Larry Shoots

It's impossible to fill the shoes of a good camera-person or sound person, but the delay in the Booker's World web-series and the catastrophic lack of funds and work meant I had to try of late. I got together with Longford native, Ray Reilly and we shot a short comedy called Larry early last week, having pulled together a crew of three, myself included. Thanks also to Deano Browne and TAM for helping out and also to Meg Quinn and Emily O'Sullivan who also helped us get it shot. In an exhausting three days where it became apparent that certain multi-tasking efforts do really take the soul out of something one should be enjoying, we got what we needed. But desperate times require desperate measures and hopefully the end result will not be subject to the same times as mentioned above. I guess it's a world many filmmakers are used to in this country and further afield.

Days were then spent going through footage and logging it and then sound needed to be synced up as my own meager camera has no input for audio. When all that was done I threw together a very rough first cut and I think I can work with what we got.
Ray and I decided it was worth the effort as we both prepare a feature project in the early part of the Autumn. I really need the editing practice for the web series and feature thereafter. When it comes to those I hope to have a DOP and Sound person as essential parts of a larger crew. As a learning curve right now it made sense to fill the time gap between projects.

I would sincerely like to thank Jason Mehlhorn for his advice over the past number of months as well as use of some equipment and the facility to edit. Although it seems at times I'm going no-where and in double quick time, without his support over the past 12 months on things, I'd have given up by now for sure.
Then I watch around at filmmakers like Jason, Frank Kelly, Paddy O'Shea Padraig Conaty moving mountains to get their features made against the backdrop of difficulties and you see people doing it and that makes you want to do it yourself. There's no backing away from the impact these type of filmmakers might have in the future if Charlie Casanova is anything to go by. I admire these filmmakers the most, because they don't let tax-payer funding - or the lack of it - stand in their way of making films. I think Ireland needs that in filmmaking.

The Internet and technology provides an opportunity for filmmakers that did not exist ten years ago. Filmmakers starting out should use it for all it's worth. There's some great advice out there. If you're from the school of hard knocks and have a 'learn by doing' philosophy then it's the way to go. If only Ireland could be more enterprising in its approach to certain things, it could only have a positive effect on the country. It's the perfect medium that could suit a wide variety of people who collectively could achieve something if encouraged to do. Social media makes those collaborations a lot more practical these days so anything is possible. But will it ever happen? The state of play at the moment makes me think otherwise. I think the talent exists and sites like Crewger and the Underground Cinema are helping. If more dots were joined, then who knows...