To commemorate The Stagg Do soundtrack going on (pre) sale - the director of the film - James DeMarco - has written this blog. During the production of our first short film, Making Tea For The Mob, way back in 2002, I was intent on using Bobby Darin’s classic song, “Beyond The Sea” for the opening credits. As low-budget, indie filmmakers, we have all been warned about the perils of including popular songs in our films, and even a few seconds of a pop song classic such as ‘Beyond The Sea’ which has appeared in TV ads and Hollywood productions such as ‘Goldmember’ and ‘Finding Nemo’, could command top-dollar - a definite no-no for any low-budget production. But I loved the song. It fit perfectly with what I was trying to do thematically. And it was my first short film. In other words, committed the egregious error of having my heart set on a popular song. Undaunted and naive, I pressured producer Zahra to find out just how much it would cost to use the song in the opening credits. Part of the problem with using well-known recordings is that not only do you have to obtain clearance the rights of the performance, e.g. Bobby Darin’s version - you also have to pay for the publishing license from whoever owns the copyright - in this case some French bloke called Charles Trenet (his version of the song, ‘La Mer’ was a hit in France in the 40s long before Bobby Darin’s version). Warner Brothers Music label held the master usage rights for Darin’s performance, and after writing a letter to them explaining our financial situation and plans for the film, they surprisingly granted us a one-year license to use ‘Beyond The Sea’ in festivals for no charge. The synchronization license wasn’t so easy. The songwriter's estate wanted to be paid. In the end it cost us about £200 for the festival rights for one year. Still not bad. But what about the following year? In retrospect it’s rather silly (and cost prohibitive) to fall in love with popular music for your indie film soundtrack, but this can easily happen when you choose temporary music with which to initially edit your film. In the case of The Stagg Do, editor David Garbutt and I agreed upon an eclectic array of songs from well-known groups such as The Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, The Kinks, The Stone Roses and a song by a guy whom we later learned wanted to charge us $30,000. By the time we had completed our first rough edit of the film, David, Zee and I were all happy with the soundtrack - the soundtrack that we could never hope to afford. But then something amazing happened. Forced to seek out cost effective alternatives, Zahra discovered a wealth of fantastic, affordable music from unsigned/ unknown local bands and musicians, most of which were in the North East. Using Soundcloud, Youtube and ReverbNation, she managed to locate replacements for our original songs from local, unsigned bands, and working with the artists directly, she was able to secure the rights to their songs for a percentage of profits on the movie soundtrack release. So now we have an exciting mix of genres, styles and performances that enhance the film more than any of the well-know tracks ever could. I would even go as far as saying that I prefer the new songs more than the originals. We are very proud of the soundtrack which will be available online from 1 September 2014 and on CD before Christams. Here is a listing of our TSD Soundtrack and the songs they replaced.
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And just like a bus you wait ages for one and then two come along at once! We are thrilled to announce that we have booked our next two screenings in the region… this time with audible sound! On the 23rd August we will be hosting a screening and piss up at Newcastle's famous Tyneside Irish Centre, doors at 7 and tickets £5. For all you NUFC fans it's the day of Aston Villa away (which is on telly at 12:45) - more than enough time to wet your whistle before you join us for a night of raucous Geordie laughs in the shadow of St James' Park. Like I said - you wait for ages for a screening and then you get two together - thank goodness for bank Holidays eh? Yup you've guessed it correctly - we are also showing the film on the 24th August. We are thrilled to announce that we've been invited to show the film at the Whitley Bay Film Festival! Yup, our little filum is getting its FESTIVAL PREMIERE! Haha! We're actually pretty psyched about this - anyway read more about it here and buy tickets (£5) here.
So there you have it two more chances to see the film, have a drink and have a laugh. It'll be great to see you there! And if you can't make these screenings let us know where you are and if can get get enough interest - we'll bring the film to you! After the madness of June, it's been really great to recharge my batteries and just take stock this last couple of weeks. The night of the World Premiere was really special and I'm thrilled we managed to pull it off; believe me there was a period even a week before where I thought we'd have to pull the plug… I won't go into details here, but those who know the score will know I'm not bullshitting. I'm a self admitted radge-packet, but I'm not much of a crier and I'm most definitely not a panicker - but I cried and panicked more the the weeks leading up to the Premiere than I have at any other time in my life. Still the dust has settled, as Bill would say "it is what it is" and on reflection I'm pretty bloody chuffed at how well we did. Obviously as we were screening at the o2 Academy Newcastle, and not a cinema our box office doesn't get rolled into the Rentrak or BFI figures - but with the power of research and Charles Gant, I can look at how we did in comparison to other films last weekend. And guess what, we ROCKED!!! Now clearly we were only playing on one screen and for one night - so to keep it fair I did a comparison on screen average - but our box office gross puts us in the top 10! Our screen average was one of the 10 highest in the UK and Ireland that weekend! Add in the fact we had very little press and no advertising budget then I think that's pretty bloody amazing. We'll be announcing some more screenings in the North East really soon and then hopefully we'll have enough to pay for a DVD release and some screenings elsewhere. I've already had interest from people in Dublin and Belfast as well as Sheffield and Liverpool… And pretty soon i should have a way that you can request a showing near you as well as licensing arrangements if you'd like to host a screening yourself. In the meantime have a look through the gallery below, it contains a load of stills I hadn't seen before. Well, that went fast. Seems like just yesterday that we set ourselves the challenge of just finishing the damn film and getting it out there. There was a blur of activity as there always is with these things and a MAD MAD dash to the finish line. James and I have had more than our fair share of nightmares on this film. But somehow, against all the odds - we made it. Actually "somehow" does a huge disservice to those who have gone above and beyond the call of duty… I could list them here, but really you know who you are. THANK YOU! x I can't believe a WHOLE week has passed since the screening. I knew there's be a come down - but really there hasn't been time for one. Like I said at the Q and A, that premiere was not the end, it was the beginning. Now we need to sell the fucker. Not to a distributor, but to our audience - direct. We'll have more screenings (in fact we're on at Cluny 2 as part of Narc Fest this Saturday at 6). I'm looking into getting the soundtrack CD out and we'll be releasing the DVD later in the summer, but first MORE screenings. Where should we show it next? Do you have or know of a venue? Can you get a crowd together? Do you like Geordies and swearing? If yes, then get in touch. It's our film, we own the rights, we're not proud or precious - we'll show it (pretty much) anywhere. Also have some posters to put on the store, I know I said that a fortnight ago - but ye knaa av bin busy. Anyway here are some more photos of the night - the highlight of which was interrupting So What Robot's set to draw the raffle. All photos below by David Wala Hahahaha! The revolution is here they said. The tools of production are ours they said - and not only that now, the tools of distribution are ours too. But the Establishment is still a gatekeeper. It never occurred to me what this means. Well obviously it has, but not in any proper way other wise I wouldn't be here right now writing a blog about independence. All James and I ever wanted to do is make a film. We spent a couple of years trying to "make it" in Hollywood then we came to Gateshead - a counter-intuitive move in a history of counter-intuitivism. Shut up woman, what are you on about? I don't really know, but when I was about 20 I was taking a sociology course - mad eh? And as a result of one of the exercises I was labelled a rebel. I had never thought of myself as a rebel and really still don't, though I do have a perverse urge to turn left if everyone else turns right. So what's this got to do with film or more specifically The Stagg Do? Well, we moved here had a couple of kids and started making films… What I had never realised was that not courting The Establishment could leave you high and dry when it comes to press. Nationally maybe, but not locally with what feels to me to be a local interest story. I mean I could be wrong - but here are the things that I think make this a newsworthy story:
But apparently that's not good enough. According to one of the BBC Newcastle producers I spoke to today - the reasons for our North Korea like media coverage are: Too much swearing - the BBC has standards on taste and decency - yet covered Zombie Women of Satan (which features topless women being hacked to death) and they broadcast Mrs Brown's Boys which isn't exactly clean. We don't share the same audience - apparently BBC Newcastle Local and Proud™ isn't listened to by people aged 35-55 in the North East of England… makes me wonder why they broadcast here then. And why I pay my license fee? A WORLD PREMIERE is not a story unless the rest of the world knows about it! I know WTAF? I know this sounds like sour grapes, but really it's not. It's fucking hilarious. I knew getting The Stagg Do out there would be difficult, but I NEVER thought that media outlets that have covered things as stunningly newsworthy as a woman's bad eyebrows and a Toure chant in Newcastle would blank us. Every person I know who has anything to do with films has been interviewed on BBC Newcastle or in The Chronicle or The Journal. We get a rehash of our press release in the Chron and nowt else. It's like Pravda. Anyway fuck the BBC. Come laugh yer tits off with us tomorrow night. As I put on Twitter earlier, the fact that so many people know about The Stagg Do without the help of the local media is a testament to our audience - we love you. xxx When we talk about time and money I always find myself thinking of the MIGHTY Pink Floyd. Like many people of my age I whiled away many hours, of my youth, with a spliff and Dark Side of the Moon, bouncing around in that ethereal part of my head I always have the odd refrain "the sun is the same in a relative way…" which of course refers to Time, but could just as easily refer to money. I mean it literally is "all relative" isn't it? I don't want to harp on and on about this, but when I say The Stagg Do was made for a micro-budget or a low budget, I'm not talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds, but more like 10. Not ten pounds obviously, but circa ten thousand pounds… might be a bit more, might be a bit less, to quote Dirty Harry "to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself." But this isn't a blog about precision, it's about relativity. I was talking to an accountant friend the other day (I know…right?) who was telling me how she'd been to a red carpet premiere in London the other day, for a low budget British film. Now I'm fairly familiar with this film and although I don't know the specifics I *do* know that it cost best part of £150,000, which really isn't just in a different league to The Stagg Do it's actually a different game altogether. Except it isn't. When it comes down to it - to the brass tacks - as they say: it's the same. A £150k film is the same as a £10k film is the same as a £150 MILLION film. How can that possibly be true? I mean if a gadgie earns £150million is he the same as someone who earns £150,000 or even £10,000? The Tax Man may not see them as equal and nor will society at large, but at the end of the day, all three will exit stage left in a wooden box. And all three films would be seen in a cinema for the same price. A wise distributor taught me that, and it's always given me pause for thought. The cinema sets the ticket price and it's the same, whether you go to see Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow or two lads from Walker in The Stagg Do; this is another reason why we chose to self-distribute TSD. We set the price, we recoup the money and more importantly we SHARE THE PROFITS. You see everyone who worked on The Stagg Do was unpaid, everyone signed up to profit share; that's one of the reasons it's taken 3 years to finish the film. I could've raised the money to finish it a few times, but not on MY terms. My terms involved not diluting the profit position of everyone who gave their time to make this film. But as I've said before that means we're responsible for getting the film seen by as many people as possible. This is why I've asked you all before to the spread the word, share links get people to buy tickets - when you don't have a marketing budget (and we don't) then you're relying on word of mouth. It shouldn't be that hard to go viral up here - it's only a small region, but we're relying on the press too - hopefully the BBC will do a piece on us… We could really do with more - do you have contacts at Tyne Tees or Metro Radio? Put us in touch. Help the audience find this film.
And if you haven't already BUY TICKETS TO THE WORLD PREMIERE. It's been a very strange, very long week. On Monday I got an email from NFM saying they were going to plug the WORLD PREMIERE on their website. On Tuesday I was paying for a McDonald's at the drive up window when my phone rang, it was from a "blocked" number. Usually this would be ignored, but I was waiting for a call from someone whose phone system always shows as blocked. So anyway, I answered the phone just as I was moving to the next window… hands free of course. And it turned out that it wasn't the call I'd been expecting, but rather it was someone from the BBC! The conversation went like this:
"Hi, is now a bad time?" "Not exactly, I mean this second is bad [being handed my order] but in about 30 seconds it'll be fine." Anyway eventually I managed to explain what was going on and we had a really good chat. The BBC reporter was calling because she wants to do a piece about The Stagg Do and the WORLD PREMIERE. We chatted for quite some time about what the "story" would be and as ever a reporter's angle can be quite different from your own. One thing let to another and we started talking about distribution. She initially couldn't understand why we were self releasing, ie why we don't have a distributor, it seems that the perception that the film must be shite and nobody wants to distribute it isn't just limited to film industry types… But here's the thing, we have never sought a distributor for The Stagg Do. It was always intended that we'd self release it… There are blogs on this site and on the Pissheads one, talking about self distribution and how technology has made this a feasible concept. In fact in 2004, we made a ton of short films and I originally talked about self distributing them. Pre-selling DVDs was the plan then we'd use the profits to make the actual films. I guess in essence it was crowdfunding that I was talking about - but long before the term crowd funding had dropped into everyday parlance. People didn't have the bottle to sell and the idea fell flat on its face, but as Kickstarter and Indiegogo have proven, the idea is and was fundamentally sound. But sometimes you can be too far ahead of the game. This blog is not about how prescient I am, people were talking about this shit in the 1990s and I only thought of it in 2004, rather it's a blog about how we as filmmakers still need to change people's perceptions. Be proud of DIY or DIWO, don't be ashamed to self release. Stick with your plan, stick with your goal and give it a go. Because even now in 2014, we are still the pioneers… Just because we're early, it doesn't make us wrong. Oh and ★★BUY TICKETS FOR THE WORLD PREMIERE★★ |
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