The Road...

Coming to our local Cineworld three weeks after release, I finally got to see the film version of Cormac McCarthy's moving and brutal post-apocalyptic father & son journey story The Road.

In 2008 I took part in a YouTube user collaborative project for Channel 4's "3 Minute Wonder" slot - everyone submitting footage that would then be re-edited into four short films that were inspired by McCarthy's Pulitzer Price winning book. At this stage I hadn't read the book - but got the jist of it before submitting my footage (which was one of the chosen pieces to be edited into the final films which showed during the last week of October 2008 on Channel 4).

Shortly afterwards I bought the book and was thoroughly impressed by the sparse verse that managed to convey such a strong sense of how an unexplained, but sweeping disaster, had turned the world into a cruel and vile place where the few good struggled endlessly against roaming gangs of cannibals (still few in number, but certainly out-numbering those refusing to succumb to cannibalism).

However, that is merely the world presented, the crux of The Road is "Man" and "Boy", a father and son who lumber on, following the road south to find a warmer climate, and how they cope along the way. It's a powerful and moving read, with some of the most heart-felt final pages ever written.

Similarly the film adaptation is uncompromisingly bleak in its presentation. The terrifying glimpses of cannibalistic behaviour in the book are now written large in brief moments of abject and visceral horror, but these are thankfully punctuated by quiet and caring moments between Viggo Mortenssen (perfect casting) and Kodi Smith-McPhee's (nailing the tone of his character from the book) "Man" and "Boy".

The discovery of a can of Coke (calm down "advertising!!!1!!!1!" freaks - it was in the book, and Coca Cola had to be personally convinced by Viggo himself to allow their product to be used), or sharing the spoils of a lucky find, or the father bathing his starving son - even the moment that they address the Man comes from a world entirely alien to that of the Boy, are all moving and fascinating moments.

While the book might go into more detail and speak of things that film can rarely show in such detail, the film is a more intense experience. You can put the book down every few pages if your reading time is brief, but the film grasps your attention for two whole hours and lays out the visuals in gritty, cold examination. So in terms of impact, it's a draw, but for different reasons on each side.

The book is a meandering journey with moments of sharp action or horror, so the film has a slow-burn pace that transcends your usual 'movie apocalypse' style. This isn't Mad Max, this is what the end of the world would really be like. It's harsh, cruel, bleak and at times intensely tragic - but in amongst it all are clutches of something brighter, of a glimmer of hope for the future no matter how uncertain it may be. Ultimately The Road (both book and film) is a rewarding experience. It most definitely isn't a barrel of laughs (duh), or a Hollywood action extravaganza (as one trailer so inexplicably painted it as) ... what it is, is a thoughtful and moving piece of filmmaking ... and it's a strong contender for my own personal Film of 2010.

As a side note to finish on, the score (by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis) is just superb. The pair had previously scored The Assassination of Jesse James (one of my all-time favourites), and proved they have unending skill and craft - with The Road, they have out-done themselves. Just like the film, the soundtrack is emotional and thought provoking. Incredible.

Memories of Falling Ash (2008)...

This short was made for the 2008 Frieze Film “Road Movie” YouTube project. They were looking for YouTubers to submit their own 3 minute long films, taking inspiration from Cormac McCarthy’s excellent book “The Road”.


From the submitted shorts, those behind the project selected a number (of which I was one) and proceeded to use the wealth of footage to put together four 3 minute shorts, which made up the aforementioned “Road Movie”. It was a really fun and creative project to get involved in, and it was a real joy to put together some really strong images in high contrast black & white (which suited the tone of the book perfectly, in my eyes).


The four segments were shown in October 2008 on Channel 4’s “3 Minute Wonder” showcase programme.

View the full length version of "Memories of Falling Ash" here:



Finally, you can view the Frieze Film 2008 YouTube channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/FriezeFilm2008

Frieze Film 2008 - YouTube links...

These are the original edits (the ones shown on Channel 4 were a smidge different, with certain gory images replaced) of the Road Movie project, viewables on YouTube.

Part One:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LW4cbIw3IW8

Part Two:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Qf4ci7QH8

Part Three:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tLe4lglgTGA

Part Four:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tTbcnolKJB8

Enjoy.

...

And yes, there's not been much blogging this month, not sure why ... guess I'm not feeling the blog-juice this month. Anyway, I'm in the midst of writer's block/frustration - trying to get my zombie epic script started ... I finished my X-Files marathon the other day, or about a week ago now actually, and am currently going through Mulder & Scully withdrawal, ha!

Oh yeah, I'm gonna get around to updating my showreel, so expect to see that sometime soon.

3 Minute Wonder - further details!

http://www.friezefoundation.org/film

Go to the above link and watch Parts 2 and 4 - where I have footage used.

Obviously everybody only gets brief bits used, as there was 2 hours of chosen footage edited down into four 3 minute shorts, but this means I've had stuff shown on Channel 4 prime time television, and of course I'm credited on the end credits - according to my YouTube channel name of course - which is ZombieWagon.

There's one of my shots (seemingly flipped vertically and horizontally) in the opening titles of each of the four films - again, high contrast black and white footage of the white road markings ... on a road, obviously.

Anyway, in Part 2 my footage is the two high contrast black and white shots driving along a road with a dull sky overhead, at 0:21 and 2:17. (I do actually think Part 2 is the best of the four, and not just because I've got the bulk of my exposure in there, but because I do think it's the best one generally speaking).

In Part 4 I have a brief shot used at 1:35 (grey image with 'ash' falling through the frame - it's originally snow of course).

So aye, on the grand scheme of things and comparitively speaking I have had a good amount of footage used - and of course my original, uncut film can be seen both on the Frieze Film 2008 YouTube page, as well as my own YouTube channel (as linked to in the links section on the right hand side of my blog).

As for air times - well, as I've got a shot used in the opening credits, that gets shown before all of the films, but as for the specific parts I'm further used in:

Part 2 - Tuesday 14th October 2008, Channel 4 at 7:55pm (or an hour later on C4+1)
Part 4 - Thursday 16th October 2008, Channel 4 at 7:55pm (or an hour later on C4+1)

And as previously noted at the top of this blog post, you can see all the films on the Frieze Film 2008 website.

Frieze Film 2008 - "Memories of Falling Ash"...

So I'm perusing around the internet, as you do, last night and came across this thing about Frize Film doing a thing about short, experimental films related to The Road, a book by Cormac McCarthy.

http://www.friezefoundation.org/film

I find this out on September 13th, and the deadline to get your films uploaded to YouTube is September 15th. I ponder over night what I could do for it, and revisit the site today - the 14th - and decide to have a go. So I went away, looked through a bunch of my previously shot, but as-yet unused footage, and put together a short experimental piece, in high contrast black & white.

I used music previously provided to me by Brian Wright (I've used his music previously on a few of my shorts) and just dived right in and put it together quite quickly as I was quite enjoying the immediacy of it all - especially getting to use footage I'd shot ages ago for projects that either went nowhere, or shots that were simply never used on other projects, or simply footage that was shot to just have - just in case they were needed, such as now.

So, with the project being about a post-apocalyptic road journey, I decided to follow the 'ashen landscape' route (which is one element of the visuals mentioned in the book - so I've read about anyway, I haven't read the book - but now certainly plan to do so, as it sounds right up my street).

I took footage of driving along a road, which was fortunately mostly empty (so I cut out any passing vehicles) on a rainy, dull day and combined it with footage I'd shot a good couple of years ago now of when we last had snow - which, in high contrast black and white, looks like falling ash upon an ashen landscape.

The notion of the film, is that we're seeing the perspective of a passenger who is journeying through a barren landscape, but keeps having flashes of memories (that appear almost like photographs) of the ashen landscape - these memories denoted by quick fades between the road and the memories, to signify the person blinking in and out of reality.

So indeed - that's what it's about, and I'm currently uploading it to YouTube - so check it out there within the new few hours (it's September 14th at 6pm as I'm writing this).

I've certainly rarely put something together so quickly, and rarely had as much fun and sense of freedom as I have done with this little experimental short.

*Additional*

Just thought I'd mention the tractor with trailer at one point, in case anybody thinks "er, post-apocalypse with a tractor, you wot?" - well, for one, it's not an apocalypse where everyone has died, and for two it's a reference to an idea in the videogame STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, in which they have "death trucks" that bring dead men out from the centre of the zone - so the tractor and trailer in my little experimental short, that's supposed to be a sort of death truck if you will - that's the idea behind that shot, so just in case you were wondering, there you go.