DFG Docs

Sean McAllister tells of the work involved in attending a major festival and the financial struggle to get your work seen...

The making of a film is hard enough and sometimes its success is gauged by how well it does on the festival market. I've made films that haven't been picked up by major festivals and felt that in some way they'd failed. They were not seen or considered good enough to be shown on the festival circuit. The coolest festival for me has always been Sundance but it wasn't until this year when my new film The Liberace of Baghdad was accepted along with 11 other films for world competition at Sundance that I began to question exactly why it had become known as the coolest film festival in the world.

The film I'd made under exceptional circumstances, I'd taken a risk in filming over eight months in Iraq at its most dangerous and turbulent times. I'd had to re-mortgage my house to carry on making the film after the 70k budget ran out. So there was a lot at stake. I needed to sell the film (I'm still waiting to sell the fucker!!) I knew that an American sale would come if we got into Sundance, so that's how important it was to me. It could be worth 100k-200k sale - and give the film a chance of being released theatrically. (As well as getting the truth of what is happening that TV world news has denied the world.)

The film was commissioned by BBC Storyville (50k) and TV2 Denmark (4k pre sale, 16k advance in return for acting as world TV sales agent). After the first screening Nick Fraser suggested I send the film to Diane Weyerman director of Documentary program, as did another friend Alex Cooke. Diane saw a rough cut and liked the film. She passed it to her advisory committee and we didn't hear anything. In the time that passed both The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and the Berlin Film Festival rejected the film. My heart began to drop thinking of the money/house I had, and still have, on the line with this film. It is at this point you realise how important a film festival is. If Sundance had not accepted this film, it would have been deemed unworthy by the few main festivals. It would have had a worthless BBC4 screening to almost nobody and that would be it.

Then I got the call from Sundance, it had been accepted. I was saved. When the announcement went official I was receiving 20-30 emails a day from all the major US companies. I had Miramax and Universal call me up at home whilst I'm cooking my tea. I couldn't quite understand it. I was beginning to get a sense of what was to come in Sundance. But before then I had to find more money to make a HD master, make an EPK, employ a publicist, make posters, badges, T-shirts. We got money from the Film Council and some other European fund to cover some of this. The preparations for Sundance took about two months work in itself. I was also arranging for Samir, the star of the film, to come over from Iraq which meant getting him a US visa.

Sundance in many ways was far from glamorous, I took a load of mates to create the 'Liberace entourage', we were sleeping seven to a room with two beds. I'd heard that other filmmakers were literally homeless over there. The only glamour I saw were glimpses from the odd champagne reception here and there. Actually there were so many events with free food and wine there was no need to ever eat out. We'd employed the publicists who'd looked after 'SuperSize Me' the previous year at Sundance. They did a buyout fee for $6,000, half of what they normally charge.

The ten-day event felt like a series of interviews really, newspaper, telly, radio. The 'Liberace entourage' of seven people were out fly postering, handing badges out and making our presence felt. We used Samir to maximum capacity, for the publicists it was better than having a celebrity. We had five screenings over ten days. The first screening seemed quite strange to me, I couldn't gauge the American response and was naturally very anxious. I was later consoled by the great Werner Herzog, which was very cool. But after each screening the word of mouth got about and the film became more and more talked about. People would be stopping Samir for autographs wherever we went.

By the end of the ten grueling days was the awards ceremony when we received a Special Jury Prize. The award has helped create more interest in the film - but we still haven't sold it. Having spent up my re-mortgage money on the film I've just found a real cool 6.9% interest deal with Cahoot who gave me 20k in 20 minutes online. I'm still waiting for the sun to shine from my Sundance win.

See the original article on the DFG Docs website.

Broadcast, 12 November 2004

The price of a vocation. Fresh from remortgaging his house in order to make a film about Iraq, Sean McAllister asks why passionate film-making is so undervalued and poorly rewarded in television

WHEN I decided to take a career in television I was under the illusion that I might also make a living out of making films. For a few years I did just that. I've made five films in my short TV career. All of these films were given significant funding and have gone on to find considerable international audiences, through festivals and foreign broadcasters. But recently, I have had to remortgage my house and worse still, spend the kids savings just to finish my latest film, The Liberace of Baghdad, which premieres at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival this Saturday.

The experience leaves me wondering what it was that attracted me to television in the first place.

I left behind factory life 20 years ago in search of a career as a documentary filmmaker. Television was my education and inspiration, so great was the British tradition in documentary film-making. My first taste of television was being given a mini-DV camera and sent to my hometown to find a story. My film was about an unemployed man who refused to work. He'd been on the dole for 18 years, I'd been on the dole after leaving the factory and could relate to him. I had great freedom making the film, but over the nine months of filming I was only paid for 10 shooting days (at £150 a day). As a result, I signed on to survive. One week I was in the job centre filming my character sign on and the next week I was there with him trying to hide my face.

I'd just graduated from the National Film and Television School after six years of training in documentary film-making. I was happy to have worked for some of television's best documentary strands. The BBC's 'Modern Times' where I made the film Minders. It became the BBC's highest rating Iraq film, getting an audience of over 2.5 million at 9pm, with a healthy budget of £110,000. I worked for the great Channel 4 series 'True Stories' with budgets of £160,000 on international films. Both series have been axed as television moves to more entertainment-style programming leaving BBC's 'Storyville' to stand alone.

But 'Storyville' only has small budgets and it needs film-makers to find co-finance. When I wanted to make another film in Iraq early this year it seemed the only viable option. It could only offer £50,000 but managed to raise £20,000 from TV2 in Denmark. I managed to find a way of delivering the film for £70,000 by only shooting for 12 weeks and deferring all my fees.

I'd wanted to return to Iraq for sometime since the fall of Saddam and felt the media coverage since the war had been appalling. The only documentaries I'd seen were ones about American soldiers in combat or current affairs films like 'Panorama'. I think documentaries can and should go further.

I've spent seven months on and off in Iraq filming this year. I didn't know what was going to happen in January when I began filming. I found an interesting character to follow the events through and had a commissioning editor, Nick Fraser, who supported me and trusted my judgment.

I was interested in one central question that all the numerous news reports couldn't answer: "What was 'liberation' actually like for ordinary Iraqis?" I shot for twice as long as I was budgeted, as I was banged up in my hotel during the most dangerous bout of kidnappings in April when journalists were being pulled out. One friend is still missing. The pressures were bad enough filming in Iraq, but in these circumstances I found more use in a financial advisor than a producer. I arranged a remortgage on my house to take the pressure off things at home in the 11 months of making my film.

I wasn't alone in Iraq though. Around me were other established film-makers such as Sean Langan who could not get commissioned as he was told that Iraq wasn't a story, the war had finished. Undeterred he took a bank loan to come out. At least I had the BBC flak jacket! I would lend it to him as he headed off into Fallujah each day. When Sean Langan's film 'Mission Accomplished: Langan in Iraq' went on be a great success on BBC4, (which bought it in for peanuts) the BBC took the credit. But where was it when he really needed it? BBC2 offered him £15,000 to repeat his 90-minute film, an indication of the kind of risk-taking that is going on in British television.

I know many people who are content just making films, they don't have families and don't have to make a living. Television needs audiences and ratings are important. But too much TV today is commissioned from the top and handed down through the ranks. The vetting process takes the spark, the adventure, the excitement out of the programme however much it may guarantee the audience.

I seldom see anything surprising on television. What makes a film different is a vision, a person behind the camera with an opinion, someone who cares about what they are doing. Not someone who makes competent films and gets paid for caring. I will get paid if my film sells, but I'm not sure I can keep remortgaging my house.

I became a film-maker because of great documentaries on television. TV is nothing without them. It is up to the film-makers to take risks and often not get paid but it should be the responsibility of the broadcasters to at least meet us half-way. As the edit drew to a close my remortgage money was running out. I sought work in the pea factory I'd left many years ago to go into TV. Sadly, it had just closed down.

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