I attended a talk with Douglas Mackinnon, director of Good Omens and several episodes of Sherlock. It's always surreal to meet people who've made things I watch. It was extremely interesting and he made some very interesting points. Here are my notes from the Q&A:
-National Film School
-Started in stills photography
-Hardest part of career isn’t big budget, it’s low; you have to do everything yourself
-The Story of Film by Mark Cousins
- The New Scottish Channel looking for new young filmmakers
-No experience is wasted
-You’ll go far if you can shoot, edit etc yourself; multiple roles makes you a real draw
-Sometimes you’ll just have to make things to pay the mortgage
-You will get a job if you’re mutually advantageous. It doesn’t matter what degree you have
-If there’s an actor who always plays a bad guy on River City, then maybe give them a comedy script. He’s out of your budget, but because it’s mutually advantageous, he may well make your short film
-It’s incredibly difficult and you’ll probably want to kill yourself. If you don’t love film, don’t do it; the money’s not that good
-Making things isn’t enough. You have to send them places. Take the names from credits and send your films out to people.
-Never make what you think other people will want to see. Always make what you would want to watch.
-Neil Gaiman’s CV had lots of companies he wanted to work for, but he made it look like they were people he had worked for
-Write about what you know about more than anyone else
-Seldom has any rehearsals been done in advance. On the day, clear the set of everyone except the script supervisor to rehearse before you let the crew back in
-Don’t expect the world to love you; that will never happen
-If you want to be a writer, get The Artist’s Way
-When writing a proposal, say “this will”, not “the would”
-When asking a question, say “Can you describe…?” because that way you’ll get a full answer
-If it rains and your shot is crap, nobody will say “It’s a shame it rained”, just “the shot was crap”. If you get bad ratings because there was a blockbuster on the other channel, nobody remembers the blockbuster; just your bad ratings
-Brian Cox Masterclass
-Most of the things you make shouldn’t be to make money, because they won’t
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