How to Travel in Time
The Art of the Flashback Flashbacks are on my mind at the moment. I’m currently working on two feature projects – one as writer, the other as editor – which are structured around multiple time periods, so my brain has got well-used to jumping around in time. Flashbacks are pretty common these days, but … Continue reading
“One for Lloyds”?
How many takes to shoot “One for Lloyds…” is a phrase often heard on movie sets in the UK. It means shooting a second take, even if take one was perfect; y’know, just in case. Lloyds is the centre of the British insurance market – I believe their policies once demanded that a minimum of … Continue reading
The Return of the Reel
In Which the Writer has a Kodak Moment Film is dead. It was coming for a time: when I left film school I got a lot of work as a 1st assistant editor because I was good at hand-holding editors who were being forced to stop cutting on 35mm. That was the late 90s. The … Continue reading
How Long You’ll Need to Edit…
…and When You Should Stop. One question that I’m often asked when interviewing for a low-budget feature is: “how long do you think you’ll need?” The answer is… it’s complicated. There used to be a rule of thumb for feature films: 1.5 times the length of the shoot. This was based on the assumption … Continue reading
“Basically the audience is stupid”
“You and I know that basically the audience is stupid” these were the words of a client I once worked with. It was not the only time I’d heard this sentiment; I don’t get to hear it much, but when I do it usually comes from someone who’s been in the film industry for thirty … Continue reading
Brando recognition
When is a good actor not a good actor? A weird thing sometimes happens when two or more people sit down in a cutting room and look through takes. They will agree on which take has the smoothest camera move or focus pull, there’ll be little disagreement about whether the shoot looks better with … Continue reading
The Hateful One
How Did Harvey Happen? It should go without saying that I deplore those incidents of abuse against women that Harvey Weinstein’s admitted to, and those of which he’s been accused, but it’s gone without saying by too many people for too long, so I feel the need to add my voice. What does it say … Continue reading
The Invisible Art of Editing?
Invisible vs. high-profile editing I started in the cutting room at an exciting time for editing. The high-octane style popularised by music videos shown on MTV and made possible by editing on computer rather than on celluloid, was starting to filter through to feature films. In some cases it led to the sort of … Continue reading
The Root of Rootability
How to Make your Protagonist Engaging I don’t think I’m the only screenwriter to be frustrated when I’m given the note “Couldn’t the main character be… just a bit more likeable?” My frustration comes partly from the fact that a lot of my protagonists are intentionally not conventionally likeable, and partly from the note having … Continue reading
Can movies cause political change?
Covering how to found a country and the devastating power of the ordinary. In the light of recent and possible future events I have been doing some soul-searching about my filmmaking. The not-so-gradual rise of the far right, both in Europe and America, has lead me to question whether there’s more I could be doing … Continue reading
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Guy Ducker
