[Also available in Spanish]

When I started working on my CollabFeature Segment THE VISIONARY it was a big leap of faith for me.

I had just moved to Berlin about two months earlier. I left my network in Vienna and had absolutely no industry or personal contacts in Berlin except two people working with me at a digital lab and post production facility in Berlin. One of them is a good friend who I met in film school. The other one was Xavier Agudo, director of the segment HOTTIE LOLLIE, who first told me about this bold and interesting project while we were waiting for the bus home on a chilly Berlin night.

By then the project was already a moving train running full steam. All the filmmakers were in place, they figured out a story about a backpack going around the world and they were pitching story ideas to each other. My first thought was: this will never work out! Filmmakers who have never met, making a feature film with a consistent storyline. The internet as the only way of communication. A homepage as the central intersection to provide information and coordination between the filmmakers. And two guys from Detroit running the whole thing. A big idea. Very likely to die a slow death along the way – but I also caught fire. Because WHAT IF it would all work out? Wouldn’t it be amazing to be part of something like that?

Xavier mentioned that one of the filmmakers dropped out and so they were looking for someone to fill the gap between a segment playing in Berlin and the following one in London. First I said that this is nothing for me, because I know nobody in Berlin – it is absolutely impossible for me to organize it in just a few months – especially without a budget. Besides that I had a very demanding job at the postproduction house. But thinking over it again and again I came to the conclusion that I would be a fool not to take the chance. I checked out the homepage. It was very simple but also very functional, and the group of filmmakers had accomplished so much – the concept worked. Especially Marty and Ian, the two fathers of the project, seemed to be very dedicated. So I applied … and got no response.

Weeks went by, my job at the postproduction house was over, and I contacted Marty. It turned out, that something went wrong and they never got my application. I sent my data again and finally I was in. My first reaction: pure fear!

It was middle of May, my slot to shoot was the middle of August. I would not be in Berlin the first week of August because I was to be the best man at my best friends wedding which was partly celebrated in Croatia – no way to cancel (family and friends are first place anyway for me). So two and a half months left and I did not have the slightest idea about a story. I did what I always do in these situations – I called my good friend and partner in crime Arne Nostitz. We met and ping-ponged ideas as we always do. At the end of the evening we had a story … but way way, WAY too long for a five minute short film. So I said, what about if you join and we also ask another friend of ours, Nino Leitner, and make three segments which will lead from Berlin to London. We pitched the idea to Marty and he was fine with it.

Fortunately my first draft of the script was well received and after a few inputs by Marty, Ian and the group, which helped the script very much, the script problem was solved. Middle of june. One and a half months left. Still no actors, no crew, no locations – but a little money. Luckily I had a very well paid editing assignment in May and June, so I decided to invest 1.000 EUR in the film and also bought the Canon Rebel T2i (550d in Europe) with accessories and sound equipment to feel safe on the technical side.

Where to start turning the script into a story? My plan was scalability.

I wanted to be able to shoot no matter what, but to increase the production value when I had the chance to. Thus I wrote the story for interior locations, mainly about people talking. Therefore in the worst case I could always shoot at my apartment. Arne also has an acting gene in him so I wrote the lead part with him in mind. He auditioned and delivered a spot on performance. Still no crew, no lights, no grip, no other actors.

I started scraping everything together – and had the luck of my life!

In front of the post production house I mentioned a nice old Mustang, owned by one of my coworkers. He said yes and my lead character could drive around in this hell of car in front of some nice Berlin landmarks, so that the audience knows were the segment takes place. Checked that. Next thing: camera. My PostProduction house also owned 4 Red One cameras. Because they liked the project they gave me the camera for free, but only if I found insurance for it. One problem less. One more – insurance for this kind of equipment is about 600 EUR. But, what a nice coincidence, the Mustang owner, worked at a local film rental house and got me a super special price for loads of lights, grip and a dolly.

Thanks to the german website www.crew-united.com I found a very good and enthusiastic DoP (who brought his gaffer and ACs), a wonderful sound mixer, a still photographer and, one day before I had to leave for croatia, a producer. All of these guys were absolutely wonderful and I owe them so much. I did not have a chance to meet the producer in person before I left, but he did not care. He organized cheap insurance, catering, production cars and so much more. Because I shot Xaviers segment I got to know his wonderful hair & makeup guy as well as his main actor who also is a photographer, and provided some of his lights and was so generous to let us shoot in his appartment, which became the writers room.

Two days before I left for Croatia and the only thing which was missing was the casting studio location. I visited the three locations I researched over the internet, all not usable. While I was on the location scout I heard of a private film academy just around the corner. I went there, knocked on the door – and found the perfect casting studio.

Throughout this time I casted actors. Again, Berlin proved to be the perfect city for this. With the help of the website www.schauspielervideos.de, a searchable collection of around 7500 german actors, I found several actresses and actors who seemed suitable for the roles. I sent the screenplay, invited them to audition and finally had my cast completed.

The next day I flew to croatia – the constant emailing and phoning led to a horrible horrible invoice, but it was worth it. When I came back to Berlin everything was in place and we were able to start shooting as planned. The shoot went very well and I still cannot believe how it all came together so nicely. I was so lucky to find this awesome cast and crew within just a few weeks.

On the one hand it was the nature and concept of this project which hooked the people on the other side. I am sure it was possible because Berlin is the number one filmmaking city in Germany.

The concept of the whole project, to find an international crew over the internet, also transcended to the making of my segment. I found most of the cast and crew over the internet, we stayed in contact over Skype and email, shared documents over a dropbox folder and had team members of german, south american, italian, arab, afro american and austrian roots.

Today after one year, the project is still very alive and getting bigger and bigger. The assemble edits are critiqued by the team, Marty and Ian, the project initiators, still find new ways to improve the website, central editors are working on trailers, we have a publicist and a project coordinator. I can’t wait to see what happens next and YES, it is absolutely amazing to be part of this unique and unprecedented collaboration.

It wasn’t too long ago that Hong Kong was considered to be a center for Asian art and film.  Back in the eighties, while most Americans identified Asian cinema with Bruce Lee, Hong Kong’s movie business grew to be the third largest in the world, surpassed only by those in India and the United States.  Alas, things began to decline in the nineties especially after handover in 1997.  While it certainly rose to the status of Asia’s financial capital, the city’s artistic side declined.  Now, as the art scene is making a comeback, independent filmmakers are dipping their toes into the city’s creative waters once again.

It was a no-brainer that the “The Backpack” needed to have a Hong Kong based scene. Given Asia’s propensity for high brow brands, the idea of a khaki backpack is certainly ludicrous in the context of Hong Kong’s fashion scene.  Herein lay the backbone to our story – one in which a group of Hong Kong tai-tais  (society ladies) would poke fun at the idea of the backpack as the West’s ridiculous answer to fashion. The name of our story –  ”Too Hippie For Hong Kong.”

To give it context, the script called for Mahjong playing tai-tais to poke fun at four American tai-tais  too mesmerized by a fashion spread of the backpack to focus on the game. This was easier said than done for multiple reasons:

Firstly to come up with a bilingual scene, I needed to script out the entire scene in English, then translate into Cantonese adjusting the language to make sure that the humor and dialog made sense, and then translate back into English adjusting words and phrases to make sure that the sub-titles made sense.  As an English language based writer dependent upon local translation help, it was far from easy.

Then, there was the question of casting.  I went with a casting agent for the Cantonese speaking actresses but decided to hire the Western actresses directly.  Bad idea.  While the Chinese actresses were great, the American actresses were way too amateur and despite several rehearsals and takes, they found it hard to relax into the role. No worries, they could be cut.

Then the cinematography.  While Mahjong fit perfectly into the storyline, in looking back at it later, it clearly did not give enough of a sense of Hong Kong. Clearly we needed to add in some Hong Kong scenery to work in sync with the international scenery shots in the rest of the film. My DP had captured plenty of shots of Hong Kong’s branded fashion stores but did not get a picture of the skyline or streets.  The result was a second shoot with a different DP and a different camera almost an entire year later. At first, I had a challenging time finding the same actresses typical of Hong Kong’s transient lifestyle, 6 out of 8 of them had left town.  Then, when I tracked down the one actress I wanted to use, she had changed her hairstyle!

Well thank gosh for wigs.  And for Marc, my new DP. In a matter of one day, we were able to shoot, wrap and fill in the missing pieces. The final cut remains to be seen.

Filmmaking has always been seen as a big, complicated, expensive, impossible thing to do. This is mostly
because of the money needed, the big crews, the complicated logistics, the technicalities, etc. So the
efforts are somehow always directed in resolving these issues, rather than spending time and energy
in what really is important: the story, the acting and the directing in general.

In order to succeed as an Independent Filmmaker I feel it is imperative that we de-mistify the
filmmaking process. To strip ourselves form the preconceptions that we can´t make a movie without
a big budget, a big crew and get overwhelmed with logistics and planning. I feel we need to
go straight to the basics: a camera, a sound recorder, some actors, a director and of course a good
story. I feel everything outside this list of people is a luxury, an attempt to replicate the Studio
System or an Industry we are not capable to replicate as Independent Filmmakers. It would only
lead to frustration, lack of practice and personal misery.

It is not that I´m trying to propose a „Dogma 95“ kind of filmmaking, but it actually makes some
sense to revise some of their concepts to shoot really independently. I do think sometimes artificial
light is a necessary means to paint with the camera, that extra-diegetic music is a tool to shape
emotions, that time should be fragmented when needed to efficiently tell a story and that actors
should be able to draw from their emotions and experiences to „act“ situations such as dying. In that
way I differ from the „Dogma“ concept, but all these technicalities should not get in the way of the
creative process or stop you from making the film at all.

This rather long introduction illustrates the approach for the shooting of my segment for the
CollabFeature project in Berlin. If I were to wait to raise a budget, schedule a non-payed crew and
plan to use a bunch of equipment, it would have been completely impossible to take part in this
project.

Due to budget and time limitations at the moment, it was clear to me that I needed to make this
shoot as fast, simple and inexpensive as possible. So I wrote a story I knew I could pull off, having in
mind available locations, few characters and nothing fancy (writing a la Robert Rodríguez if you
like), which was a challenge in itself since I needed to comply with the requirements of previous
and following segments in the film.

I didn´t have time or money to hold a casting session: paying or looking for a room, scheduling actors etc. so I made a virtual casting (in the spirit of the whole CollabFeature process). I put out a casting call and then I sent candidates detailed instructions for them to record themselves with any means they had and send me a tape or link to their video. Once I reviewed the entries I met personally with some of them, because I do think chemistry is a big part in the relationship of an
actor and director and vital for the work on set, so this couldn´t be accomplished virtually.

Once I had my cast in place I scheduled for a one day principal photography shoot and a second day of pick ups and an extra scene. Everything within a weekend to make sure everyone would have time.

My crew consisted of my three actors (not all at the same time), a camera man (who also providedthe camera and sound equipment) a sound man, a make up artist (because I did need to make a distinct character transformation) and myself as a director and many other hats. This Micro Crew allowed me to move fast, to spend less in catering (which is one of the very few things you absolutely need to budget for if you don´t have a sponsor) and keep my schedule tight.

The technical specifications of the shoot is material for a whole new post, but I can say that using DSLRs makes a big impact on the budget.  They allow you to get rid of unnecessary assistants, DITs, grips, etc. for a fraction of the price of one of the big cameras with an unprecedented quality capable of producing theatrical screening images and providing a myriad of creative possibilities impossible with prosumer digital camcorders.

Back in 2009 i first read about CollabFeature. I was very excited and quickly registered online for it. Then, a few months later, i already forgot about it.  Alex called and said “Hey, they missed our application – (after an email) – we are in!”. Oh – what great news!

Then a hard time catching up followed. The CollabTeam already wrote the whole story – only a gap in the middle was still available. Here Alex, Nino and I are meant to fill in. We tried hard to accomplish a good connection between the written parts and figured out the perfect solution.

As there was only one genre – horror – left at the end for my segment, i had to bite in the bitter apple and write a horror-movie. And thats really not my genre. But in the End even Marty and Ian were finally happy – that was the hardest challenge of all. Because they are both very exact in what they want and foremost what the story and the whole film needed.  They were an amazing hard nut to crack, but in the end they were right. They kept the overview of all the parts and as we say in austria “Hut ab” for that.

The tight schedule kept on. After writing the story we had to film it right away. Our complex and intersected parts weren’t easy to manage. We filmed across two countries and three cities with the same actors. They had to fly around or travel by train to get to the various locations. But we all were very excited about the shoot and the project in general.

Hundreds of great actors applied as cast for the viennese part and we really had a hard time choosing. None of them really fit. And also, sadly, a lot of them were from all over germany. And therefor we would have to pay a lot for traveling expenses. And because we had NO budget this wasn´t an option.

Only a few days prior to the shoot I found my lead actor. Manuel Girisch. He was the Propman in person. I had a person like him in mind as i wrote the character. And then in a Demoreel of another actor he appeared. I immediately tried to get his contact and a day later we talked about the project, he was amazed, and was in the project.

Just two days before the shoot we found the horse carriage and the locations for the shoot. Sadly the City of Vienna was not very supportive and therefor it was all a little bit guerrilla.  A three day shoot was scheduled. The team was ready and hungry – and on it went in early august 2010.

I was the first of us three to shoot. Nino Leitner, an amazing director, but an even better cameraman – you maybe know him from his blog www.ninofilm.net/blog, where he writes about digital filmmaking in general and DSLR-filmmaking in detail – stepped in for my DP who quit on the project on short notice. That was great, because so he had the feeling for the film for his shoot (his segment is direct before of mine).

The equipment was borrowed from friends all over town. We shot the interiors at a good friends flat, Reinhold Fleischmann, who was out of town for the time (and that was good, because we really ripped it apart).  And for the exteriors we went for the famous places all over the city. I wanted to give the viewer a feeling of how vienna looks like, because i think that is the great adventure of this movie – to see 25 different places all over the world. And so that was a big part of my shoot.

For the shoot at the psych we were able to use Michael Kamlers photo studio. The amazing props were from Juliana Neuhuber, a filmmaker herself. For the candles a trip to the local IKEA was scheduled and all the rest was from my mother.

The actors made a great job. Even on this short notice they all found a good way into the characters and so the story got better and better from each take.

My amazing team did an overwhelming stunt to accomplish my visions for the little time and budget and after a few days of long shoots it was done.

And off i went to Berlin to take part as “The Visionary” in the same called part of Alex Schönauer.

Twenty-five filmmakers. A hundred minute feature film. Four minutes per filmmaker. Keeping in mind the old rule of thumb, a four page script needed to be written. With a smirk on my face, I asked: could anything be easier?

As it turned out, yes. Apparently many things are easier than writing a four minute screenplay, like being a playful seal in shark infested waters or being asked to circle the globe in a bid to reverse time. Very few have dared to tackle writing and lived to tell the tale. Bottles of rum have disappeared forever in the space-time continuum, heads have lost their hair and husbands their wives, but the art that is writing refuses to yield. I went into the writing process thinking myself a General commanding his troops to an easy victory and came out with my tail between my legs; no more than a grunt who may have put up a brave fight against the blank sheet of paper, but one who will never fully succeed. Battles, I may win, but the war… The war goes on…

The problem is this; I am lazy. Get me a camera, give me footage, drop me a few actors and see how charged up I can be. But ask me to sit and write, and I’ll show you the definition of laziness. I’ll stare at the blank page for hours, type out a few sentences, delete them and then repeat the whole process again. I know sooner or later I’ll have the right combination of letters, spaces and punctuation marks, it’s just that I don’t know any shortcuts to get there. With this project there were so many threads to connect into a coherent plot that would stand on its own two feet and fit into the larger scheme of things that the combinations and permutations of grammatical elements were just proving to be too much to handle.

But as they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. After two to three hours of staring at the blank screen (with a million distractions beckoning in the background, of course, like something called the Internet), I would get up and decide it was time to visit the local park, as a breath of fresh air never did anyone any harm. Carrying my notebook under my arm, I would find a nice bench to sit on to figure things out. It is always at times like these, when the mind is most vulnerable, that ideas (both insanely stupid and incredibly appalling) creep in and announce themselves as the new dogs in town. In excitement, I would gleefully scribble in my notebook one ghastly idea after the other. For a few days I was of the opinion that all writing should be done in parks and anyone who writes elsewhere is a fool of the first grade. All this was until I started noticing a trend; I would love all the various ideas that were popping into my brain at that time, but as soon as I came to my senses and glanced over them a few days later, I saw them for what they were; the etchings of an unstable mind.

Needless to say, I chucked all my notes away and went to sleep. When I woke one morning, lo and behold! I had a working screenplay on my computer. Okay, it didn’t actually happen that way, but it sure feels like it because I really have no recollection of how I was able to submit my script for submission. I am sure I did something to finish, but if you asked me to repeat the process, I wouldn’t be able to do it, and no, alcoholic substances were not in my bloodstream at the time, either.

But no one has to know of my lack of talent in the writing department. As long as I don’t tell, no one will know. You see the problem is that, as independent filmmakers, we have to convince a lot of people to work with us. After all, there is always the possibility of working with someone else who pays more. Thus, we tend to become a little lazy and write ourselves, saving the trouble of having to convince one more person, the writer!

So it was all going well what with my script being finalised and my team gearing up for the shoot. The only problem was money. I hadn’t been able to pool enough resources to go on floor when suddenly Neha announced that she was ready. That was a bummer. We were not yet prepared. But what the hell! One segment of Collabfeature was ready to go on floor and we decided to jump in. Neha was kind enough to support us and arranged for the props and costumes. I sent in my actors alongwith my bike but due to a prior commitment I couldn’t be there. Next week, I get to know she had wrapped. Next in line was me. Luckily, friends, family and supporters jumped in and I was ready to go on floor. July was about to end. The monsoons were in full force but one could get to see a dry day once in a while. We decided to shoot on the 1st and 2nd of August and prayed the rain gods to have some mercy on us – only for those 2 days.

July sank with the setting sun. August dawned. 4 am, I have to leave to pick my actors. We roll at 7. After a 2 hour sleep and no sleep over the past 2 days, I wake up at 3 to find a constant rumbling outside. I looked out of the window. It was pouring, like mad. I get into one of the borrowed cars for our shoot and head. 20km to the actors and back to my place from where we head to the location. The drive was the scariest I ever had. Visibility was minimum. I finally got them home safe. But it was already 8. Nonetheless, we headed straight to the location. Another 10km. Somehow I hoped, the cloud pouring over me shouldn’t be bigger than 10km in size. How naive I was! There are other clouds, no? The location was washed out. One of the major scenes in the film needed to be shot at the gate. It was now knee deep in water.

Some improvised thinking from the DOP landed us in a shed where we could at least keep the camera secured from water. The shoot begins. An overcast sky, although dim with light gave us some exciting visuals. Now begins the task of rigging the camera to the bike. We literally wrapped our 7D in a polyethene. Actors were soaked completely. Still no one said a word. It was just the excitement of making our way through adversities. And so it continued for the next 36 hours, without stoppage. Not even a bit of complaint from anyone from the team.

With the setting sun, the skies cleared. Ha ha, what an irony! What were we going to do of a sky without light? By then we had wrapped our outdoors. We were now moving to a hotel. The shoot continued throughout the night and extended beyond noon the next day. Thankfully, it didn’t rain that day. The nitty-gritties were handled smoothly and somehow I had every written line on camera. Shot somewhere else but at least, SHOT! My Collabfeature segment was finally in. That night I slept like a baby.

by Francois Coetzee, Johannesburg, South Africa

The concept of Collabfeature possesses many unique qualities, from ground breaking global orchestration of script and production to the challenging post-production phase. One of hte most interesting is the eclectic combination of styles from 25 directors in on film. Each filmmaker is encourages to apply his/her unique style to their segment, providing many different influences to the film based on cultural background, local film style and film influences.

When you consider the body of work behind the 25 directors of CollabFeature, one is instantly reminded of the variety of works presented at film festivals. Directors from all over the world come together to showcase their art-it is diverse. One could almost compile a festival program from the films of the contributing directors:

“21 Carbs” by Marty Shea, USA

“The Line” by Xavier Agudo, Germany

“Secret” by Sanislava Beuvich, UK

“Erased” by Neha Thakker, India

“Tart” by Mairtin de Barra, UK

“Reflect Addiction” by Yango Gonzales, Columbia

“Auszeit” by Nino Leitner, Austria

And many more!

There is an endless list of influences and styles identified in theses works. A film usually has one director with his carefully developed style, but CollabFeature has 25 directors with emerging styles all tied into one feature film! If you will, consider it auteur films within an an auteur film.

Though a contradiction…A Collaborative Auteur Film?!

Cannes is a small but fairly rich town of south of France. It is part of the famous French Riviera located between Saint Tropez and Monaco. I am from Nice, 26 kilometers away from Cannes, so I’m not really into the Cannes madness. I’ve been there so many times and to be honest I’m a bit bored of it. However, as a filmmaker like me it’s important to play this game and show my face.

This year my British producer Steve Piper and I attended Cannes from day one through mid festival (May 11-15). We stayed with my parents in Nice eating the good food my mother cooks. My family is Italian from origin, so food is very important to us.

The Cannes film festival is also a film market and one of the most important in the world. This is why I was there. With my accreditation I had access to the “Palais des Festivals” but before more about the business side, let me explain to you why I’ve been talking about the Cannes madness.

As one of the major cinema events in the world you’ll find attending major stars and industry producers. Each evening “la montée des marches” begins around 7PM with crew and actors of the selected film premiering walking and posing on the red carpet. Dozens of official photographers, TV cameras, and hundreds of hysterical celebrity hags try to get a glimpse of the actors they don’t even know most of the time. “Ah! it’s the girl who played in what’s the title again?”. Besides crew and actors there are dozens of unknown people. For example, friends, lucky dudes and gorgeous girls who got the most wanted golden ticket ever, the one that can get you onto the most famous stairs of the world. Most people don’t know that the majority of the rented tuxedo’d, push-up boobed, expensive gown wearing wannabe fans won’t see the film, but go directly to the rear entrance. They don’t give a damn about the film that is premiering, all they want is to pose and hopefully be seen on TV or in tabloids. Twenty to thirty even crazier people come every morning at 4 a.m. and lock their own ladders to palm trees in front of the Palais, just to be there every evening at 7PM trying to take pictures of famous actors…!

Around the Palais des Festival you’ll find luxurious fashion shops and expensive hotels you can’t access unless you’re wearing Gucci sunglasses and a Rolex, or an official badge like me. In theses hotel lobbies you can have the most expensive coffee ever and have a chat with industry people while trying to see Brad Pitt or Sharon Stone, which I did not. Instead I only saw french crap actors. All around in Cannes there are pretty big boobed girls begging for attention, with a clear “I’ll do whatever you want to be an actress/model/singer” look on their faces. There are also fake directors and producers giving them the attention they want and much more. Besides the hunt for the golden ticket of every premiere, there is the hunt for the private party ticket every night. Same shit as the premieres but the people are drunk or high and are not interesting unless you want to see a famous french TV presenter doing cocaine in the restroom.

But, let’s get back to the original story. I was in Cannes to develop contacts and finance for my thriller film Lucid. I also decided to pitch our collaborative feature film project to sales agents. I spent my days at the film market, inside the Palais des Festival and around, meeting people, showing teasers and pitching projects. The film market is fascinating for a young filmmaker like me. Industry people unfortunately seem to be more interested in marketing than in film itself. The most frequently asked question is “who’s attached” and “what’s the package”. From a financial point of view it seems as though casting is the most important thing in a film, even before the script

I heard scary conversations between buyers and producers, where buyers were ok to give hundreds/thousands of dollars to a film without reading the script just because a famous actor said “yes”. If you have no cast you must provide a B (Z) movie if you want to get a penny out of the market. A few fun titles I saw where: Too Much Pussy, The Pregnant Man, Juan of the Dead, and Pool Boy: Drowning out the Fury.

Our collaborative feature film project seemed to raise interest with the agents I met. They were from various parts of the world and very enthusiastic about it! Our project is unique and with the completion of our final steps underway we’ll hopefully come back next year for our premiere in Cannes!