It has been a slow day today. All the things I should be doing I'm doing tomorrow and all the things I should have done yesterday, I think I should do tomorrow as well... if I'm up to it and the jury is still out on that score.
I went to the American Film Institute Project luncheon to meet up with some producer/director/whatever types and as one does with producer/director/whatever types, one sets to drinking and talking about money. Then as one concludes that Hong Kong is a dead loss regarding independent film production unless you are heading off to Shanghai with kung fu capers or patriotic epics, or Bey Logan, one gets to talking about women!
Yes, the Hong Kong International Producer Piss Artists are to a man, men. And we know what we like. For instance, Sarah Lian here, recently heavily featured in Dax Phelan's film, Jasmine, set upon me in Racks, a local club, telling me how much she liked the blog and wanted to know about my shorts... at least that's what I think she was saying. I was merely hoping to get photoed in her presence so that I could have a cool Facebook moment.
Since I am working on several feature projects at the moment, it was not beyond the stretch of the imagination to say that I might have a part for her, a big one at that! As I believe I told her, though I am not sure she heard me quite right. But her presence inspired me, as it would.
So I shall be sending her a script. The eighty year old mamasan role, with a bit of tweaking, could well be played by Sarah. At least, eighteen gins to wind, it seemed so last night... Oh, did I mention that the Luncheon went on to drinks at the Foreign Correspondence Club and then on to the Alivenotdead anniversary party? It was a long a day.
For those not in the know, www.alivenotdead.com, has become a fine focal point for all the beautiful people, film makers, musicians, writers, and actors of Hong Kong. Their parties are legendary for bringing us all together. Three cheers for Patrick Lee!
So thanks to alivenotdead, Sarah and quite a few of her friends, and a whole range of stunningly beautiful girls, women and guys like me, only a lot younger, were there pressing palm, sucking each other's cheeks, and telling each other how we really should get together and plot some movie projects.
Who knows, some of this might happen! On the other hand in the sober light of day, we know that in Hong Kong there is no getting together to plot and plan, there is but suddenly finding a slot in the schedule, a moment where with a bit of tweaking of the project, there are enough of us to just do something right then and there. No messing about. Not much planning or money either. But that is typical Hong Kong style.
I've been writing a feature and am just now budgeting it and working out the shooting schedule etc. and realising how much cheaper and more convenient it would be if I re-wrote the main character, an aging Englishman, as a thirty something Chinese guy. Would it still be funny? Probably. The writer in me might balk at the producer's waywardness with the casting, but the producer in me thinks of the convenience of casting locally, and hey, I know these guys! The director in me think how much fun it would be working with them.
Then the Executive Producer in me starts worrying if this would be accessible to the rest of the world? If you do a local indie-movie that doesn't go to China, it has to have western casting in a major role otherwise there is no, as we say, return on the investment. All of which makes it impossible to do without co-producers and other such complications and the whole project rapidly becomes somebody else's.
Because your finance will be coming in from elsewhere and they will be meeting their favourite actors in their bars on their networking crawl, local casting will be merely background artists. So the cycle of despondency continues.
In the end, one will do whatever one does, trust to luck, and hope that somehow the Internet will find the audience, or some film festival will help the film catch the wind. Because it is all so uncertain, your budget is screwed right to the bone. Local talent are left wondering how worthwhile it is sticking around in the Hong Kong movie scene. If they can, they head to Hollywood. If they can't, they mooch about Hollywood Road bumping into the likes of me. Which I hope is not so bad, but I am but one person and here and there, there are other one person set ups and we're all doing everything ourselves and thus hardly anything much gets done.
Please write if you have a solution to this! How can we in Hong Kong make things happen faster and more effectively? And don't say, stay off the gin!