Buckled Cranium Productions

Sure I could make this brain-interview another mildly interesting piece on ferrets, or a retort to Edward's irrational hatred and fear of iRobots and technology as a greater whole, but I simply won't because I'm not petty like that. Ed also needs to remove his head from his greater whole, for health and safety reasons.

So the purpose of the following emporium of lethargy, shall be to attempt to find a lesson, a pattern, or a incurable epidemic hewn into the very fabric of my work to date, those silly old films and videos I up until now, stood proudly beside as a filmmaker.

I took the time recently to look back over some of the shit personalities I once called films. When you're little (aged 15) anything you can hold to your name and say "I made this!" is in your mind worth showing people on a 60 ft illuminated sign, even if it is... sadly The Great Piss Take.

The Great Piss Take has to be one of the worst films I've ever seen - period. I'm now looking back on my work from an increasingly impartial, shocked standery point of view (I guess age is making me senile and forgetting the fun I had making these debacles) so in a respect its nice to look at my own work as if it weren't mine, but also it comes as a shock when you realize how utterly indulgent one can be when you've had noting but MTV to educate you in the ways of the samurai. Films shouldn't look like they were more fun to make, then you're having watching it.

The Great Piss Take followed the schizophrenic, tangental nature of a Family Guy episode, but stripped it of its wit replacing it instead with it unbound enthusiasm & not a reference to anything older then 1990. Technical prowess was laughed at in favor of jokes never revisited , never looked at, never redrafted but during the process of the type. Lines were disregarded between their writing and their eventual reading - then and there on day of the shoot.

"Some of what you come up with is great, and should be used. But the rest needs to be re-drafted and re-worked until the overall standard is higher, this great piss take currently is anything but. 20% of what you write in your first attempt is good, the 80% else - will come from hard work and brain mowing & wracking."

Admittedly I probably would have taken offense and gone on quietly spiteing the wisdom-dispenser continuing on as ever I've done. I hadn't yet realized that what I wrote wasn't always solid gold. A lesson Tarrintino seems sadly to have forgotten - see Death Proof.

Re-drafting what you've written is an imperative tool a writer has to use, as important as the ability to take positive criticism and use it even more constructively to streamline & better your work. I've found it gets easier with practice, making that 20% of initial useable wit skyrocket to a much more tidy 30%.

Flagrant & repetitive use of loud Homosexual references, intended to insight laughter among a sexually repressed teenage peer group do not stand up against the piercing passage of time & maturity. Paradoxically an excessive use of poorly lip synced unrehearsed musical numbers not only come off as gay, they raise the rainbow flag & positively suicide bomb a Japanese fighter plane of Gay pride right down your throat-hole.

15 year old Luke didn't quite "get" that one either, he felt no shame in hurtling himself into a musical number whilst throwing his 2 close friends into yet another joke at their expense and to gay people everywhere... the 20 year old Luke shuddered as he watched this unabashed homophobic tripe, remembering how sad & ignorant teenage guys really age, and reading between the lines yielded some awkward realizations. These lessons on many levels were learnt by the time The Great Piss Take 2 was made a year later - but skit based comedy is a dangerous business, and often overstays its welcome.

Then along came Banno. A film that prides itself in "borrowing" the aesthetic of Lock stock and juxtaposing it amongst the urban squaller of suburban Glenageary - standing in for downtown Shankill, the epitiamy of poor-dom. All I can now say is, oh dear.

A potential opportunity to dispel stereotypes, and shatter cliches instead manifested in a veritable "Triumph of the Will" for a classest South Side Dublin Middl class ignorance-parade (the last one was Boyd Barrot's attempt to ban a recycling center after his glorious win of obstructive protest lending Dun Laoghaire Baths a new coat of paint) The less that's said about Banno & Save our sea front the better, but ultimately the greatest lesson that film afforded me was that a short is more then a some of its references, gimmicks and characters. A film needs story, depth and empathy, and Banno's troupe of delinquents sported nil.

This was to be somewhat corrected in the first script I wrote after doing some reading on "script writing". Banno 2's take was to send up the very idea of a North-South divide, parodying the first films limited portrayal of working class youths with a mirror opposite gang from the north-side. Each character was instilled with an arc, there was a story and furthermore there was pathos. Yet the drama of Banno 2 was overshadowed by the Drama of its production, a difference in opinion lead to a question of authority - which ultimately lead to a diminishment of goodwill resulting in the dismantling of the entire film. Lesson learnt? - Instill your cast with a reason to believe that your decisions are correct, earn their respect - don't stand on a presumption, presumptions are made of clouds.

The most positive thing to come out of Banno 1 & 2 was the highly enjoyable process of working with close friends and allowing them to re-work the words on the page into a hybrid of scripted dialogue and improvisation. A technique I've being using ever since. It often yields far more natural performances from non trained actors.

The same alas cannot be said for the ill-fated production of Weary. A film that once again was never finished due to a genuine lack of interest from those involved. That disinterest stemmed from an underlying problem, a rushed script with no-dialogue lead to non professional actors having no compass by which gauge their perspective. Good Improvised performances from non professionals rely heavily on the groundwork of well thought out characters, situations and loose pre scripted dialogue. Written words are important if one as a means to fall back on should a moment of inspired expression fail to occur, as it did, scene after scene in Weary. The films title change epitomized the shift from a straight faced horror to yet another piss take. Re-dubbed "The Cylios Affair" - referencing a 5th class in-joke, following ominous realization that our inept attempt at drama stemmed from my poor planning, which lost my casts respect. Their performances were as awkward and stilted as the films production.

And finally "The Great Piss Take 3" a film written and conceived on basis of a friendship, strained & weakened in part by making the first two films. A film to be made regardless of the social standing between the necessary people involved. A film that never made it off the page.

Overall I can draw many, many lessons from the films I made in school, and a great many from those I've made since. I've realized that keeping something short - and leaving them wanting more is better then setting an extravagant ambitious length and watch your work flounder during your first screening. The Role of director and actor can be combined, but it helps to be an accomplished actor first, as gaging performances of others can by hard when concentrating on your own. Being my own editor still causes me grief, as late as Swasticow I still see choices constantly fall hostage to preconceived decisions of duration, a reluctance to disregard footage & the pressure of a deadline spelling ruin upon a films longentivity.

If I had a team of Luke's each able to concentrate on a separate field, production, direction, camera - editing and so on, my films would all be far superior. But in the process of learning to juggle a juggler inevitably drops a ball or two.

On a more positive note, I can see that I have a knack for getting people involved with my work, relying on the minds of a collective to better my film is now paramount to my film making style. Despite naysayers I feel I have a strong ability to filter criticism and find gems of advice amid the muddy waters of opinion. I also find I have an easy ability with talking to strangers be they actors, clients or peers. I communicate on a personal level the same way I would socially amongst a company of friends. I also don't think it arrogant to think I have a certain level of tenacity, if this article fails at communicating lessons learnt, its still a clear case for how much those 3 never completed projects nagg at me when I think back over my work.

If you have Retarded children, through tragic and entirely contrary to current political correctness. It may be best to simply hurtle them from Sparta's purity rock or casually put them down. Letting them run about dangerously with loaded automatics is bad parenting. Not only are they damaging your living room rug, but your reputation too.

A film maker is someone who aspires to craft their work beyond its mundane origin. Earnestly hoping to stand, naively & proudly beside it, affording themselves the right to say that the fruits of their labors belong to the realm of art & accomplishment.