FilmLab Day 14 – The Last Lap
Today was the pinnacle moment of the week’s preparation. After a few quick tech checks the the Labsters were thrust in front of a Market panel comprised of Nick Batsias, Rachel Okine, Antonia Barnard, Michael Favelle and Katrina Sedgwick. This complex blend of distrubutor, producer, sales agent and festival programmer extraordinaire were to hear a presentation from each team, outlining the project they had chosen to pull out of the other side of the lab and produce through the scheme.
Once major difference that marked this presentation was that none of the other teams were going to be in the room to hear it – the focus was completely on engaging the market panel and getting their honest feedback. This meant that in comparison to previous spiels, the projects were being introduced to an entirely new audience of people who had not gone through the whole process. They would not have read the very first concept documents, they would not have seen the creative exploration to find the heart of the story, or the genesis of the characters. The Labsters had a challenge of condensing all of the past 3 weeks into 10 minutes, clearly, with a point, and some indication of the film that would be made from it.
Fortunately for me, most teams decided to keep it simple technically, which gave way to honest, engaging and concise delivery. First up was Matt C, Sophie and Bryan, who stimulated much discussion and questioning from the panel (maybe a little too much because we seemed to run out of time too quickly). Next, Matt B and Julie sandwiched their presentation between some effectively cut imagery, eliciting a number of laughs from the panel (which they may have regretted later). Ashlee and Sonya then stepped in, armed only with their voices, their facial expressions, and most importantly a great story. Matt and Sarah turned things around with a DVD representation of the presentation (what a mouthful) of a few days earlier, giving a great sense of atmophere and the next step in their low budget feature journey. Finally, Hugh and Eddie treated the panel to a change of location (and a cushier chair) in the mixing theatre, for some live demonstration of bear development.
Overall the panel were impressed with the process, and are interested to see the next stage of each film as it develops. Granted, they recognised that some projects had been created 2 years ago, and others only 2 days ago, so the veritable fruit salad offered was always going to be diverse – and they were very open to that.
In the evening, we dragged the panel to the Mercury Cinema, where they bestowed some wisdom on the local industry about marketing, distribution, sales, and what film makers should be thinking about and when. The venue was packed with film makers of all levels, which was great to see. We really should have panels like this more often!
After a gruelling and informative 2 hours, we released our guests back into the wild, and set off home, to get some rest for the 15th and final day of this FilmLab intensive work shop. Not the End, nor the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning of the beginning… or something to do with spanners…
It’s been quite a ride.
AT
Our guests have a chuckle (which we hope was the intended outcome of this particular presentation)
Julie rejoices – whether because of the beer, Michael Favelle’s presence, or the fact the presentations are over I’m still not sure about.
Sweet relief, bitter brew, and something about a film.
Information in people form.
