Film Douglas News

Fake it till you Make it! (GEE)

2012-02-04T11:48:00.003+08:00

Today I'm suppose to shoot with a "name" actress, an actress that is apparently suppose to make it big very soon once her TV show premieres in a months time, directed by one of the big shots of Chinese TV and she's in the second lead. Through various friends who know friends and dealings with her agent I convinced her to act in GEE for free, until we find financing. I've dealt with agents before, although we don't have them in Iceland, but I have used some small time American actors in the past. So, the actress was very into the movie and then she wasn't, then she was and then she wasn't ... agents. Anyway, now she's on her way to shoot my movie. BUT none of the other crew have confirmed that they're coming to this day's shoot. I thought the least I could do towards the actress was to make our film seem semi-pro by having hair and makeup, maybe a cameraman and some lights, the lead actor would be good also. My illusion of looking pro is fading fast and I might end up just holding my small consumer Sony camera up to the actress and kind of ask her to improvise. I don't really need any of the crew here, I could shoot this all myself but all my build up speeches and self belief sessions with my crew were suppose to make sure they'd be here at these kind of moments. Now I'm afraid they're abandoning me on what is suppose to be the last couple of days of the shoot. I promised them all riches after these two day's, well not riches but a bit more recognition. People learn fast, especially movie crews ... they've had nothing so far (except the unique opportunity to learn from a master auteur like myself) I better get the spare change out and buy some McDonald's for them today, otherwise I might lose them for good.

photo by Jonathan (flickr)

Gary (GEE) - Introducing The Creators

2012-01-28T17:46:00.000+08:00

I've introduced the crew we've got so far in two previous posts, now I'll make an attempt to introduce the creators behind Gary (GEE) or whatever the movie will be called.

Carlos Ottery

Co-writer and star of Gary, acts the main part, Gary himself. Carlos got his unusual sounding name for an Englishman from hippie parents who liked some obscure Spanish poet named Carlos back in the 70's. Carlos is an English teacher by day (two day's a week) and a stand-up comedian by night. He's an Irish Catholic Jew from East London (with a Latino lover's name) ... which explains a lot. He originally came to Beijing 3 years ago to make it big as a businessman but ended up teaching English on weekends ... sorry, that's Gary's story line, well, anyway ... Carlos came here 3 years ago and after living on a farm in south China he moved up to Beijing and teaches English when he's not hung over or drunk. His dream is to become a comedian and well everybody needs dreams, it's nice to dream and have ambitions, Carlos is an ambitious man and the lead actor in Gary (GEE). He's a big fan of Manchester United. Here's a link to his weekly comedy nights around Beijing : www.comedyclubchina.com

Robert Douglas

Co-writer and director of Gary, a failed genius film director who insists he used to be something but now walks the streets of Beijing trying to remember if he actually was anything ... and we're not talking "I used to be somebody in Hollywood" ... more like "I used to be somebody in Iceland". After his over the top Ingmar Bergman-esque extravagant Gay masterpiece about footballers, the critics panned him, the film has consistently stayed in the bottom regions of Rotten Tomatoes, Robert wen't into self imposed exile in China (where they ban gay films). Robert originally came to Beijing 5 years ago to meditate and drink tea, he's now starting to understand that it doesn't get you places and has written two scripts about China and Gary (GEE) is the first one he's attempting to film, he's also got ambitions to return to Iceland and make a 3D family musical about dwarfs in the hope that they accept him back. Robert is also a big fan of Manchester United. His website: www.filmdouglas.com

Christopher Loton

Co-writer and supporting actor in Gary, Christopher is from west Australia, Perth. He's randomly accused and thought of as a rich upper class twat by other Australians he meets here in Beijing, he explains that it has to do with his accent and that all people from Perth are stigmatized this way, we don't believe him. He works at some dubious sales company specializing in Nuclear Reactors, it's all very hush hush we think, or it could be that we just think it's secretive because we're too stupid to understand when Chris tries to explain his job to us. He's always dressed in a suit coming from some business meeting or event when he shows up for shooting, that's impressive enough for us to think he's a spy. Chris is a big fan of New Order. Chris doesn't have a website, spy's usually don't.

Now I've managed to tie all three of the principals behind Gary to Manchester, although none of them are from there it's an interesting trivial fact that will be put up on IMDB once Gary (GEE) has it's own page.

Film Douglas New Look

2012-01-27T20:47:00.002+08:00

Updated the website and made it ... well cooler. More info on Gary (GEE) was also added.
www.filmdouglas.com

Lost in Translation – Introducing the Crew II

2012-01-18T12:29:00.001+08:00

Gary Tai Chi

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We’ve shot for the past two days and there’s been some additions to our small crew which was strange enough but has only grown stranger if anything. We added two make up artists to the one we already have in a film that doesn’t use any make up, but who are we to say no to people when they want to help out? So, now we have Shadow, Ting Ting and Ming Ming … Ting Ting and Ming Ming are a boy and a girl (well as far as we can tell), they’re both heavily into make up and could happily spend 5 hours doing make up on a person, sadly we can’t really provide that happiness for them, but they do look pro and wear those designer glasses without any actual glass in them. We’re just a bit worried about what Shadow will think once she discovers that we’ve hired two people to sit around and do nothing with her.

We’ve also hired a born again Christian as a B-Unit cameraman, he’s Belarusian. First off, we don’t need a B-Unit, we don’t even know what that is. Secondly, we hired him because his translator is super hot. Thirdly, his translator moved back to Russia and left him with us and he doesn’t speak a word of either English or Chinese. I’ll give it to him though that he’s very enthusiastic, a bit too much sometimes when he manages to draw the local authorities attention on us by directing traffic around Tiananmen square, something I wasn’t really asking for.

Most of the times we can’t get all the crew together at the same time, so it’s pot luck who turns up at any given shooting day. Monday we had three make-up artists and two actors, so I took controls of the camera and sound. Tuesday we had two cameramen and a runner turn up, so I could concentrate on make up and costume issues. Directing? Maybe when everybody turns up at the same time, it would be nice.

Highlight of the day was undoubtedly the moment our Belarusian cameraman and our Chinese cameraman decided to have a meaningful conversation about camera equipment. Our Chinese guy speaks limited English, not much at all actually and I’ve often felt like a character in a Woody Allen movie when I’ve been discussing shots with him. The Belarusian guy speaks NO English at all. So the two of them discussing lenses, sensors and light issues … let’s just say the rest of the crew went silent in disbelief before not being able to control the laughter anymore.

But I am thankful for these bunch of misfits being so helpful and making our movie a reality, they’re all doing this without any pay and we all believe that this film is something special. So far, we’ve got:

Jason on camera from China, Grisha on camera from Belarus, Shadow doing costumes and make-up from China, Ting Ting and Ming Ming doing make-up from China, Billy the line-producer/runner/best boy from USA (or an alien planet), Lin our translator, Jonathan our casting agent and of course the actors.
All we need now is a helpful investor … well or a sound guy would also be fine.

Lost in Oblivion (or Beijing) – Introducing the Crew

2012-01-09T11:25:00.001+08:00

Gary (Gee) – A feature film by Robert Douglas.

We had a longish day of shooting yesterday. I’d finally decided to hire a pro cameraman (or that’s what I told the actors), Jason is a pro wedding photographer but has never really shot any movie, he’s helped me out with music videos before and his equipment of lenses etc is impressive, he’s also come a long way since the first music video and I think he’s actually getting more impressive as a cameraman although he’s still not sure if he’s shooting a corporate video or a feature film, he keeps asking for what business this is meant to advertise.

The day didn’t start off well as I had semi-fired the main actress, or she kind of fired herself, this being my blog my version of the story is going to be one sided, let’s just say we had conflicts when it came to the schedule and … well I wasn’t paying her anything. So I do realize that keeping hold of my two male leads is something I should be thankful for, but they’re not as demanding, a couple of beers here and there or a game of Fifa on my Xbox and they’ll do the next scene.

Although my main actor is a bit of a primadonna, complaining that if he does do more than 2 days of work per week then he needs at least a week long rest after, seeing as he teaches English twice a week then me adding a shooting day on top of that completely destroys his time-schedule, so at best he can shoot 1 day a week for me, although I admit that sometimes I push him, push him to his limits, it can be scary to see an actor push his boundaries, Christian Bale losing 50kg in The Machinist, Rene “whatshername” adding 10kg in Bridget Jones and Carlos Ottery working on a Wednesday … scary indeed, so I’m constantly in awe of what actors are capable of.

My other lead actor is practically a saint compared to the demands of Mr.Ottery, Chris Loton shows up on time and is even OK about taking long lunch breaks from his regular job of selling Semi Conductors to Nuclear Plants, to act in our movie. Although if you promise him Chicken Parmesan and they deliver a bastardized version of Chicken Kiev in Bolognese then he quickly loses any motivation for his character and becomes increasingly “difficult” to deal with. I’ve learned not to offer Chicken Parmesan on the lunch menu anymore, KFC will do from now on.

Shadow, our make-up and costumes woman didn’t show up yesterday, but she rarely does. She’s showed up twice for the film so far, first for a general meeting and then for an actual shooting day where she turned up about 3 hours late, then she usually sits herself down and starts blogging on her mobile phone. We like having her around it adds a certain dimension to the crew. She says she understands our English but rarely do we understand hers.

Billy the Kid, our runner, best boy or as he likes to say; Line Producer. He’s a man with ambitions and keeps talking about a script that he’s writing, a romantic comedy about a Texas girl working for an orphanage in Chengdu who falls in love with a local tour guide, it’s an OK idea, it’s actually Chris’s idea but now Billy can’t stop talking about it and has actually written a script and believes it to be his idea, I think Chris was just sort of muttering ideas to the beer glass when Billy picked up on this … Billy also wears a radiation suit and a anti-cosmic ray bandana, this is no joke, he’s also a guy who has two compasses on him at all times and believes that reading is bad for you, so audio books is a necessary evil to get wisdom from and Catcher in the Rye was the last book he listened to. He does do the runner job very well though.

At the end of the day though, if you’re crew doesn’t offer you the potential of interesting stories or situations then maybe you don’t really have a real film crew. We’re looking to add to our crew, the more the merrier.

Pizza, Beer and Rice / GEE

2012-01-08T10:52:00.001+08:00

Beer Trailer for Gary (Gee) – Gary get’s schooled in how to drink beer in China.

Pizza Trailer for Gary (Gee) – Ethnic nan bread or just plain pizza?

Rice Trailer for Gary (Gee) – Using chopsticks to eat rice isn’t for everyone.

More information on the project here: www.filmdouglas.com/Gary

Oh well…

2012-01-03T13:08:00.001+08:00

This is what my website looks like in China, www.filmdouglas.com

That’s suppose to be my show-reel embedded from vimeo, but as vimeo is blocked it comes up like this. The 8 social (information) sites I offer to readers can not be accessed, not even imdb, they all result in a “webpage not available” message. The only link on my front page that Chinese users can click on is the little Chinese flag which takes them to a youku player of my show-reel and a link to weibo, youku is a copy of youtube and weibo is a copy of twitter. I don’t think any of these sites are blocked for sensitive issues, I think they’re just competition that is kept out so that weibo, youku can own the market. But what’s the deal with imdb? It might surprise you to know that wikipedia is not blocked in China … but imdb is. And how did I manage to post this on blogger? Well, VPN’s are relatively good business here.

Gary (Gee) begins

2012-01-02T17:15:00.001+08:00

I’ve uploaded 3 teasers to vimeo.com of a feature length ultra low budget movie that I’m working on these days. The plan is to obviously get some investors and make it closer to a low budget movie (rather than ultra low). The film is shot within a 500m ratio of my home in Beijing, the Sanlitun district. A melting pot of expat embassy workers, losers and local Beijingers.

Here are the three teaser examples (2 view-able in China via youku):

www.filmdouglas.com/gary

Gary has arrived in Beijing to make it big and become a multi-millionaire, after failing to impress his Chinese investors he soon takes up English teaching and life lessons from Frank, an incompetent mentor, who vows to show him "the real China.". Gary's real reasons for staying in Beijing become apparent when his son and Chinese ex-wife enter the picture. Can Gary outsmart the city of cynics and repair his relationship with his family? Or will he have to fly home in disgrace as Frank predicted all along?

Shot in a documentary style, Gary is a comedy celebrating Beijing and it's people, both ex-pat and locals.

Signed with an Agent

2011-12-28T20:22:00.001+08:00

I recently signed with a movie agent here in Beijing, China. The agency is one of the largest talent agencies in China and represents such talent as He Zhen Jun, Yufei Hong and Liao Jingsheng. The name of the agency is Starry Totostar.

They will now represent me on any work I undertake in Asia.

Barbed Wired Youth (1992)

2011-11-21T03:05:00.001+08:00

One of my first short films. Made in 1992 on VHS and edited on two VHS recorders using the pause/rec method. In Icelandic with English subtitles.

Win Win With The Public Reform Department

2011-11-15T08:26:00.001+08:00

Had another one of those meetings with the Department of Public Reform, as you do. So, there's an option of shooting Red Flag in Liao Ning province, which includes the cities Shenyang and Dalian. Yesterday they were in Beijing to meet and greet various mutual beneficial business opportunities, including this Icelandic film director. We met in a seedy backroom of one of the local UBC cafe's (a Chinese dirtier expensive version of Starbucks). I met the head of their local film studio and CCTV representative who seemed genuine, at least he knew his RED's from his Sony's and what a Peewee Dolly is... I can't judge what a Public Reform official is suppose to sound or act like, nor do I have the slightest clue as to how the head of the transport and road system is suppose to be, but I'd say one thing ... I wouldn't want to mess with 'em. When I asked the lady in the pink jacket if we'd have all the required permissions while shooting, she told me not to worry. She's best friends with the police chief and her network extends to all of China. Yes, Public Reform ... my middle person asked me after the meeting if I'd be OK to push Red Flag into a direction that they wanted. Propaganda? I asked back ... yes, was the answer. Interesting, I said I'd rather not. But as the lady in Pink told me, first we meet by chance (like this meeting in UBC, I guess it wasn't arranged), we talk about our mutual benefits, then we become friends (I'm guessing she wants to get drunk with me in a KTV bar), then it's fate that moves us forward to mutual win win situations ... she told me this is the Chinese way of doing things. Let's see.

Productive in Iceland

2011-11-11T07:48:00.001+08:00

Just returned from a productive trip back to Iceland, had a good meeting with The Icelandic Film Center. Met up with my other production half and talked the next steps of Red Flag's seemingly endless pre pre pre production. We're moving closer to a start, we'll get there someday.

Miss Melody - New Music Video

2011-10-11T14:33:00.001+08:00

Just uploaded a high quality version of "Sui" by Miss Melody. My new music video that I shot and directed this summer in Beijing. It stars T-Lo skater boy as himself. Miss Melody - Sui

Director - Robert Douglas
Camera - Jason Jie
Costume - Shadow

Shot on a Canon 5D and Sony SLT-a55.

Check out the video here on Vimeo: Miss Melody - Sui

Updates on the web

2011-08-29T12:43:00.000+08:00

Just updated my webpage and blog page, with fancy new Film Douglas logo designed by my daughter. And a nice Google+ widget and other social tools. www.filmdouglas.com and www.filmdouglasnews.blogspot.com

Tony in Sui

2011-08-24T22:34:00.000+08:00

Tony Lo acting in Miss Melody video Sui.

Seen T-Lo?

2011-08-24T15:31:00.000+08:00

I'm suppose to be finishing a music video for Miss Melody today, for the song Sui. Starring Tony T-Lo, the problem is he's not showing up and has turned off his mobile phones. At this point in time, we can't replace him with another actor since he's already appeared in more than 90% of the video. This final shot was going to be the most important one, it's the final shot of the video and most of the budget has gone into this shot and that's the day Mr. actor decides not to show up. What makes things worse is that in 2 day's T-Lo will be off to America for a year ... everything was fine yesterday and he knew of the schedule. I'm going insane, the whole crew is sitting in my living room waiting for Tony. Thoughts ... I'm prone to shout "Damn the one child policy youth of today".

A Road Movie Deserves A Road Trip

2011-07-14T15:47:00.001+08:00

Planned route to Ningxia

Me and the DP, Associate Producer and Music Composer are leaving tomorrow morning to Ningxia. There we will meet with our Chinese Co-Producers and local authorities to take a look at locations, hammer out a deal and look at the local "Movie Studio". That's our planned route, we will be stopping at Ordos (a city built a few years ago) and it's apparently a ghost city, some major design project that didn't quite work out. Everything is set, all we need now is a CAR!

Ningxia Location Scouting and setting up mutual benefits

2011-07-12T18:12:00.000+08:00

I'll be heading to Ningxia province in western China, by the Gobi Desert. Leaving on Friday for a 3 day location scout of the province, for my upcoming movie Red Flag. I'll be wined and dined and whisked around by the local government who seem eager to get movies and co-productions to this second lowest GPD province of China. A film company with ties to Ningxia province are lining up to become our Chinese co-producers and this is the first step in a hopefully mutual beneficial relationship between Icelandic film and Chinese film. Some of the sites I'll be taking a look at are Helan Mountain, The Pyramids of China, The Yellow River and various lakes, villages and other scenery.

Red Flag: Application

2011-07-07T14:39:00.000+08:00

Icelandic Film Fund application is ready and will be handed in today, me and my producer have been preparing the documents for the past couple of weeks. It’s a roughly 160 page document including: script, budget, CV’s, letter of intents, marketing plan, financial plan, synopsis, treatment, pitch, agreement’s, cast & crew list, time-line and more. Now let’s keep our fingers crossed for good news in about 6-8 weeks time. Our aim is to go into production in October/November 2011. The English title of the film is RED FLAG, Icelandic name is Utlendingurinn (The Foreigner).

Huan - in competition

2011-07-06T15:30:00.003+08:00

Hey people! My music video "Huan" is currently number 3 in an important international music video competition, could you please help make it go higher by voting for it (by playing it and favoring it).

http://www.ourstage.com/tracks/AFPXUSWIJVWO-huan ... Press the Ourstage link and my music video will come up.

Puppet Master

2011-07-01T16:06:00.001+08:00

Last three day’s have been spent on making a little perverted puppet come alive through stop-motion and green screen work. For 10 shot’s during the music video “DUDE” we’ve shot at least 3000 photo’s. Anyway, it’s all coming together and will be interesting to see … I haven’t done stop motion work since I was 12 years and took a 2 week course in animation connected to my school’s art class.

Dude! The Music Video

2011-06-26T13:24:00.001+08:00

Just finished first day of shooting of a new music video. The band is DUDE, a western/Chinese band that covers pop music ranging from J-pop, Canto Pop and Celine Dion in punk versions. First day was shot at a live venue called 2-Kolegas, it’s situated within a drive-in cinema in Beijing. We shot during a mini music festival event, lot’s of free beer, mojito’s, bbq food and hippies. We used three cameras to cover the song, Canon 5D and Sony a33 & a55. The footage turned out good. Now the next day’s (hopefully not weeks) will be focused on shooting stop animation footage of a puppet that’s suppose to be behaving badly.

Turning down roles to teach.

2011-06-23T16:47:00.001+08:00

Some people just don’t want all the hassle that comes with fame. The other day I offered an amateur actor (who shall remain nameless) one of the leading roles in my upcoming movie Red Flag. The actor had dabbled a bit in Beijing expat theatre but otherwise he’s better known as a teacher and consultant to the bar they call First Floor. When I asked him if he’d consider the role he rejected me because his teaching job was more secure, the monthly salary was good and he had already signed up for a year. I offered him the equal to 6 months of teaching salary for an acting job that would take maximum 2 weeks to shoot, but no … he turned it all down, because “I want to honor my agreement with the school”. Well, shows that sometimes you can’t pick a random nobody from the street and make them a superstar overnight (as had always been my plan of course). So, instead I offered the role to a major international superstar, that most of you will know … I will keep you updated on who that is, once we’ve finalized the deal. Regarding the actor that decided on a teaching career, I’ve just learned that the school broke their agreement and he’s now looking for a job.

Red Producers

2011-06-14T09:10:00.001+08:00

About time I introduced other players, as they say “Making movies is a collaboration”. So apart from me the director being on board, we’ve got various producers and writers so far. I won’t go into the writing credits yet as it’s a bit complicated and soap opera like right now, let’s just say there’s been 5 writers involved so far and I’m not agreeing on everybody’s level of credit to their level of input, I might once we’re further away from the script and closer to the shooting. So, this time I’ll introduce the producers. First off is our head producer in Iceland, Hlin Johannesdottir, she’s produced over 10 films, various co-productions with other countries included. She just came onboard a few weeks ago and is doing a great job so far. Our associate producers here in China are two, Clarence Hui from Hong Kong, who is mostly known as a music producer but has been involved with the HK film industry for more than 20 years, he also helped me with my second film A Man Like Me which was partly shot in Hong Kong. Clarence also wrote the classic Canto-Pop musical Gam Chi Yuk Sip which I suspect is loosely based on his own life. Lily Lee is our mainland associate producer, I know little of her background except that by the looks of it she’s got a lot of “Guanxi” as they say here in China. Finally there’s executive producer Jim Stark, who’s been helpful in many way’s since we started and has been closely following the project, he produced Mystery Train and Down by Law. I’ll be introducing the writers and actors very soon, followed by key crew.

Music Soundtrack Red Flag

2011-06-11T11:57:00.000+08:00

Music is sometimes important in movies. It's certainly important in Goodfellas and The Spaghetti Westerns, not so important in The China Syndrome or The Birds. I prefer to get a composer involved from the start, and ultimately would like to just give him the script and he composes the whole soundtrack without ever seeing the movie itself, as they did in Brokeback Mountain and Inception. That means that the aim is for the soundtrack to live on it's own and not follow the feel or arch of individual scenes, therefore I could drop any of the music anywhere I want into my film. So far I've not worked with a composer this way, all three of my movies have been scored by composers having a rough edit close to the final stages of the film although the last soundtrack of a movie I made was a collaboration between a heavy metal band (Minus) and the composer, which did yield interesting results. This time I'm very much thinking of going the other way and have a composer involved from the start and preferably only composing with the script of Red Flag in mind. Therefore I've started to research music and references myself, because I've yet to decide on a composer. I've used two of the best Iceland has to offer in my previous films but there's young composers both in Iceland and here in China doing good stuff also, I might go for the younger generation this time, not because they'll write up some youngish sounding techno babble but just purely because you can get them to do a lot of stuff much cheaper :) I am thinking of perhaps basing the whole soundtrack on traditional classic music, old Chinese classics that slowly turn into old Icelandic classics towards the end of the movie. So, been listening to a lot of light hearted romantic Chinese tunes with images of princesses and swans floating around and on the other hand heavy dark and bleak Icelandic music from similar periods, usually the image is starvation, volcanoes and bad weather. There's certainly a contrast in style between the two nations.

Red Flag Sponsors

2011-06-09T10:12:00.000+08:00

We're getting ready to fill up our in-movie sponsors list, thing's like beer, whiskey, rice wine, cigarettes, mobile phones, cars and any old junk that appears within the movie. We've already secured our main car sponsor, but if you are or know somebody who's got a product to flog then contact us for more information on how our main hero might use your product, whether it's an imported wine or anything else ... it might become cinematic legend in RED FLAG ;)

RED FLAG: FINAL DRAFT FINALIZED

2011-05-18T10:33:00.001+08:00

Well, one of the better feelings … Getting done with a 1st draft of a script is good, but finishing a final draft is FU**ING GREAT! Nearly as good as getting a final edit ready or the first/last day of shooting.

Anyway, after all the weeks, months and years (3 years now) this idea has now become a full 112 page script (FINAL DRAFT VERSION). Now, it’s just a question of getting everything in place … and shooting, easier said than done ;)

And I’ll be celebrating a bit tonight.

Back in Beijing

2011-05-09T12:37:00.000+08:00

Back in Beijing from a short trip to Hong Kong. Writing, writing and writing some more ... 3rd and final draft of Red Flag nearly ready. For added pressure I'll blog about my process, I'm on page 50 of 95 will attempt to be finished by the weekend, my headache now is changing a pop singer into a banker (and all the dialog that goes with it).

Hong Kong

2011-05-04T09:28:00.000+08:00

Currently in Hong Kong, renewing my Visa for mainland China.It can be refreshing and strange at the same time to get out of the bubble, at the same time as sites such as blogger, facebook, twitter and youtube are open for access over here ... and newspapers write kind of what they want, there's far more social rules (rules that people make up themselves) here in HK rather than in the mainland. Real freedom is when you can spit on the streets, take a piss wherever and smoke anywhere you want while being drunk and disorderly ... who cares about facebook when you've got that? Getting back to crazy Beijing tomorrow.

Entering Competitions

2011-04-18T12:54:00.000+08:00

Film Douglas ehf, has decided to take under it’s wing a young and talented scriptwriter/idea man and mentor him in the art of making meaningful yet darkly mundane and twisted comedies (in other words: Scandinavian films). First off is a pitch for a short film competition for Nokia (yes, Scandinavian also). Now, the requirements to enter the competition meant that we had to video tape our pitch and keep it publicly online on vimeo. So, it’s out there for all of you to judge … along with the Nokia judges.

Interesting fact: Nokia made rubber boots (wellingtons) before entering the mobile phone market. Every Scandinavian who grew up between circa the 1950’s to the 1990’s knows them as the rubber boot makers … Nokia was THE BOOT BRAND in Iceland.

Kevin Spacey to star in Red Flag

2011-04-01T16:34:00.001+08:00

Kevin Spacey, pictured with director Robert Douglas and producer Elli Eiriksson has signed on to star in the next feature film by Douglas, Red Flag. Red Flag is a road movie set in China about a western banker who befriends a local Chinese taxi driver. Kevin Spacey has just completed Chinese film Inseparable and after talks over some Bushmills Whiskey in Ichikura Japanese Cocktail bar in Beijing, he decided to stay on and act the main role in Douglas’s movie, he’s also financing it completely by himself and the only artistic license he’s imposed on Douglas is that the film be shot entirely in 3D, making it the first 3D art-house film, something Spacey feels strongly about. “I feel the future of art-house movies is in 3D, can you imagine if films such as My Left Foot and Black Swan had been in 3D, they would have been so much better” said Spacey, “I agree” said Douglas.

Iceland FC - Title Contest

2011-03-31T22:57:00.000+08:00

My dear readers, all 6 of you ... including myself. Film Douglas blog is going all social and interactive etc etc, bla bla ... I'm currently putting the finishing touches to my documentary about insane football fans in Iceland. During the last 3 years of production of this film we've never had a good enough title for the movie, we've been unhappy with Iceland FC, The Twelfth Man, Crazy Football etc, all these working titles haven't really been it.

Now it's your chance to help us, come up with a title ... and if it's the title that we choose, before we lock the edit on the 23rd of April, then you will be credited as "Special Advisor" on the movie credits. Amazing title and you might potentially have your first IMDB credit, isn't that something to show off to your friends on your smartphone, over a beer?

The film is essentially about Icelandic men who are obsessive football fans, they're not fans of Icelandic teams, but fans of English Premiership teams, 85% of Icelandic men support a team in England ... about 5% could say that they support their local team as religiously. We follow them around throughout one season, learn about their passion, learn about their reasons, learn about the break-up of their marriage.

Iceland Trip

2011-03-28T15:13:00.001+08:00

Will be leaving for Iceland on the 6th April, for twenty day's to finish an upcoming documentary about football fans in Iceland.

keep up to date with Film Douglas news here: http://filmdouglasnews.blogspot.com/ take a look at our better and brighter blogger site and please hit the "Follow" button.

Hong Kong Film Market

2011-03-09T08:34:00.000+08:00

Going to the Hong Kong Film Market between the 21st-24th March. The aim is to announce my presence once again as a force to be reckoned with in the world of art-house Icelandic cinema for a foreign audience and that I'm the kind of director that is ever present in the fast paced champagne world of Film Festivals or something...

Red Flag Finished

2011-01-20T06:53:00.001+08:00

Well, finally finished my script RED FLAG. Feels good.

read more about the project here: RED FLAG

HUAN: new music video

2011-01-20T06:36:00.001+08:00

I realize that through buzz, youtube and facebook most of the few people who are following filmdouglas news will have seen this by now, but I haven’t actually posted it on to the “official” news blog, so here goes.

A new music video directed by Robert Douglas, the song is HUAN by Miss Melody and Mobidextrous. Shot in Beijing, December 2010.

here’s the video, take a look : HUAN: Miss Melody

MV: Day Three WRAP

2010-12-22T20:20:00.001+08:00

The final day of the music video went well, got some good shots and I think the video will turn out good. Wrapped early and everybody had Pizza at The Tree.

MV: Day Two

2010-12-19T22:42:00.001+08:00

Mike D and Melody The Music Video

Everything went well today … people were only an hour late, costumes were ready, make up was ready and the camera was not forgotten back home. All batteries were charged and our time-lapse photography even went as planned.

Good day.

MV: Day One

2010-12-18T21:53:00.001+08:00

First day of shooting the music video went relatively well, apart from everybody’s lateness that I wrote about before. The lateness nearly prevented us from getting the money shot, the final shot of the video. Today had to be the day because all three models were only available today, we need to shoot them separately on other days. The final shot required all of them, and the shot took place just before sunset, in the twilight.

We arrived at the location at 4.30, sunset would be at 4.51 this Saturday. Of course, once on the location there seemed to be a misunderstanding, the costumer thought that we were only going to shoot one of the models and not all three of them. THE POINT OF HAVING THEM ALL TOGETHER TODAY … was TO SHOOT ALL OF THEM TODAY! Well, it didn’t register with some, so at 4.30 the leading lady and singer of the song didn’t have her costume ready. Only about 15-20 minutes and we’d lose the look, the light and the whole feel of this ONE important shot. I took the two other models out of the car, one of them ready, one of them half ready … she had to hold her jacket up so that it wouldn't fall off and reveal her bare chest underneath, something me and the camera man didn’t realize at the time and kept asking her to stop fiddling with her jacket, stop holding your jacket as if you’re cold! She wouldn’t listen to us, so we just shot and thought “what a primadonna”. Later we of course realized that she was naked underneath and the jacket was just hanging on her, not at all ready to be worn. Well, we got the shots and just 5 minutes before total darkness the singer joined us and we managed to include her in the shot without it looking to strange.

The rest went smoothly, shooting night scenes of one model. The other two models will take up the rest of the schedule. We even had smoke on the streets, these little smoke devices or pads that we light fire to and they generate smoke for about 5 minutes, who needs a smoke machine? It worked great and looked like something out of an expensive Ridley Scott movie or a cheap Motley Crue video.

Tomorrow we start 3 hours earlier.

Here we go again: Stories from Beijing productions!

2010-12-18T14:25:00.001+08:00

So once again I’ve signed myself up for a semi-amateur no budget Beijing production, last time was The Chairman’s Wife which I had no time to blog about, the time before it was Little Flower and I had plenty of time to blog and burn bridges on that one, although surprisingly I didn’t manage to do the latter.

This time it’s a music video for DJ Mike Dee and singer Melody, Mike D is an English entrepreneur who Dj’s and makes music in his spare time, Melody is his Chinese muse.

The idea was outlandish, expensive, arty, meaningful and groundbreaking all rolled into one … then came the actual budget, it was ZERO, nothing. So, the idea changed into something more doable, something less meaningful, something more realistic, something less groundbreaking. The idea changed into a tried and tested formula of all great music videos, especially electronic music videos. Put 3 sexy girls in some revealing designer outfits and have them sulk and walk around a city being all pouty and sexy and arty. Shoot it and then put lot’s of effects over the images.

Day 1: Should have started a week ago. Today is day one, I said 2pm EVERYBODY needs to be ready.

Shadow our Chinese designer, that’s her name, forgot the dresses and woke up late and she’s not finished the dresses, she just started putting make up on our actress now, it’s 2.19pm. Jason our cameraman forgot his camera, he’s gone back to get the dresses and his camera.

What we’re shooting today is a scene that involves the sun going down. That begins around 4.30pm. I wanted to be safe and have everybody aim for a 2pm shoot. Just in case nothing went as planned, and nothing has. So will we make the last light of the day or will we still be waiting for make-up?

I have a feeling we’ll just about make the final scene and I have to re-schedule the actress for another day, something I was very adamant that I did not want to do, mostly because I don’t have time for this … one more time. The only way out of these low budget no budget situations is to write a high budget Jackie Chan comedy, I’m starting to see that now… but the mess, the language barriers, the fucking stupidity of it all … is kind of addictive.

Makes for good blogs, we shall see in the coming days.

Whit Stilmann connection

2010-11-17T22:39:00.001+08:00

So it’s come to my attention that I’ve now directed two actors from films made by Whit Stilmann, who made three rather good films in the 90’s. Matt Keeslar (bottom left) was in my first movie The Icelandic Dream and in Stilmann’s The Last Days of Disco, while Tushka Bergen (top middle) is in my latest movie The Chairman’s Wife and was in Stilmann’s Barcelona. People should check out Stilmann’s movies, all three of them very good and very much about the upper classes of New York, he got compared to Woody Allen at the time, but there’s more to the films than just that comparison. I think he then just vanished from the film industry.

Chairman’s Wife (trailer)

2010-11-11T12:06:00.001+08:00

Uploaded the trailer to youtube and tudou (for viewers in China), both can be viewed by going to this link: http://www.filmdouglas.com/chairmanswife.html

New filmdouglas.com website

2010-11-10T10:28:00.001+08:00

Just put up a new look website and the ability to download my first 3 movies with English subtitles, watch trailers and watch my 4th movie on Netflix. www.filmdouglas.com

Chairman’s Wife Trailer

2010-11-10T10:21:00.001+08:00

The trailer to Chairman’s Wife has been edited and now I’m just waiting for the sound files to arrive to me, I’ll put them on and then the trailer should be on the internet hopefully this week.

The Chairman’s Wife

2010-08-02T14:22:00.001+08:00

Is a short film written by Tara Wilkinson and directed by me, shooting finished a few weeks ago and a rough edit will be ready in a few days. It stars Tushka Bergen, Sam Voutas and Georg Tschebull.

Mission: RED FLAG – Shanghai Film Festival

2010-05-30T00:16:00.001+08:00

www.siff.com/redflag

a link to our official section in the Shanghai International Film Festival Co-FPC program.

Hot Pot - FUNDED by The Icelandic Film Center

2010-05-12T00:28:00.000+08:00

Hot Pot - a screenplay by Tara Wilkinson has been awarded script funding by The Icelandic Film Center. The film is a feature length film that will be directed by Robert Douglas in Iceland.

Shanghai Film Festival 2010 - Co Production RED FLAG

2010-05-08T16:45:00.000+08:00

My project and script RED FLAG has been accepted into The Shanghai Film Festival Co-FPC meetings, along with 11 other officially selected projects. SIFF Co-FPC aims at extending cooperation between international filmmakers and building bridges between the film industry and the capital. This is a great honor and is a boost for the project in finding co-producers in China, with the aim of making the feature film in the near future.

TranslationZilla – International Co-Production that wasn’t from hell…

2010-04-09T14:18:00.001+08:00

Shot a web widget video type thingy last Sunday, very international the whole production, 12 actresses from 12 countries, two bosses from two different countries and then me. It was a series of 20sec web videos for a language training web-game. Started off well enough at 8.15 this morning, with a Portuguese architect moonlighting as an actress – very pro, then came the giggling little Korean girl who couldn’t utter a single sentence without laughing – but she more than made up for all of that by her hmm, looks. Then we got PJ (her stage name) a very pro – been there done that – Chinese actress, who performs Lady Gaga and Britney songs every night at MGM nightclub from 1.45am. She handed us her business cards and told us to come and see the show. The Russian arrived, all very artsy in style and attitude – fine, she was also very pro and handed us her business card as well, reading – blogger, photographer, Chinese student and sugar collector. She collects those little sugar packets that come with your coffee at cafe’s, she has a collection from all over the world. Chilean girl arrived after and tried to fly a kite – no success, but she was fun and energetic on screen – which is making me start to believe that all Chileans must be fun, this is the 4th person from Chile I know. Once we started believing that all the videos (the actresses) were going to be relatively easy and just shooting themselves it all started going downhill with the arrival of the American. Stuck-up, posh little red neck who only needed a poodle dog in her Gucci bag, she took a lot of care in messing up every single line and arrived in high heels for what we described to her as a sporty, running around, playing basketball type shoot. Next up was the Tunisian – who arrived with her girlfriend and was clearly the man (truck driver) in the relationship. But that tough guy soon disappeared as she stepped in front of the camera and became embarrassingly nervous and could hardly utter one word, I’m not sure anything of her is actually useable – who knows, maybe the art of movie editing will spin some magic into her scenes. Italian was fine, couldn’t play football – but at least tried and was good in general. German was also more than we bargained for, a big Bavarian lady who just loves to chat, laugh and drink endless amounts of BEER! and that’s basically what we wanted her web slot to be all about, and she delivered – in style, even getting anxious to drink her beer after the first few takes were suppose to have the glass full, she kept asking when the actual drinking scene would be shot. French, well … let’s say she was very French. Japanese was actually a Chinese girl that spoke Japanese, so I’m not sure how that will turn out and I couldn’t tell if her Japanese was good or not, she seemed convincing enough. All in all this was a very German production, we came in on budget and we came in on the time limit … all very efficient, since the people I was shooting this for are Germans.

Bonsai Girl – Final Verdict

2010-03-23T12:02:00.001+08:00

Well, I was handed a DVD copy of the film by a very nervous director … telling me, “it is what it is” … “maybe they won’t accept it into Cannes” … “but at least the shooting was a learning experience” etc etc, basically all the thing’s I had said during the shoot and right after it. But I had not seen the film, I had not edited it and composed the music and watched the film a 100 times, like the director. After watching the film, I don’t agree with his view – I think the film “is what it is and it’s great”. I think they will accept it into Cannes, if not then they’re just a bunch of stuck up French snobs who think Luc Besson is better than Trauffaut. And I think the film was more than a learning experience, it actually turned out to be a good film, a film the director and every one else who worked on it can be very proud of. I mention Truffaut because the film verges on sentimentality, but in a good way, in a truthful and real way. Both Truffaut and Spielberg would be proud.

So after everything, after all the fuck up’s and all the misunderstandings and all the blood, sweat and tears. Something great came out of it, the one thing that mattered … not the learning experience, not the contacts gained or lost, but the actual film itself. Yes, it’s very good.

Who can take credit for it? The Director most certainly and then the cameraman, yes – the difficult spaced out cameraman, because the images and the cinematography is amazing. The script was always a problem, but the solutions found by our director and his editor are great and the film is much better than the original script – that’s how it’s always suppose to be anyway.

Before the first day of shooting the director asked me, “why do you want to make this movie?” … I took a moment to think about it and then answered, “The script is shit, but I want to make the movie because I believe in you, no matter what, you will make it good”.

Then I went into AD (Assistant Director) mode and screamed abuse at the crew for a week or so … and lost focus of myself as The Producer. I’m glad The Director didn’t lose focus of himself as a director, so here we have it … it’s A GREAT MOVIE!

Bonsai Girl – The Absent Set Designer

2010-03-01T14:34:00.001+08:00

Ariel is the one in black, posing for the camera.

“Ariel, like the little mermaid from Disney” she giggles as she introduces herself to people. Yeah, that’s her English name. She’s the set designer, she’s never worked on a movie before, but she is studying design at a fancy design school in Beijing, “because I love clothes and nice cars – you know BMW is my favorite” she giggles again. “I will work for you, yes for free, because I also love movies, but I can not be there all the time because of my school” … not being there all of the time, meant exactly that. I think she turned up on the first day and then I’m not sure we saw her again. But this week I got an sms from her.

Ariel: I have receipts, you told me the movie would pay them?

Me: Yes, how much?

Ariel: 3000rmb

Me: What? It can not be 3000rmb!!!

Ariel: Let me check again

Ariel: Yes, it is 3000rmb! You pay?

Me: No I will not pay 3000rmb, It can not be 3000rmb!

Ariel: Maybe you don’t know everything, maybe I had meeting about movie when you don’t know I had meeting.

Me: I know everything! I know when you were working on the movie, I know when you were in school!

Ariel: Can the receipts be from last year?

Me: NO! They can only be from the day’s you were working on the movie!!!

Ariel: So you will not pay my receipts from last year?

Me: No I will not pay. Only when you worked on the movie!

I haven’t gotten any more sms’s or requests about paying all her receipts, but I must admit, she’s got some nerve asking me to pay her bills dating back a year before she actually met us and was hired for the film. But I guess you can always try.

Iceland FC nearly ready

2010-02-26T14:39:00.001+08:00

Just got word from our editors in Iceland that the film was screened for the production company. People liked it but it still needs to be shortened. So, some fixes will be made in the coming weeks and then we should be ready for the final stages. I’m still trying to think of a better title than Iceland FC, Larger than life was already used by another Icelandic documentary, but I’m leaning towards just simply Crazy Football Fans?

Bonsai Girl – The Migrant Actresses

2010-02-23T09:29:00.001+08:00

Picture: The three actresses, from left: The asylum escapee, the motherly one, the hooker. The pimp is between them and our set designer holding the script.

We had been told that if we needed actors they were to be found every morning at the front gate of Beijing Film Studios. Migrant workers who aspire to become the next Gong Li or Jackie Chan gather every day at the main gate and wait for producers or directors to walk by, cast them and make them famous. So, after searching without success for an actress to play The Bonsai Girl’s mother, we resorted to the front gate of The Beijing Film Studio. We needed a woman, around 40-50 years old and preferably a passable actress, but mostly just cheap.

We arrived around 9.00am, seeing mostly young men standing around, one of them came up to us and asked what we were looking for. As soon as people noticed that we were having an actual discussion about our needs and that we were in fact looking for actors, we were surrounded by hopefuls and a bit of a mob mentality ensued. We could still only see men and tried to be clear that we needed a woman, most of the men said it would be no problem for them to act a woman, it all depended on how much we were willing to pay them. Finally, we explained to them that there’s two kinds of movies made in Europe – it’s the cross gender sexual explorations that they make in Spain and south Europe and then there’s the bleak dark reality that we make in Scandinavia and north Europe … we come from that latter school of European film making. So that explained, the first guy who spoke to us promised us he’d get us what we needed. He told some of the younger guy’s to escort us into the parking lot – for privacy – since the auditions were about to begin. He started making phone calls and later we would come to the conclusion that he acted as a sort of a acting coach/pimp, and the self appointed leader of these migrant actors.

Five minutes later we had three “actresses” lined up, all the right age. One was the shy type – a motherly woman who looked the role, another was the slutty – one step away from being a hooker type and did not look the role, the third was a spaced out woman who seemed like she’d just escaped from some asylum and did not seem to fully understand where she was or what she was doing. Great, we had choices!

We asked if we could make them act a scene from the movie, using our set designer as the little girl and then the three women would act out a scene. “Showing anger and emotion without facial expressions or hand gestures – and no tears” was the advice of the director. First up was the motherly shy woman, she wasn’t great, very shy, very introverted … but with some direction, she was passable. Next up was the hooker type – over the top, over acting, tears, emotion, anger, shouting … she didn’t get the directions but at least she acted and if we could make ourselves understood then she also was passable. The asylum escapee had by that time left, wandered off and disappeared.

I told the director that personally I liked the hooker, I felt it would be easier for him to tone her down rather than add something to the mother type. I did warn him though that at that particular moment I might have been thinking with something else than my brain. The director stepped aside for a moment to think things over. Then the hooker type actress came over and asked me who I was, I told her I was the producer. When she had made sure that being a producer meant you made the money decisions she started negotiating … I offered 100 rmb per day, she offered to act for 500rmb per day and at lunch breaks she’d personally make sure I was happy … all included in the 500rmb. Here’s the basic conversation:

Producer: “We can pay you 100rmb per day”

Actress: “I think you will like better, you pay 500rmb a day”

Producer: “No, I won’t like that better”

Actress: “You rich, you make movie, I know you rich, 500 is cheap”

Producer: “It’s a European movie, so we’re not rich”

Actress: “You pay 500, I also make you happy man, make happy time every day”

Producer: “We have sex? you mean you will have sex with me?”

Actress: “Yes! 500 rmb, I act in movie … I give you good happy sex”

Producer: “Hmmm…”

At that moment the director interrupts our conversation and declares that he’s decided to choose the hooker type (well I can now stop with the type thing) … he’s decided to choose the hooker as his actress. The pimp comes over and ushers the hooker away and the deal is made for 200rmb per day, after some haggling. Haggling that does not include sex. We think we’ve made a deal and people are getting ready to leave, when suddenly the hooker starts shouting and screaming – the pimp runs over to her, slaps her face and rips her CV out of her hands, tearing it into pieces. Shouting at her all the time. The hooker actress then runs away.

The pimp comes over to us and tells us in a regretful tone that the hooker asked for 5000rmb per day, he felt angry at how un-professional she was and that it’s over, we can’t get her. Even if we had 5000rmb per day he would not recommend her because she doesn’t act in a professional manner. The pimp understands low budget film making and points to the motherly type, “how about her?” we take one look around, there’s no other woman present at that moment and we decide, yes OK. The motherly type actress is hired for 200rmb per day and that’s that.

We would later get a phone call from the hooker type asking for 150rmb per day, so for a few day’s we went back and forth between the two actresses and finally chose the motherly type and paid her the 200rmb. She turned out to be a fine actress and there was no sex involved.

Bonsai Girl – Final Day (of my involvement)

2010-02-19T20:20:00.001+08:00

Daisy the assistant producer (my assistant) had gotten us the location through a friend of hers, a courtyard café that her friend owns. Therefore she felt she had added responsibility on set followed by a bigger ego … followed by referrals to herself as the producer of the movie. Yes, not the assistant producer. Every single person that was contacted that day through anybody involved in the film would always ask for Daisy the producer, so it seems that her mutiny had started first thing in the morning. When I told our runners to go and fetch breakfast McDonald’s for the crew – Daisy was on her way personally to 7-11 buying sandwiches and noodles. Ensuring that most of the crew got a double fix of breakfast, most of the food going to waste. This would come back to haunt us – and is the fundamental reason why everything went to hell later that night.

The courtyard café I would later find out, was a front to try and sign us all up for a calligraphy seminar on weekends, with Daisy getting a cut of the profits. If we didn’t get out of the café before 6pm, we’d not only have to sign up for those lessons but also pay a 5000rmb fine.

Things went slowly for the first few hours, the director was in his groove this day thankfully and did a very good job with the actors, although the cameraman continued to be spaced out in his own world of knobs and buttons. The day’s before it had been me and Daisy trying to get people to work faster and finish on time, this time it was actually me and the director, Efraim … trying our best to get things done in a speedy manner. Why did Daisy all of a sudden decide to ask for continuous lunch breaks and food breaks for the little girl actress? Angrily declaring all the time that we were starving her … this only 45 minutes after the little girl’s second McDonald’s meal of the day. So, for a full one hour we watched the little girl on Daisy’s insistence eating another full meal – which she obviously couldn’t . There were other instances that day of our assistant producer delaying the shooting as much as possible, for what? To get us well over time and into a 5000rmb fine… yes, this was her friends place.

Finally after arguing with Daisy about her 4th attempt to not starve the little girl, I lost it and walked out, slamming the door behind me. For some reason – I’m afraid the director might have thought it was aimed at him, but it wasn’t – what was going on behind the scenes was miss Daisy trying to take over the whole production, something that she continues to do even if the film has long since stopped shooting.

In many way’s this was the day that the director came into his own, faced with an actor that just could not act, a little girl that suddenly become hungry every 30 minutes and two producers reaching boiling point, he managed to find solutions for the actors, which not everyone can handle given this kind of a situation. It’s a shame, because this was actually the first day that despite the over acting of one actor and all these problems, the director kept his cool and if it hadn’t been for me and my assistant thing’s would probably have gone much better. It’s a lesson that I learned, and of course what I expect of a producer, is that you always need to both encourage and protect your director. I’ll give producing a rest for the next foreseeable years, since I failed in every regard this time.

So, Daisy took over and got her rebellion – most of the crew stayed on not because of her, but because they believed in the director, he throughout the process managed to direct and lead like professional despite all the childish behavior of most of the other crew, including his autistic cameraman.

If the film turns out to be a good film it’s entirely thanks to the director, if on the other hand it turns out to be something it wasn’t meant to be, then he’s more than welcome to blame everybody else – and he’s entitled to it.

So, thanks Efraim Smits.

and Daisy knows what she can do…

Bonsai Girl – Ballad of … Tony

2010-02-16T15:27:00.001+08:00

Tony … “Hi I’m Tony, how’s it hanging?” our executive 14 year old producer. Not really 14 years old, but barely over his teen’s and he’s the man we all answer to. What does a kid who’s got it all do when he’s bored? He’s already bought enough designer clothes from Europe to last a life time, he’s already spending 20 hours a week in Toni&Guy for his latest hair “treatment”. He’s got the nice SLR camera and take’s off centered slanted “arty” photo’s that are just GODAMN wrong!! If you spend that much money on a camera, then why can’t you spend some money on LESSONS! He’s also got the latest Apple Powerbook and he fancies himself as a lady’s man – which he no doubt is. What does he need more? He needs respect … respect from who? The person that’s giving him all the money, his father. So Tony decides that the movie business is the way to go. So, he offers the director 8000rmb and becomes Executive producer, he can hang around on set, chat up the actresses or costume ladies and attend the premiere.

Tony was actually nice, and in many way’s did more than just deliver on the budget. He got us a van also and he even stepped in as a runner at one point, doing various errands for me and my assistant. I’d safely say that this movie couldn’t have been made without him. So thank you Tony. The van he got from us was the property of the Army, yeah the red army. So even though our camera and lights department was 50/50 Chinese and Foreign, the fact that the van was from the army meant that no Foreigner was allowed to touch it or come close to it. That meant that every time we unloaded or loaded up the van – with a lot of lights and heavy equipment … the western people could only sit around and drink coffee. Our two or three Chinese crew would be left alone to do all the work – it’s the army’s rule … not ours.

Other executive producers included my personal friend Julie from Ohio. Who sponsored the last day’s of shooting and also made sure we got our main actor Mr.Jiang. More on Mr.Jiang later.

So, this post is to give credit to Tony and Julie for being there and believing in the producer and the director of this fucked up production.

Bonsai Girl

2010-02-14T21:34:00.000+08:00

Just completed producing a short film by director Efraim Smits. It was interesting to say the least, both of us don’t speak any Chinese and we were attempting to make our first film in China, in Chinese and using mostly Chinese crew.

With a limited budget of RMB 8000 to work with, thing’s were always going to be tough. We had a schedule of 4 shooting day’s and after I walked off set and never returned the shooting schedule went to 6 day’s, and they said I wasn’t pulling my weight? No hard feelings, me and the director are still friends but it was a bust up between the two of us that ensured the filming went into total insanity and chaos in the final two day’s. It wasn’t really the issue of who was working more, it was more a case of the sensitive director not handling shouting and abuse from the insensitive producer during the 3rd day of shooting, when once again the DP had been drifting in and out of a self induced comatose and the director once again discussing the meaning of life with the 9 year old main actress … they were all set to be again 5-6 hours over the scheduled shooting time, when I the producer got a panic attack when told by the assistant producer that if we didn’t finish on time, we would have to pay 5000rmb for the location… meaning NO BUDGET at all. Therefore I went into AD mode (assistant directors) … and started screaming like any good AD would in that situation, my screaming meant that our sensitive souls from Latvia felt abused and therefore rather than abuse the any more I felt that I needed to make them go there own way and anyway, I’ve never had any aspirations to be a producer, since I’m already a director.

Thing’s were going badly from day one, with our DP being lost on his way to set, the lights not having arrived, the actors being made to wait at a McDonald’s because the filming location had not been opened for us, one actor not yet hired, At 8.00am the director was sent to Beijing Film Studios front gate to find an actor from a bunch of migrant workers who crowd around there every morning waiting to be discovered. He spent about 2 hours going through hopefuls and finally hiring one woman for 100 rmb per day. That was more than we were paying our one professional leading lady, who’s actually studied acting. Anyway, during those 2 hours our cameraman took a taxi by himself, him having just arrived from Latvia a day earlier – that was a big mistake. After having lost his way and wandered around Beijing for 2 hours the Taxi Driver finally found us. The DP and two of the lights crew then went to the lights rental company to find the required lights for shooting… they would return 3 hours later. Filming had been scheduled to start at 9.00am, we were ready to shoot at around 4.00pm. Shooting went slow – meaningless discussions about life and death and the soul searching of the heart to the Chinese actors who I felt only wanted to be told if they were good, bad, less or more. I’m not sure the 9 year old understood fully the method of Lee Strassberg, but my Latvian director tried his hardest to make her understand. But it wasn’t the director that was taking up most of the time, instead it was the Director of Photography (DP) who had that honor. It’s amazing how much you can fiddle with a camera, to his credit he had a great relationship with his Canon 5D Mark II, but that’s not the case with his crew, who he left standing around waiting for hours and then giving them aimless directions on where and how to set up for each scene – ensuring therefore that each day would go at least 4-6 hours over time. In our first day of shooting and also the second, that meant MONEY. Each hour we went over the scheduled time, our friendly landlady of the location would confiscate a light, a costume or an item from the set and demand 100 rmb more. In the end we went from having an oral agreement of paying 300rmb per day to paying 500rmb. The next day it would be 800rmb that we needed to pay her, or else we’d not get any of our lights back… And it’s thanks to our assistant producer and her insistence that she knew how to deal with Chinese landlady’s that we were already 700rmb over budget… If I had had it my way, the landlady wouldn’t have gotten a single yuan and we would have escaped from the location the first day and found another one for free the next day. But I trusted the Chinese “inside” information, something I’ll not do again, since you can still be a local and not understand when somebody is FUC**NG you up ass, you can still be a foreigner and understand when people are being greedy. When it comes to basic greed – it’s not about where you are from, it’s about who you are.

I have countless other stories from the shooting, that I might go into in the next few days.

The bottom line, no matter how the movie turns out, this was a real learning experience in how to make a film in China… or how not to do things.

Most people came out the other end, including the relationship between me and the director.

More stories from The Bonsai Girl to follow…

Larger Than Life – Crazy Football

2009-12-17T09:13:00.001+08:00

Just watched the latest edit of “Larger Than Life” working title, a documentary I made about Icelander’s obsession with The English Premiere League in football. It’s getting there, there’s now only a few changes that need to be made but all in all it’s looking OK. I’m still having doubts that this film will appeal to anybody outside of Iceland, since it focuses very much on Icelandic men and football.

The Tale of The Tree

2009-12-17T09:08:00.001+08:00

This year, while attempting to buy Christmas lights for my Christmas tree, in IKEA. I was reminded of a very different situation I got myself into last Christmas at the very same store. This time, while being told that the Christmas lights were all sold out and they wouldn’t be getting a new shipment until next Christmas, I simply accepted that and left without any thoughts of disappointing my children. Because unlike last year I now know that Christmas is readily available all over Beijing and if it’s Christmas tree’s or lights that you need, both Lady Street and The Flower Market are ready to bring Christmas to you.

Last year was a different situation for me. It was my first Christmas in Beijing. I was for some reason convinced that China didn’t do Christmas, that it would be impossible to find anything that would make my home in Beijing feel a bit more festive over the holiday period. I had done my research but for some reason I’d completely looked over the good people of Lady Street and their endless supplies of Christmas decorations. I’d instead found out that you could get a Turkey for 800rmb at one of the finer hotels in the city, yes they would even deliver it to your door on Christmas eve. I had also discovered that at the same establishment you could enjoy a Christmas buffet for the fair sum of 2888rmb, kids only 1888rmb, if they were below 110cm in height. They promised Santa Clause would arrive and sing a few songs. Last Christmas, like this Christmas, the economy crisis had already hit most people like me, I.e. Western people. Therefore a nice family get together in a 5 star hotel was and still is out of the question.

So, I turned to IKEA, the friendly Scandinavian superstore that gives you that Swedish feeling when you’re feeling homesick in Beijing. I thought IKEA would be my oasis for Christmas and that I’d find all my holiday needs met there. I was right, but so were a lot of other people. IKEA wasn’t only catering Christmas needs to the few ex-pat’s in town, they had convinced most of China that the IKEA way of doing Christmas was the only way of doing it, so the store was packed with locals buying anything and everything related to the holidays. They had the Christmas lights last year and plenty of them, but last year they’d sold out the tree’s and weren’t expecting any of them until the following Christmas a year later. My guess is that people were too busy buying the tree’s without having evolved to decorating them, which would explain why the lights are sold out this year, but there’s plenty of tree’s available.

It was the night before Christmas, I had decided that we needed a Christmas tree. Even though I’d managed to get all the necessary foods, bought and wrapped all the gifts, found the church, baked the Christmas cake, a tree was still needed. I arrived in IKEA to be told that all the tree’s were sold out, I’d left it so late that I was faced with a choice of a Christmas without a tree or I’d take things into my own hands and do something about it, right there and then in IKEA, I knew that there was no place else to go. Having just arrived in China and been given a crash course at bargaining in establishments such as Yashow and The Silk Market, I thought I might as well give it a shot here. So I pointed to the tree in the window display and asked “how much?”. The employee told me it’s only for display and not for sale. I told him that for me it’s for sale and just name the price and I’ll take it. He thought about this and then asked me to wait, a little later he returned with his shift manager who I’ll call Mr.Wang. Mr.Wang told his employee to leave us alone then he looked at the window display and asked if that’s what I wanted to buy, I said yes and he quickly named his price, we haggled a bit about whether the decorations would be included or not and in the end I managed to get the price down to 300rmb with decorations, Mr.Wang then took the plastic tree down and stuffed it into a big black bag, took my money, ushered me out the back door and wished me a merry Christmas. I arrived home to the delight of my children with a big stolen plastic tree in hand. Christmas had arrived in Beijing. Mr.Wang the entrepreneur had made sure my family got the Christmas they deserved that year. In fact he’d introduced me to the concept that China is what you want it to be. Anything you need, anytime and for both parties it’s a win win situation.

This year I bought my Christmas lights legally at The Flower Market next door to Lufthansa Center. But I’m sure Mr. Wang is willing to sell the window display in IKEA if you’re desperate enough.

60 million no longer there!

2009-12-14T11:06:00.001+08:00

The Icelandic film fund has gone back on it’s word to fund my next feature film BALDUR, and the 50% funding towards the budget of Baldur has been taken away. That leaves us at square one, with an option to re-apply for the film fund and most likely get turned down or be funded with a much lesser amount.

This is due to cut backs that government of Iceland is imposing on the film fund. All funding to feature films has been cut back 30%. This means that feature films no longer can expect figures like 60.000.000. It does not surprise me that our film has had it’s funding taken away, since the initial funding was quite a high number. But the sad thing is that the film fund is now money driven and they are losing a chance of being culturally relevant by supporting our film. Our film is the only feature film in pre-production that addresses the economy state of Iceland head on and the crisis that is happening in the country right now. But rather than fund a project on this subject the film fund would rather keep their money, keep their staff, keep their offices and fund nothing or next to nothing… certainly it seems that when it comes to subjects, they do not want film makers to be dealing with the situation.

I’ve already started plans for feature films outside of Iceland. I still have hope in making Baldur as I truly believe it’s an important film in the history of Icelandic film. It’s a movie that in these times needs to be made. But if the film is still finding it hard to get off the ground in 2010, then I will continue my journey in trying to make films abroad. There sadly doesn’t seem to be much of a future for The Icelandic Film Industry.

In development are projects in Latvia, China and Ireland.

Larger Than Life - documentary

2009-11-03T14:18:00.001+08:00

Just watched the rough cut of Larger Than Life, my documentary about Icelandic fans of The English Premier Football League. It’s looking good and should be a lot of fun for people interested in football, I might even think for those not interested in football. We need to do a few changes and then it’s about ready.

Credit Crunch Movie delayed because of Credit Crunch!

2009-10-22T11:01:00.001+08:00

My next feature film, that has been scheduled to go into production this year will be delayed until, hopefully, sometime in 2010. This is due to the massive cut-backs that The Icelandic Film Fund has suffered and the re-organization of their funds due to that. The film is a dark comedy that deals in part with the financial situation in Iceland. Very ironic, all of this…

Screening a Success.

2009-10-21T13:35:00.001+08:00

Beijing screening was a success, various diplomats and Chinese officials were present to watch A Man Like Me, there was a full house of 140 people and afterwards I did an interesting Q&A where the Chinese audience asked me the same question in various different ways about 4-5 times… I managed to answer that question in 4-5 different ways. There was some media coverage of the event in the local Beijing papers.

Screening tonight

2009-10-15T10:49:00.001+08:00

I’m getting ready for my first screening of A Man Like Me in China. The film has a Chinese connection as it stars Hong Kong Actress Stephanie Che as a Chinese immigrant in Iceland, part of the film was also shot in mainland China and Hong Kong. So it’s good that finally after all these years I’m able to show it here in Beijing.

I’ve heard that the former Chinese ambassador to Iceland has been invited and will attend. He helped us during our production back in 2001, both with Visa issues for the crew and introducing us to the Chinese community in Iceland. This will be the first time he actually see’s the film.

The picture is from a party the ambassador held for the actors and crew, ambassador on the left and me on the right.

Screening Beijing: A Man Like Me

2009-10-13T15:06:00.000+08:00

My second film A Man Like Me (2002) will be screened as part of a Nordic Mini Film Festival in the 798 Art District, Beijing. This Thursday 15.October and a public screening on the 21.October 2009. I will be attending the screening on the 15th and doing a Q&A after the film.

Here’s more information:

City Weekend: A Man Like Me screening

IMDB.COM: A Man Like Me

Best Bar in The World

2008-11-12T00:59:00.004+08:00

My favorite bar in Beijing is Ichikura - Japanese Cocktail Bar. It's basically just a room with a long bar and about 12-15 bar stools by it. It does have two small private rooms for the occasional American tourists or Japanese Business Men, the American tourists being the one's that usually need a room - since they all travel in groups. Anyway, it's a tiny bar with three staff. The main bartender, who's an expert on Whiskey and is Japanese, he'll talk about anything if that's what the customer wants, so basically a good bartender. Then there's the two waitresses on either side of the bar, there's usually the ugly one and then the pretty one. Sometimes it's two Chinese girls and sometimes it's two Japanese girls. The great thing about this bar is that very few people know about it, you can usually be certain that apart from you the only other customer is usually either the lonely Japanese businessman falling asleep over the bar or the lonely Japanese businessman and his mistress about to leave for something more private. There's no music, the walls are black, the lighting is dim, there's a carpet on the floor - everything is as minimalistic and quiet as it can possibly get... They have probably the largest whiskey collection in Beijing and they do make the best Mojitos in town also. Before the Olympics the whole surrounding area was being re-built, so you actually had to walk trough the living quarters of migrant workers and up scaffolding before entering the bar... that made the the experience of Ichikura even more remote and unique, now the surrounding are has been cleaned up - but it's still not that easy to find. Of course - this being a High Class Japanese Cocktail bar - for businessmen - there is a Japanese massage parlor upstairs, thankfully though ... there's no Kareoki to be seen anywhere. I can't comment on the massage place upstairs since I haven't been there but I assume it's of the same standard as the bar itself. Being in Ichikura often feels like an art-house movie, where you sit and sip an expensive whiskey while talking your troubles away to the bartender - it's more Lost in Translation than James Bond.

China Syndrome

2008-11-12T00:22:00.002+08:00

Everybody has the same idea here in China, I'm talking specifically about ex-pats or westerners living and working in China. Film directors, writers or anybody vaguely connected to the arts. In many ways, this is the land to have one brilliant idea and have everybody else copy it, if it works then why change it? But one of the main reasons why nearly every brilliant idea you come up with for a film or a documentary subject or even a novel is old the moment you've thought of it, is because most ex-pats have a very very shared experience here. Just when you thought that the documentary about everyday life's of Beijing people would be something people would want to see ... you hear about the amateur video movie maker that's been doing that for the last 5 years, and he's become a celebrity in the process. Just when you thought that making a movie about modern Beijing girls and their Gucci bags was an original idea - you see the bookshelf's lined with such novels, mostly written by either ex-pat women or ABC's (American Born Chinese). There's so many bad books going around, bad documentary's - all made by ex-pats, western, abc's etc... one or two ideas and then everybody writes or directs that defining work about "the real china". Bullshit all of it. I've had my fair share of that one idea - like documenting the "real" life of towns and villages across the Great Wall. Or doing a portrait of Beijing through a Taxi Driver or some other typical ignorant and dumb person. Most of these ideas, most of these stories, most of these western portraits all share one thing in common, a smug - I know better than you - condescending tone and attitude of a writing style. It's a huge country, with billions of people and many faces... why do the ex-pat writers try and cover all those voices in their one China book? I have no idea - it is of course one of the reasons why most authors in the world have only written one book, most directors have only directed one movie. You try and put all your ideas, all your life, all your opinions into that one piece. For your second work, you've got nothing left.

For my China movie or China novel or China whatever I choose to do... because, despite my misgivings, I like the rest of them, really need to write something down, to either write or shoot something about something here in China.

I think I'll stick with what I know best, Scandinavians. I don't really know or care about the ex-pat community that I belong to here in Beijing, so that does not interest me. But who says you can't make a bleak, dark, Bergman drama in Beijing? It's what we do best and it's what I will stick to for now. So watch out for another Scandinavian movie trying to be Bergman, but this time it's set in Beijing.

Stuck in China

2008-11-09T22:43:00.000+08:00

Since nobody reads the filmdouglas "news" on this blog, I think I have 0 subscribers. I might as well just start blogging about anything and everything. I'll keep it movie related so that this still feels like the official Filmdouglas.com news site, or something.

It's getting close to the one year mark since we first delayed the movie BALDUR. We originally intended to shoot the film in February 2008 but have still not shot a single frame. I've been close to firing my producer on a number of occasions, closest when for 3 months last summer, when we were supposedly going to shoot in August, she went missing. After a meeting with Irish co-producers and The Irish Film Fund in Cannes that did not go so well, my producer left and nobody heard anything for 3 months. So, my co-producers in Iceland ... who originally had about 30% stake in the movie were left as the main producers. Thankfully, even if they are slow - painfully slow, they've still gotten us closer to shooting the movie than we have been before. My producer has reappeared and is still on board. It will take more than my entry on this blog today to explain why she's still on board. Anyway, our co-producers still have a project of mine that was written in 2005 that is lying somewhere in their office being processed. Now I've got another film, Baldur that seems to be heading the same way. Hopefully we'll start soon - at least being slow is better than being a criminal, but stories of my ex producers from my first three films will also have to wait a better day. Right now I'm stuck in China, economy crisis in Iceland - I'd be a mad man to use my credit card or ATM machines over here - buying a beer in Beijing has doubled in price for me - yet the price remains the same for people who earn their money here, of course. I can still not completely commit to anything in China and start to earn some real RMB - because we're always a month or two away from shooting... but that month or two has now been nearly a year.

I've been offered a directing job on some ultra low Chinese exploitation movies - Kung Fu Soap Opera films with no budget. It's a 7 man crew, 7 day's shoot and a 90 min movie ... straight to the Pirated DVD market I would guess. Of course all the big "legal" distributors in China are the same people who do all the pirating, just in case nobody knew that. Yeah, the budget of the movie would be around 50.000 dollars and the director would get about 5000 dollars for his trouble of showing up and directing for 7 days... it's all in Chinese, but it doesn't seem that language would be a problem on these sets. At least I was told that I'd just need to direct and maybe I'd get a translator... it's not really the dialogue that's the selling point of the films anyway, or the acting for that matter. Let's see how it goes in the next few months. I might be in Iceland making an expensive Scandinavian dark humored drama with some aspirations for film festival prizes or I might be in Beijing doing a straight to DVD kung fu crapper with some aspirations towards making us semi rich... well making the producers rich.

(the photo is from one of these "cheap" movies. The director who is holding the walkie-talkie never stood up from his monitor and only directed through this device.)

Baldur re-writes

2008-10-17T09:24:00.000+08:00

BALDUR is going through some last minute re-writes, shooting is scheduled in the upcoming months. BALDUR is a feature film to be directed by Robert I. Douglas. The screenplay is written by Ottar Geir Borg and Robert I. Douglas. The film is a co-production between ALBRID ehf. and ZIK ZAK films. The story centers around BALDUR, a man who decides to take the day off and behave badly, losing all his morality in the progress. One of the main changes in the current re-writes is to change him from being a lawyer to a banker, which is a more current theme considering Iceland's situation at the moment.

Hot Pot Synopsis

2008-10-17T09:21:00.000+08:00

Film Douglas has acquired the option of "Hot Pot" a screenplay written by Tara Wilkinson. Below is a short synopsis of the story.

What would you do if you found a video of your late mother having sex with a man you didn’t know? Sarah, a lonely fourteen year old, decides to track the man down in a hope he will satisfy her curiosity about her mother. Sarah’s investigation is complicated by her failure to disclose its purpose - or even mention her mother - to the man in the video. She constructs elaborate lies to conceal her actions from her father and sister. But Sarah discovers she is not the only one with something to hide.

Film Douglas Options Screenplay by Australian screenwriter

2008-10-06T21:07:00.000+08:00

Film Douglas has optioned "Hot Pot" (Working Title) by Tara Wilkinson. The screenplay was originally set in Australia but is being re-written for an Icelandic setting. The screenplay is a coming of age story about a young handicapped girl and her small family of an older sister and their father.

Talks with actor

2008-10-04T15:25:00.000+08:00

We are in on-going talks with a major celebrity in Iceland to play the leading role of Baldur. This is a celebrity that is not afraid of the role itself and is eager to act in the movie, the main stumbling block being his availability. He has indicated that he's fully booked during our scheduled shooting. But we are trying to find ways to resolve these issues. Shooting was and still is scheduled for November, but the clock is ticking and we'll have to see if we need to delay the film for another 2-3 months.

Credit Crunch

2008-10-01T21:02:00.000+08:00

Just when we thought we'd be able to start shooting BALDUR the credit crunch hit's Iceland the hardest. So, we're running into various problems... nothing that can't be sorted out. Our main problems these day's seems to be finding a "big" name actor for the leading role, somebody who isn't afraid of the script and who isn't constantly worrying about their image, which seems to be the case with most celebrities in Iceland. Our money men want a celebrity, but the celebrities have so far been scared of jumping on board this "brutal", "dark" and "nasty" film, to quote some of them.