and my partners probably have as many.. so rest ? lol)




and since y'all seemed to have loved the pictures i posted:




just don't ask me what are those for.

aflakete the wunderkid at 6:20 AM

3comments

Thursday, June 01, 2006

clarification

so in case you didnt get.. and and apparently some haven't..
i AM a producer and working with a writer/director and a third partner who doesnt have a blog (yeah such dinosaurs exist).. and i am in Nigeria, RIGHT NOW, producing (meaning budgetting, casting, scouting, crying, getting grey hair and other funny activities) a movie named TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN.
Peep the continious present tense..

and.. well.. we're kinda broke and our budget is rather tight and it's hard and we're young, black and african.. so like.. let's make it clear:

Grants, Donations, International Aid, Prayers, Ebos, Saaras, Food Aid, Technical or Medical Assistance, Clothes (thanks bu), Walmart Coupons, Volunteering (actors ?), Petrol Jerrycans and many more ARE ALL ACCEPTED and WELCOME and NEEDED...

and we can promise you that the help will indeed reach those who need it and no one will ask for your bank details..

and we're serious...

aflakete the wunderkid at 10:57 AM

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a day in the life

yeah sometimes i get to talk to very very good-looking people (hell some even look better than me, lol).. yeah i have one of the coolest jobs on earth (i'm talking about being the producer of TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, not producing in general), yeah it's fun and intense and cool and all that

but..

the truth is most of time i'm sitting behind a comp




or we're stuck in traffic:





and then sometimes i eat



and koko takes funny pics out of boredom when i'm online usually posting my blog entries



but then i get bored when he drives and i take funnier pics




peep the distortion..

so.. yeah a producer's life always that exciting..
and actually if it was would we have the chance to catch moments like this ?









aflakete the wunderkid at 10:09 AM

3comments