Trailer for my new short film Balloon Man.
You make films to give people something, to transport them somewhere else, and it doesn’t matter if you transport them to a world of intuition or a world of the intellect.
A Balloon Man in Kabul. They’re everywhere… (Picture from The Guardian)
10 plays
Arvo Pärt - Spiegel Im Spiegel
October evening.
How to Make a Short Film by Yourself
I recently finished a new short film called Balloon Man. It stars three hugely talented actors I’ve worked with in the theatre – David Morley Hale, Amanda Daniels, and Patrick Toomey - and the process of making it has easily been the most rewarding creative experience I’ve had to date.
Why? Because I challenged myself to shoot it without a crew and without a script. Ordinarily, this kind of freeform approach to filmmaking would have most people’s alarm bells ringing – No cameraman? No sound recordist? No carefully pre-planned story? Are you sure? – but I couldn’t recommend it more highly to people out there who, like me, simply want to march ahead and make things.
In the course of shooting, editing, and working with the actors to evolve characters and dialogue I’ve learned more about storytelling and filmmaking than on all my previous work put together. Although the film was absolutely a collaboration, it was more like a devised piece of theatre than a film.
Once upon a time, such an approach would have terrified me (or at least left me deeply suspicious). Certainly the “writing” part of my brain has thusfar always insisted upon on careful pre-planning and worked-through dialogue.
But I’ve come to learn that film directing – or at least my version of it – is about responding to reality, rather than faking it. Reacting to the location, the people, the world in front of you is far more invigorating than conceiving a notion of “INT. RESTAURANT - DAY” then trying to recreate exactly what was in your mind. With some extremely patient actors, I’ve found it is possible to gradually evolve a story on the fly that not only holds together but is far more exciting - and, crucially, real - than anything I’ve done before.
Is this approach for everyone? Probably not. It’s certainly not a process I’d use for a larger-scale work, or anything with any kind of budget – naturally, when people are funding your work it makes sense to avail oneself of the streamlined possibilities of a well-oiled crew, and to surround yourself with fellow creatives with whom to collaborate.
But if, like me, you’ve been frustrated by the dearth of funding recently but have thusfar hesitated to go out and shoot because you’ve grown used to a certain way of working, then know that it is absolutely possible to shoot a solid, 15-minute, sync-sound dramatic film totally by yourself. You don’t need money. You don’t need a crew. All you need are basic shooting skills and some amazing performers; a little skill with Final Cut and a lot of patience.
Having realised that this way of working is possible, I’m already planning my next no-budget, no-crew short. It’s a pretty exciting feeling: when you empower yourself with the means of production, suddenly anything seems possible and a whole lot of nonsense becomes totally irrelevant. Which is pretty darn liberating.
So go. Make short films. It really is as simple as picking up a camera. Don’t ask for advice, assistance, or an air-conditioned Winnebago: just do it. In the words of Steve Jobs, “real artists ship”. So get shipping.
After a brief hiatus from all things creative, my new short film Balloon Man starring David Morley Hale, Patrick Toomey and Amanda Daniels is finally nearing completion!
I’m hoping to submit to festivals starting very soon - watch this space for more news…
Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for getting in touch. My name is Arabic – “Nimer” is in fact the Arabic for “tiger” – as my father is from Palestine (meanwhile my mother comes from Australia, which makes for an interesting combination…)
I’ve written about my dad’s journey to England to become an actor in a short story published by Penguin which you can download here if you’re interested. Thanks again for getting in touch!
I put together this background visuals montage for a short story reading by Nikesh Shukla as part of the London Literature Festival.
July update
It’s been a crazy week - on Sunday I directed a staged reading of an hour-long piece of new writing at the Oval House Theatre, which was performed on Monday at the Blue Elephant in Camberwell. This was easily the most fun I’ve had in my theatre directing experience to date - it’s so liberating when you get the chance to work with actors who not only take notes quickly but also respond with a raft of intuitive suggestions of their own.
On Tuesday I directed a short filmed adaptation of a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in a corporate boardroom - this was also a lot of fun, although it was challenging directing Shakespeare whilst also trying to operate camera/sound…
On Wednesday I filmed the finale of my next short film Balloon Man, which actually involved a real live hot air balloon. Great to finally have wrapped the film.
Since then I’ve been working on a group of short films which will be screened next week at the Southbank Centre to accompany my friend Nikesh Shukla’s evening The Secret Life of Immigrants (which has already sold out!).
Finally, I also managed to catch Metta Theatre’s adaptation of Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry, which I had a small hand in developing. My favourite sequence presented a beautiful, wordless enactment of a couple falling in love. In the midst of a very verbal text, I’d suggested to adaptor/director Poppy Burton-Morgan that this scene would be a great opportunity for words to melt away and for the lovers to dance. I was transfixed by what she’d come up with - a beautifully choreographed aerial routine. Sensitively directed, with a wonderful musical accompaniment by Jessica Dannheisser, this sequence was both hypnotic and transcendent - easily the highlight of a week filled with glimmers of beauty.
I think people are often quite unaware of their inner selves, their other selves, their imaginative selves, the selves that aren’t on show in the world. It’s something you grow out of from childhood onwards, losing possession of yourself, really. I think literature is one of the best ways back into that. You are hypnotized as soon as you get into a book that particularly works for you, whether it’s fiction or a poem. You find that your defenses drop, and as soon as that happens, an imaginative reality can take over because you are no longer censoring your own perceptions, your own awareness of the world. Most of us spend a lot of time censoring everything that we see and hear. Does it fit with our world picture? And if it doesn’t, how can we shut it out, how can we ignore it, how can we challenge it? We are continually threatened in life, it’s true. But once you are alone with a book, and it’s also true with a picture or with music, all those defenses drop and you can enter into a quite different space where you will learn to feel differently about yourself.
June update
Exciting things afoot over the coming month! On the writing front, my short play L.B.W. has been selected for production at Exeter’s BikeShed Theatre as part of their NewBlood Festival on June 5th. Tickets available here.
Also, I’ve also been asked by the good people of Tamasha if I’d like to direct one of the pieces in association with Mulberry School for Girls at their upcoming scratch event at Soho Theatre on 10th June. More information here.
It’s particularly exciting to be directing something at Soho – I have extremely fond memories of the Soho Core Writers Group from a few years ago, so returning to Dean Street to direct other people’s work feels both cyclical in its familiarity, yet also quietly evolutionary. I can’t wait.
Finally, I was recently interviewed by online community Ideastap, who asked me to answer questions aimed at passing on wisdom to my younger self. I’m fairly certain I was far wiser aged 10 than I ever will be again, but what scant insight I had to share can be read online here.
Future Shorts
The distributor for my short film Baghdad Express has put the film up on their YouTube channel, and less than a week later there have already been over 10,000 views.
This is obviously exciting in a general, “ooh, that’s a lot of people” sort of way, but what’s most enjoyable is watching the stream of comments coming in from the viewing public in inimitable YouTube style.
Since we completed the film nearly three years ago, it’s played all over the world at various film festivals, been sold to British Airways, and had a good life on the short film circuit - yet it’s not until now that I’ve really had a sense of how audiences respond to it.
Happily, people seem to be really engaged by the themes and by the storytelling. What’s most gratifying is when people refer to the story as if it really happened. Which, frankly, is sort of amazing.
If you’re so inclined, you can check out some of the comments here.
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