Being a Filmmaker in Yorkshire

Here guest blogger James G Wall asks you kindly to keep him up North!

It hasn’t been easy so far trying to make a career as a filmmaker in Yorkshire (Leeds, personally). Opportunities don’t come a’knocking often. I get told by most to go where the work is, rather than wait ’til the work comes to me. I know so many creative people that have travelled to London to give themselves a better chance of “making it.”

This upsets me, I like Leeds, but I have to admit I’ve thought about moving more than once. However, I am determined to make something of myself as a filmmaker in Leeds first and foremost. I don’t want to wait for the work, I want to create the work!

I want to be an inspiration to those students that graduate every year in Leeds (and the whole of Yorkshire) that there is someone else out there doing it, even better doing it well.

Finding funding is always hard. Yorkshire doesn’t have much if any grant money to pass around willy-nilly. You must seek your own funding, this usually means you use your own money. I have made all my short films with no budget. This means I have to use the powers of blagging! Having no money means I cannot afford to use crew members and other things of that nature. Although lots of people will offer their services for free just because they want some experience, but wouldn’t it be nice to get a little something for working hard at doing the thing you love the most.

There comes a point when you’ve tried most things you can get for free. And, it’s surprising what you can get for free by just asking. We, by we I mean a producer (Graeme Davidson, a fellow graduate) secured a high profile casino for my short film The Payoff. They let us use it for free during the day whilst they were closed, but we did pay for some catering to sweeten the deal. However, it would be nice to have that l’il bit of cash to make the job easier. Areas like art direction and wardrobe usually get forgotten about in no-budget short films, but a bit of attention spent and your good short film is now a great one.

This brings me to crowd funding. There are some fantastical websites out there to help raise funding securely and let you make a kinda mini website for your project. This doesn’t have to be a film, anything creative. However, as a standalone page it is quite useless. It’s the equivalent of making one poster and throwing it randomly in the centre of a busy street. You need to spread it around. Making people aware that you are here is difficult and you have to be creative with how you do it.

If Shane Meadows can give himself a career without dear Miss. London holding his hand, there must be hope for others too.

Links

My Website

http://www.jamesgwall.com

My Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/jamesgwall

My Twitter

http://www.twitter.com/atinyadventure

My IndieGoGo funding page

http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Hotel-Room