Making a film is not only a laborious task but an extremely expensive one.
As an independent filmmaker, I’m not always making as many films as I would like. During breaks, or while I plan my next film, I either research my next project, write, work with other writers — as I am currently doing with a scriptwriter from Singapore — or, lately, create inspirational videos about topics I feel strongly about.
I guess I could make a vlog and put a camera in my living room and talk it all out, but I like creating videos that are a bit more special. Videos that have a bit of an artistic process behind them while at the same time being relatively simple to make and ready a few weeks after filming.
I’ve done a few videos and photos with photographer-turned-videographer Tim Ward. I enjoy collaborating with him because he has a good sense of humour, is ready to experiment, can spot a good idea and a good shot, and I feel comfortable and at ease around him.
When he came on set to shoot some behind-the-scenes photographs of my film “Rescue Me”, you wouldn’t even know he was there immortalising it all. Here are some stunning photos Tim took while we were filming a video about “How to age gracefully”and “Ageism” – prejudice because of age-.
Hula Hoops are for summer series by Tim Ward
I like these photographs because we were shooting during a lovely late-summer day and you can almost sense autumn approaching in the images.
They also have a natural feel, and in the video I’m saying exactly what I think and feel about ageist attitudes.
Maybe when I’m older I’ll look at these pictures and remind myself that I was once a healthy, happy young woman who did things out of love, out of a desire to express myself, and not simply out of a desire to make a profit or achieve something.
For me, it has definitely been art for art’s sake. A passion that you do because it is in you — either you make it or you burn with the desire to make it.
My attitude is pretty much the following when it comes to life and art:
Everything that you do, everything that happens to you is clay for your life. But as an artist, this is even more valuable — it is clay for your art.
When I was 21 and studying English at university, I read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. There was a passage that spoke to me so much that I wrote it down on a piece of paper and stuck it to my mirror so I could read it every morning.
It was long before the current obsession with inspirational quotes. I had actually read the book.
Kerouac wrote about people who were “mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved” and who “burn, burn, burn” rather than simply accept a commonplace life.
I identified with that then, and I still do.
So stop worrying so much about money or making a profit. If creating is in you, just do it.
Make the film. Write the story. Take the photograph. Make the video.
Not everything has to become a business.
We are not bankers, after all — and thank heavens for that.
P.S If you like the videos , please subscribe to my You Tube Channel here
