Festivals and Awards

Marbella International Film Festival 2009

To be perfectly honest, I wanted to take part in a 24 Hour Challenge to show producers and commissioning Editors what I could achieve in a short time frame, under tough conditions, on a limited budget and a tight deadline, to show that the production was in safe hands.  Without casting, I pulled together a brilliant little team and we all met for the first time in Marbella, the day before the film challenge.  I had prepared a couple of scripts and was ready to bend them a little to fit any challenge conditions.

When we drew 'Dark Comedy' as the genre and the title was 'Marbella Nights', I knew immediately we would have to start from scratch, with a new idea and new script.  We all sat down and brainstormed for what seemed like a few minutes, but we had used up 2 of our allotted 24 hours.  My cast were 2 female actresses and they both pitched in with equally with their creativity and soon enough, we had a pretty good script to work from.  My actresses, Annalea Doyle and Lucy Misch brought a great professionalism, energy and work ethic to our production and having such a limited time for shooting it all made me count my blessings when on the first take of the first shot, they delivered and I knew we were in good shape to complete our task.

We managed to get 108 shots and a completed film by 2:30am, and although I am happy to take full credit for this, I know that with a different cast and crew, it would have been a completely different outcome.  Thank-you to those involved.

The edit started at 3am, never a good time to start a project, but as I saw the assemblky edit for the first time, was quietly confident that in there somewhere was a nice little film, now all we had to do was find it.  As we cut during the night, I began to get increasingly insecure about the process.  The 10 minute version was a nice film in it's own right, and we still had to cut 50% of it yet.  As the sun came up, we stopped at exactly 4:58Mins.  We checked that we had included all the locations, props, products and venues we needed to, as per the conditions, then finally began finishing.  We submitted our film in 23 hours and 34 minutes back at the hotel and the last thing I wanted to see was a fresh faced news crew asking me how I felt.  I hadn't slept for 30 hours, needed foor, shower and sleep, how do you think I felt?

We had a couple of days rest, enjoyed some great screenings, live performances and parties and generally enjoyed the festival.  As the award dinner and presentation kicked off, we had all convinced ourselves that Marbella Nights was ok, but perhaps we could have done a few things a little different, which actually made the challenge more frustrating.  The entertainment just prior to the awards was by Ruth Lorenzo and I must admit she took my mind off of it for a while, so thanks Ruth.  Ours was the first award of the evening and as I looked around the poolside for signs of confidence I got no clues at all.  The announcement came that we had won, and I went up with Annalea, as Lucy had to return to the UK earlier than planned, which is a shame as they both played an equally important role in what we achieved.

My acceptance speech was rushed and unrehearsed.  I can remember saying that if I could work with this calibre of people every day, I would be truly blessed.  I meant it too!  Apparently William Shatner, who was a judge and a winner too, for his film Gonzo Ballet, was very complimentary and later that evening, congratulated me on a job well done and commented on our 'good and exciting work'.  It's always nice to hear, especially when it comes from someone with his history of involvement in this business.

For those involved and those that supported us and wished us well, I would like to offer a heart felt "thank-you!".