Three days in Sheffield to live fast and die pitching. Or the trials and tribulations of three Frenchies in the north of England…
It was last week. There was el productor Alexandre Brachet from Upian. There was Philippe Brault, who co-directed the webdoc Prison Valley. with me. There was Joël Ronez and Marianne Lévy-Leblond from Arte. It was in Sheffield. England. It was good. It was intriguing, fascinating.
It all took place round a small table. A small table to cut big deals, some mad laughter, sometimes the laughter of madmen. It’s called a ‘meetmarket »’, a cross between a meeting of independent artist-control freaks and a cattle market. There was this small table. And lots of name badges everywhere. With ‘Producer’ written on them. BBC. Channel 4. PBS. Twenty minutes to present your film, tell everyone your life story, arse around a bit, talk figures. And grin as much as your face can bear because, after all, none of this is really that serious and yet it’s so incredibly important. It always ends with a little bell. ‘Time!’
Among the many people we met were this couple from Passion Pictures. Good people, quick, smart, an English distribution company. When he said they’d done something with and about the band Gorillaz, we felt like hugging them. We told them that we played the track ‘Clint Eastwood’ every evening while we were shooting out in Colorado. Because you get fed up with country music after about five minutes, right? They cracked up and wished us luck. Indie or die.
There were some Canadians there too, French-speaking and otherwise, our mate Brett Gaylor (from Eyesteelfilm, who wrote the wicked ‘Rip ! A Remix Manifesto’), the people from the National Film Board of Canada, and the beady eyes of TV Radio Canada.
And then there was the woman from The Guardian website. Probably the best online newspaper in the world, right? When she put the headphones on to watch the intro to the film, we got slightly embarrassed and warned her: ‘You’ll see, you don’t see a single face for the first two minutes.’ She cracked up. ‘That’s very French!’ And then… And then… She promised to do all she could for us – the project was well worth it.
Everything else is confidential.
Back to editing this morning.