These are based on the Treatment draft.

The workshop started with a few icebreaking games which I thought was a brilliant idea – it really improved the energy in the room, and made everyone feel more relaxed and open. We were then given the script for our exercise – a three page scene called ‘The Double Blind Date’, about a girl and a guy meeting each other on a blind date, but both expecting someone else. First the actors just read through the script, but of course there was no real performance – they needed more. So we started inventing the back story of this scene, thinking about their ‘wants’, ‘needs’, their ‘objectives’ and ‘obstacles’.

I didn’t quite realise how different a scene would look if you just change one fact in the character’s life – and it doesn’t even have to be in the script. So I learned that it’s not about what you want people to ‘do’ in a scene – this scene is just a brief moment in the context of their lives and relationships with each other or themselves. You can have someone quite confident losing their nerve because of a small insecurity that a particular event unlocks for them, or you can have an insecure person acting confidently to prove a point. But you only get that result if you’ve done your homework and know what the characters’ background is, what is the context of the scene and why they are doing what they are doing.

I think the single most important point about working with actors (at least from what we discussed today) is to be prepared. Do your homework, plan the shoot, get to know the people and the locations, organise the set and crew, and most importantly – have a good story to tell and a good relationship to show to the audience. And you do that by putting the actors in a space where they don’t just ‘act out’ a scene – they put on the character’s shoes and become the person.

You can even say that it’s more important for the actor to know their character than to know their lines. Lines can always be added or changed, or reminded on set – but if the actor doesn’t know who the character is they will have trouble acting, and even more trouble interacting with one another in the film.

I’m also starting to think that a big part of the directing is done in pre-production. That is when decisions need to be made, stories and characters developed. If you don’t do your preparation in pre-production, you’ll just need to do it anyway, but on set – where there is much more pressure for time and resources, so you need to have sorted out a lot before you go on set.

What I also noticed was how you can work with the same script, stage direction and dialogue, and you can end up with a completely different interpretation depending who’s directing the scene and what background story you invent for the characters. We had three groups working with the same basic three page script, and the three run throughs we did were absolutely different – because the intentions, the wants and the needs of the characters were different in each of the versions.

I guess that’s where it starts to make a difference who is directing a film. I didn’t quite realise until recently why so much emphasis is put on ‘who directed the film’. But more and more, I’m starting to grasp.

If you’re just reading text, you’re imagining the story in your head – so book readers work with their imagination and interpret the story their own way. And then when you are telling the story in a more tangible way (I like to think film is where the filmmakers materialise their vision), less of the elements are open to interpretation. Of course, there is still a lot for the audience to figure out, and that’s why we respond differently and connect differently with a film – because the emotional part of the story is open to interpretations. If you’re in a relationship and watching a scene about a blind date, you will get one reaction – whereas if you’re single, you’ll be able to relate to the characters’ interactions in a very different way. We put a lot of our own selves in everything we see – so watching a film (or making one) is not just about the visuals or the dialogue – it is about our relationship to the story, being able to understand, connect with a character, and add to them something from ourselves.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is an interesting recording I found while I was preparing myself for the workshop, and for the concept of working with actors. Patsy Rodenburg talks about the importance of being present, both in acting, and in real life.

Also, one of the most helpful resources I’ve found so far, introducing the concept of acting in film (more from the actors’ perspective, but I’d argue this is also extremely helpful for the crew), is Michael Caine’s Acting in Film workshop. This is Part 1, and if you click through on YouTube, the whole series is in the related videos.

One recent Friday evening, I got approached by two separate guys, both of which started talking to me about religion. I don’t know if it was because of the Friday evening, but it was bizarre. The first guy was working for a church, giving out leaflets etc, so it kind of made sense why he started asking my about my beliefs.

The second guy, however, really surprised me. We started talking about Bulgaria and Nigeria, things like foods, traditions, the weather… and I really don’t know how he decided but he started asking me about my beliefs - and he ended up preaching to me and trying to convert me for the next hour (!).

Most of this blog’s readers probably know that I am not particularly religious. In Bulgaria, the official religion is Orthodox Christianity, but our society is not too concerned with religion. Yes, we do have lots of traditions and celebrations that originate in christianity, but most people are not believers. Some people go to church or marry in churches because that’s the tradition – not necessarily because they want God to be their witness.

My personal link to religion is even thinner – in my family, church has never been a favourite place to go, and if we did go in churches it was usually because it was an interesting tourist site – but not because we wanted to light a candle and we certainly didn’t believe this had a huge impact on our lives. Usually, when I walk into a church, I don’t really know what I am supposed to do, and since I don’t want to be hypocritical about these things, I usually just walk around quickly, and go out. I haven’t embraced religion and I don’t want to look like I have.

It’s been fascinating for me to observe people’s relationship with religion – especially since I came to the UK. I still don’t quite understand the scale of this connection – for example, I can’t possibly imagine going to a catholic or any other type of religious school, and I wouldn’t want these kinds of studies to be taught to my children.

I believe religion is something personal, that maybe you pick up from your family while growing up – but school is where you learn about life in a more scientific way. It is not the place to indoctrinate, especially since children are so vulnerable as we all know from the media studies we’ve been doing. It is, of course, good to study the Bible’s texts for illustrative and literary purposes (we had that in my high school books and it was indeed lovely). There are some very wise and beautiful stories, but then you also need to consider the wisdom in islam, budhism, and all the other religions – and take them as stories and not as a belief system.

For me, it is more important to have a good value system, that can also be outside of religion, and, let’s be honest, most religions do preach the same basic virtues. Even though I am not religious, I believe I carry a lot of these within me. What is more, I believe people are inherently good, and I try to always seek to find the good in them.

But back to the Nigerian guy. I asked him if he believed people are good. I expected this would be a straightforward conversation where we agree on something obvious – but I was wrong.

It turns out, in christianity, people are not good. In fact, you are born a sinner! Even before you are born, you are already a sinner just because Jesus decided to die for your sins… So when you become a christian, you already have this burden on your shoulder – you are guilty for Jesus’ sufferings – even if you never even asked for the favour.

Another thing that is quite concerning, I think, is the fact you are born a sinner but then Jesus already paid for your sins. So does that mean you can do whatever you want? I mean, if someone has already paid for this, doesn’t that give you the ultimate permission to sin? ‘This is a sin!’ ‘I know, I’m covered by Jesus Christ Insurance’. Quite disturbing, if you ask me.

Here is Julia Sweeney’s take on christianity, and especially on taking things literally:

I devoted a good weekend trying to understand religion… But since I wasn’t sure how to approach the believing part of the conversation, I found myself trying to understand it via people who are already studying it from a more skeptical perspective. Here is, for example, Michael Shermer, who argues blowing candles on a birthday cake is just as bizarre as kissing a cross, or whatever christian traditions there are in place. It’s just a matter of tradition and what meaning you put into a certain ritual, he argues – and we all do irrational things. Some of them are socially accepted (within a certain society), and some not.

A J Jacobs also did an interesting experiment - he spent a year living according to the christian rules. Interestingly, he makes a valid point that the Bible resembles Wikipedia in the way it was written – it’s had numerous authors and editors throughout the years, so it is more an interpretation than a guideline. He makes a very important distinction at the end of his talk – it’s well worth watching!

In conclusion, religion is a choice. I was happy it was not made for me by someone else, and I had the freedom to choose what to take from it. I don’t believe people should live feeling guilty, and I don’t believe we are sinners. I don’t want to be told that God created Man in His own image (and I don’t agree with all this Capitalisation), and then be told that we actually have the Devil within us making us sin all the time. I don’t want to carry the burden of Jesus’ blood that I didn’t ask to be sacrificed for sins I haven’t even committed yet…

So I choose to not be a christian. But does that make me a bad person? I just prefer to question things – as much as we like questioning people’s ethics, theories, science, etc., we should be able to also question religion. On that note, here is what the Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins had to say about it:

And last, here is Sam Richards’ take on empathy, using the example of religious wars:

TED Talks – links:

http://www.ted.com/talks/julia_sweeney_on_letting_go_of_god.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_on_believing_strange_things.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/a_j_jacobs_year_of_living_biblically.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_richards_a_radical_experiment_in_empathy.html

On Friday of last week Mr. James Toolsdale in Kangaroo Bay was making a lunch time snack, when to his surprise reaching for the cheese to put in his sandwich he saw the ‘Holey’ face of Jesus Christ! He immediately rang the press and within hours thousands turned up and sang in ‘Fromage’ to the cheese. He later told the press although it was only a ‘Brie-f’ encounter it was enough to certify his belief in God. Mr. Toolsdale’s neighbour Antoine Beheir simply said ‘oh dairy dairy me’ after several of the pilgrims stepped on his prize petunias. When asked will he eat the cheese, Mr. Toolsdale replied ‘Oh Cheese us Christ – I could never!’

Follow up on this story at @holeycheese & #cheesuschrist

In the 6th week of our #creativact project, we spent the day discussing comedy. This piece of fake news was one of our tasks, for which I worked in a group with Alexander Holland, James Dove and Sunil Singh. It was one of the first ideas we came up with, we immediately fell in love with the idea of someone seeing Jesus Christ in yet another everyday object, and decided it had to be cheese. We used a lovely ‘newspaper cutout generator’ tool to write up the text we came up with, then photoshopped a (clearly fake) photo of a Jesus face in cheese, combining two images.

Me, Jessica Dash and Helena Borthwick went to Birmingham’s Victoria Square to capture the protest against ACTA. Sadly, there were only 7 people protesting, and most of them were Eastern European.

Sadly, because in Central and Eastern Europe there were quite big protests. In Bulgaria, 17 cities joined the demonstrations, including my small hometown. In Sofia alone, more than 5000 people (some report 8000) marched the streets.

Here is some footage from the Sofia protest, to illustrate the contrast.

Lots will be changed, but here it is anyway.

Clips used and research links:

Cool Anti Piracy Ad

Movie Piracy – It’s a crime

FBI Anti-Piracy Warning Screen

The Strange Truth About the FBI Logo http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2007/12/27/the-strange-truth-about-the-fbi-logo/
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/ipr/ipr

Websites ‘blackout’ over anti-piracy bill

Alarm spreads among file-sharing websites

GOP candidates reflect on SOPA

Paramount CEO wants SOPA to pass

SOPA pits Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley

Balancing anti-piracy with web freedom

Music Matters Campaign

http://riaa.com/toolsforparents.php?content_selector=resources-educators-music-matters-campaign

Music Matters – Louis Armstrong

Rogue Websites

http://www.mpaa.org/contentprotection/roguewebsites

Campus Downloading Video

http://www.campusdownloading.com/dvd.htm#

Here are some assorted comments that I made while reading the text. I originally posted them on my Twitter feed, so please excuse the non-prosaic style.

• Reading #ACTA in Bulgarian http://bit.ly/yQrA4L Quite a controversial text, very unbalanced and biased towards big copyright holders.
• #ACTA is encouraging transparency in copyright protection management, but #ACTA itself was prepared and signed with lack of transparency.
• News coverage from 2010 (Techdirt): Brazil opposing #ACTA, saying it’s illegitimate. More Countries React To ACTA; Brazil Says ACTA Is Illegitimate
• The Committee can discuss suggestions & changes about ACTA. Each country that has signed the document is represented in the #ACTA Committee
• If a country wants to leave the #ACTA agreement, it can do so even after signing the document. It’s never too late to oppose it.
• #ACTA is not applied on the borders of union-member countries, such as the EU.
  to which @agonarch replied:
  Of course not, because it is not yet in force, see Sec 3 Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (full text ACTA, PDF)
• I’m not a law specialist, but I think #ACTA contains too vague definitions, and can be open to wide interpretations.
• #ACTA insists on full compensation at retail prices for each copy of infringing goods or content, physical or digital.
• #ACTA assumes all copyright holders are multinational organisations. No mention of single / independent producers and their protection.
• #ACTA focuses on trade marks. On random occasions, it also mentions works of the music and film industry.
• #ACTA assumes all works are copyright protected and the authors want to be protected. No mention of public domain and / or CreativeCommons.
• #ACTA insists on destroying and / or confiscating all infrastructure related to copyright infringement, or suspected future infringement.
• #ACTA suggests small packages and personal luggage is included in customs control, unless the signing country decides to exclude it.
• #ACTA is vague on how to prove authorship & rights ownership. Written as if all copyright protected goods are controlled by the same entity.
• #ACTA insists the state initiates a process when suspecting crime. Isn’t it the copyright holders’ job? Isn’t it enough to just inform them?
• #ACTA suggests internet service providers pass on information about suspected clients – when there is a process / investigation in place.
• #ACTA suggests being applied to extent that doesn’t jeopardise legal e-trade & communications, freedom of expression, personal info & safety

I apologise to my Twitter followers for the Sunday morning spam these posts have created, but as Google say in their Privacy Policy update notice, This stuff matters.

A lot was changed on the day of filming, though the main idea still remained. We were able to film this in about 2 hours, and edit and polish it in less than 2.

This was my first attempt at directing a shoot (with the invaluable help of Rebecca), and I was quite happy with the process and the result.