Director Joshua Neale made Karaoke Soul, a superb 30-minute film for commissioning editor Sarah Mulvey's First Cut strand. It screened at Sheffield Doc/Fest and then on C4 in the November 2007. He writes about making the step-up to a 30 minute doc for C4.
Set in a northern town that 's seen better days, Karaoke Soul is about three ordinary people who find relief from their everyday lives through song. Mixing stylised musical performances with intimate observational documentary, the film tells the very-personal stories of these three local karaoke singers, through the songs that mean so much to them.
That and bigger themes too - the breakdown in community, the pub as a focal point for community. How people find meaning and escape though songs, and togetherness through the shared experience of karaoke. It's also about relationships. Our dreams versus reality. Classic song themes!
We collaborated, although they were all songs that came from them, had meaning to them, that they liked or regularly sung at the karaoke. I also had to think of balance and how music would work in the film as a whole. This meant that it was hard to cast because there had to be a song that really meant something to them, as well as fitting their story and the film as a whole.
In 2003, I did my first AP (assistant producer) job on Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer of Love. Pawel is one of my favourite directors directors - amazingly creative and someone who has influenced me a lot. Anyway, I was based in the area where this film is set. I was there for 5 or 6 months including the making of the film. The Swan, where the karaoke in my film takes place, is the pub in Pawel's film, although it looks totally different.
One night during filming, it was my birthday and we celebrated it in there. It was karaoke night for the locals and it was just amazing. These weren't random drunks, these were people who had their own particular songs that they always sung. It was an old-fashioned singalong in some ways - this was a place to let it all out and share emotion. And you could see that as they sung, it was evoking their memories. In particular, as I walked in, I saw a guy in his 50s singing 'We Are The Champions' by Queen. He was just giving it everything and was almost in tears, despite not having a great voice. This was hardcore emotion. I later found out he was going to lose his job because his eyesight was going. And this was Peter, who became my main character.
There are similarities. We've both done drama as well as documentary and are happy mixing elements of both perhaps. Although interestingly Pawel went from documentary to drama and in some ways I’ve gone the other way. I’m also interested in working with non professional and in improvisation which you have seen in Pawels work. I met him randomly - he was at an interview with Mike Leigh I went to, I think. I just asked him if he needed anyone to work with him and it just so happened he was looking for someone to work on My Summer of Love. Despite my lack of experience, he took me on. Total luck!
I had the luxury of getting to know them over a long period whilst I was researching Pawel's film and my development for Karaoke Soul. I spent a lot of long nights in the pub and even did a few karaoke numbers myself so they began to see me almost as another regular and became very used to me and my camera.
Fast forward 3 years and I'd had one film in another C4 new directors strand, My Crazy Life called 'The boy who killed his best friend'. I sent 5 ideas to Sarah Mulvey for First Cut and that was the one she was most interested in. Everyone I had showed it too had really liked thie idea but said that there was no way it would get made because TV had no spaces for docs like that. But that's the great thing about the First Cut strand - it's got room for 15 totally different documentaries because Sarah wants the strand to take risks.
Interestingly, I haven't done any 3 Minute Wonders. It's been a bit of an unusual journey in my case. I've worked in theatre and film as a director and actor for example. I did make films at university but then went into acting. But in parallel I made a couple of dramas off my own back, with a bit of post-production funding thrown in. One, called Flowers and Coins, went to Edinburgh. Then after My Summer of Love I did some work with Marc Isaacs on a film called 'Some day my prince will come'. I did other bits of research but basically, I needed to work, so I did some more conventional documentary work, like being a shooting AP on all sorts of things.
Then My Crazy Life came along, which was all about finding people who were at the right stage to move up to directing, and giving us an idea to work on. I also did some DV directing on a couple of Cutting Edges on location and did a deal to get some edit time, which was really useful.
Well, I'd done some 10 minute films before, and I'd also done some charity films which were longer. I mean, I've done a lot and I don't necessarily recommend doing everything you can. Oh yeah, I also did an hour-long doc for a French school!
There's no set route, there really isn't. You think you know everything and then you realise you don't, so when you're on the way to getting to a good place, remember that it's that journey that really matters. The choices you make along the road, what you work on, who you work with, etc, make you the filmmaker you are - it's funny, you get to feel what's good and what works for you, but it's sort of unconscious. But don't worry too much about it - everything can be positive, even the jobs that don't seem exactly perfect can teach you a lot and influence you. It sounds like I’m at the end of a finished process when I talk about it, but far from it. I’m still developing and that’s whats exciting.
Well, she'd seen my My Crazy Life and liked it. We met briefly at Sheffield and she told me to send her some ideas. I sent them, we met, we talked, and she asked me which idea I wanted to make. I said this one, but would need to check that the pub was still actually there! Sarah wanted me to check before I was going on holiday later that week. So I dropped everything and went up and thankfully, it hadn't changed at all!
I saw Peter and other locals I knew who I thought would be good characters, but Sarah still wanted to know you'd definitely get a good range of them. So she gave me a small amount of development money to make a taster tape over 3 weeks. So I shot something but even that didn't convince her totally!
She wanted one more character. So it was a bit of a long process, filled with doubt - but that's all part of it isn't it? Sarah was basically concerned that you'd have this amazing set-up characters to carry it and that gave me a really brilliant discipline. I just kept going up, basically without any more money, because I felt I was almost there. I decided to cast 'outside' the pub in the local area and that meant I found another character. I really wanted to avoid the obvious. Then Sarah gave the go-ahead...which brought more issues!
It was still a relatively small budget, although I could sort of use it how I wanted. I really wanted a longitudinal process so I had to decide things like how much help I wanted - crew, etc. What could I realisitcally achieve in the time? Also I always knew that I would need a good proportion of the budget for the song clearance.
£45,000 including the £2,000 I spent on development. . I put aside enough for about 7 minutes of commercial music and that actually never changed from the first budget to the end. I did also work with a composer friend who was amazing and worked well with my ideas
I self-shot 90%. One area I was always worried about were the performances outside the pub, which I wanted to be really stylised and knew I'd need help with. It was really difficult to get right - potentially it could lift the film and give it an emotional story, really establishing a relationship to the song beyond just seeing them perform it in the pub. But done badly it could just look like a really bad pop video from a non-performer. Like Peter - I knew he could do it after a few pints, but in his kitchen in the daytime was another matter.
I knew I wanted a totally different look for these pieces so I had 2 crew days to do the performances. This got mixed up with the verité stuff. But all the actuality, interviews, etc, I did myself.
I haven't decided yet. I've been offered a few things. Some more interesting than others. I'd like to make another film with Sarah and I have been talking to her about a few ideas. It's still a balance between paying the bills and working on stuff you really love. I think I'll carry on working between UK broadcast and projects I develop independently looking for funding and distribution elsewhere. I'd like to do more drama at some stage too. I have an idea for a drama working with non-professional actors in a semi scripted way. It's a process. I try and keep a few things at varying stages of development.
Basically don't worry about other people's paths. Everyone is different and that's what makes you who you are. You know, I'm never going to be Pawel, you slowly form who you are. I've got a good breadth of experience. I'd say try and work with people whose work you admire.
Everything is about timing. With My Summer of Love, I didn't need much money, I wanted experience. Pawel needed someone, I wasn't perfectly qualified but he liked it that I had a diverse background and could offer different things. I'd mainly say to be yourself. There's two types of people you tend to come across with 'new talent' in the documentary world - those who think they know everything and will never compromise or open themselves up to others' thoughts and ideas; and at the other end, those who don't recognise their own value and are too humble. Both are good and bad but too far either way is going to make it diffcult. The most important thing is passion and enthusiasm. Even more important, actually, is getting on with people – whether it's work colleagues or contributors - you need to get on with them in some way. And listen.
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