The Grey Hinterlands
(…)
Each production company or individual will fill in their own parenthesis. 

www.theVeranda.co.uk

The Grey Hinterlands was conceived as a film where process governed the proceedings, changed the story, affected the acting and exaggerated all the filmmaking elements, until it transformed it’s ‘image’ into something ‘real’.

    I think if I describe where the film came from it may help in understanding my enthusiasm about the techniques and their gravity.

   After finishing my 3rd feature, an art-house film called Spoken By Crowds, I felt that I could do no larger no-budget film and that I had learnt a lot up until now about the craft. What was my next step? I had a couple of scripts that would need a budget of a million plus but I had a couple of outlined scripts that were very experimental (for me anyway, for you the description below may sound tame). My decision was to proceed with both. To search the studios and councils for a budget while setting the ground work for the experimental film that gave me the greatest excitement. I needed to mess up anything I had learnt up until now. I wanted every element of the filmmaking process to be either exaggerated or turned on its head. And so, The Grey Hinterlands was conceived, firstly as a few images or sequences that were set in grey places: a street curb, an elevator, a car park, under a large bypass bridge, wastelands.
   Secondly and in parallel to the grey images were three actors I had worked with on Spoken By Crowds. Three gentlemen with theatrical backgrounds and, grey being the theme and with certain intuitions about the poetics, I saw a film that would in some way turn into a play. At this stage however it wasn’t clear how.

There needed to be some rules (although I don’t like the idea of them being adhered to 100%) that gave such an experimental piece some glue and a filter that made a jigsaw puzzle fit together even though the pieces were not necessarily from the same box.
These rules or poetics have many unknowns entities and outcomes, but for me this was a necessity in its creation. This unknown was however the reason why I had to postpone my own version of The Grey Hinterlands. So my article here is to invite any filmmakers to use these poetics and rules above and below in making their own version of The Grey Hinterlands (…). This in itself is a huge experiment for me. Giving an outline, throwing a pebble, and seeing what kind of splash might occur.

Form/Poetics

• The script is to be hand written, including doodles, drawings, camera and sound recording and editing instructions and so all involved have to interpret the script in a different way to the more formal script format that studios require. Inherited from John Cage’s musical scores for interpretation I think there is immense scope for the actors and crew working from the more gestural skeleton of a drawn script.
• To be shot in predominantly grey places. Wastelands, under bridges, in corridors, lifts, places that seem to be quite nether/other/out of/ place thus the title. All words that describe these places should inform the writing and story line. The colour chosen adds something to the notions behind the storyline and every element of filmmaking from the research into grey (concrete, stone, clouds, milk, Wastelands etc…). But as mentioned above the colour gives a momentum to the search for locations, concept, experiment, story, while giving a visual homogeneity that can, in itself, be played with in any way ones imagination can think of.
• The microphone should be near the camera affecting the actors’ performance greatly. A microphone that is far away from the actors would need, for example more vocal projection for dialogue to register, and a microphone that was close to the actors would need quieter dialogue and if the tracking shot oscillated between far away and close, then, the dialogue too may oscillate in volume. A kind of throbbing would ensue! This opens up strange choices for director and actors alike. ‘Do I want my words audible?’, ‘If I zoom into a close up for an intimate scene the actors have to shout to be heard and yet if I have the camera and microphone ultra close up to the actors when they should be shouting, then the voice must be tempered, possibly into a whisper, if voice is to be the desired volume.’ (This will be seen as even more pertinent when the editing experiment is read below).
• The characters should have various layers to them. Human characteristics, but also conceptual characteristics. This will affect writing of dialogue in subtle yet very deep ways. For example, if TIM is the FATHER but also is the concept of TIME when dad talks about the grandfather clock in the corner, the dialogue and the performance will have a different intent/meaning behind it. If JANE is an old friend but is the concept of SPACE then she will have a strange dynamic within any space she inhabits. A little like the attributes given to a Greek God or an element in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The conceptuality behind characters will give all concerned a beautiful problem to work with especially when having the freedom of the continuity rule below.
• What gets in the edit is to be transcribed into a play. This means, only what is audible can be transcribed into the play. This is very important when bearing in mind the microphone rule. It could also mean that the atmospheric sounds of cars or passers by might be included in the soundtrack or text of the play.
• Video and film editing techniques should be exaggerated. Cuts and looping, picture in picture, dual conversations or scenes could interact within the frame etc… all techniques can be used to edit the film and write the transcribed play. The edit when appropriate should change dialogue: i.e. a word could be split up and end with the second half of another word creating a new word for the theatrical actors to deal with in the final play. The edit is the writing of the play which, to me, is an ode to the importance of the editor in the re-writing of any film, ever made.
• If interesting things happen on set then they should be filmed and included in filming. i.e. a police man telling the crew off for filming in a place they shouldn’t be, or a strange passer by passes by and says something. This dialogue will, if it gets into the finished cut be transcribed into the play. If the director gives a direction and that gets into the film then that too becomes part of the play script. This should add to the actors experimental acting. They can either stay in character or fall out of it when those outside the production (i.e. the policeman) suddenly find themselves within it. The chaos of no-budget (or budgeted) filmmaking is embraced here and used as a string to the experiment.
• Scenes should be filmed in single takes and then a new angle must be found. 1 take per angle.
• Continuity is not a problem
• Filmically or in the story line
• Add rules to your own film if they in any way fuck up your known practice and add to the finished problem of making a play, writing new dialogue and a new language that gives a more difficult problem to the actors, directors and audience of the transcribed play. One of my stylistic rules was that if I wanted a window in a wall to depict a house I would draw one in, in post, in a very ad-hoc fashion. This would add to the theatre/film cross over.
• Write the first five scenes only and then when a scene is filmed write the next scene. And so the finished scenes write the next scenes. You are in the dark and only the scenes you have written brighten the path. Who knows where it will go? About the most un-formulaic formula I could think of that enhances and hampers creativity equally.  

     What to do with it?
The film finished, the dialogue and sound transcribed into a play, an interesting language grafted together, a film unlike any other made. . . . . What to do now? Well I would love to collect all Grey Hinterlands together and I think any person involved who wished to write about the processes might find that a collection of thoughts about a way of filmmaking would be compiled at the conception rather than simply by critics of the future. How wonderful would it be to have a collection of films, a collection of essays poems or articles and a collection of plays under this title The Grey Hinterlands (…).

The manuscripts can be passed around theatre companies and universities, the films can do festival circuits depending on the verve and talent of the company or individual involved but I think all in all a way of making a film that fucks up ones way of making film and plays, will have been conceived by all involved and that is quite a splash.
  
A Personal NB:
Knowing that the film was going to be a play, transformed it’s ‘image’ into something ‘real’, it did certain things to me as a filmmaker. I began storyboarding with the theatre in mind. The art direction for both disciplines began to intertwine. As mentioned above, I felt that I could draw on a window wherever I liked in post, which would give that breaking of film reality and give a theatrical feel to the picture, the script had potential jokes that could be demonstrated better on stage in front of a live audience. I started to think of using microphone on the stage, building sets that resembled film’s poetics and using film poetics in a more theatrical way, lighting, composition, acting style. Everything became blended and exaggerated spiraling up and up into what should have been an amazing experiment and experience.

This spiraling up, this experiment, was so abstract and hard to delineate, that at this moment in time, I had to put off the production. This project has an inventionary/visionary element to it and needed more energy and time than I knew before embarking on it and so I will prepare for it in the future, when the time is right. The Grey Film is an experiment that other filmmakers, with enough energy and integrity, and with the right cast and crew, could make their own. There is so much scope that I would love to see others spiral up and up and if they or you find the form and poetics drawn out above worthy of taking on, please contact me and tell me what you’re going to do. If I can be of any help please don’t hesitate in contacting me through www.theveranda.co.uk