The Art of Madness - Clip 2 - 'Inspiration'

As promised here is the second clip from 'The Art of Madness' entitled 'Inspiration'.  Enjoy!

The Art of Madness - Clip 1 - 'The colours look fantastic'

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you will have noticed in my previous post the tantalizing image that I posted of an earnest looking artist contemplating his work as a mysterious and sultry woman sits on a sofa behind him.  This is in fact, as some of you might have guessed, a still from my latest short film 'The Art of Madness'.

The film centres around Stanley, a struggling artist, who must create the masterpiece of his life before he looses his livelihood and, more importantly, his sanity.

I had an incredibly fun time working on 'The Art of Madness', with an absolutely amazing cast and crew.  I'm looking forward to seeing people's responses to the film, and I'll keep you all fully up to date with its progress at film festivals.  In the mean time here is the first clip from the film entitled 'The colours look fantastic'.  Look out for more clips and a trailer coming soon!

The Art of Madness

The Madness is coming...

A Poem for Lovers on IMDb!

A Poem for Lovers is now on IMDb!  Please check out the link below to see!  Very exciting!!

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2723214/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Festivals...

So at the moment I'm very busy sending A Poem for Lovers to as many film festivals as I possibly can in the hope that maybe a few of them might fancy screening my charming little short for the general public.  When you get ready to send a film to a film festival there are all sorts of forms that you have to fill in in order for the festival to consider your submission. 

One thing you are often requested to write is something called a 'Director's Statement', which is essentially a short statement outlining what the Director hoped to achieve and what the rationale for the project was that he/she eventually created.  I recently wrote one for A Poem for Lovers and I thought it would be a nice little insight for my loyal readers to see what was going through my mind when I first thought of making the film :)  So here it is, enjoy! And please let me know what you think in the comments:  

A Poem for Lovers will always be significant for me, as it is really my first attempt at writing and directing a short film.  I spent many months carefully considering the nature and subject matter of Poem, highly conscious of the fact that ‘firsts’ do matter and that it could play a very important part in defining myself as a filmmaker and showing any audience I might build what sort of films I may end up creating in the future. 

As such I was not in any way disappointed by my first directorial endeavour.  I was able to exactly capture the mood and tone of what I wanted to put on screen.  This was made especially possible through the wonderful performances of Ian Hencher and Sophie Grace-Hill; the atmospheric and enchanting score of Shamoon Khatri; and the extraordinary and exciting cinematography of Kai K. Krause.  I was able to use all of these elements to create a dark, brooding, beautiful but macabre world of thoughtfulness, melancholy, and psychological pain. 

When writing the script for Poem my aims were essentially two-fold.  The first of these aims was to explore the theme of jealousy and examine its impact upon the mind and upon an individual’s behaviour.  One of the things that fascinates me the most about the nature of jealousy as an emotion is how often it is unjustifiably invoked by those who indulge in it, and how its emotional inducement is often the cause of uncontrolled excess in the form of love or, more often than not, possessiveness.  In Poem it is deliberately unclear as to whether Kate is guilty of sharing her emotions with someone else besides Adrian, but this fact is irrelevant as, like Othello before him, it is ultimately his own imaginings that precipitate his struggle and ultimate downfall. 

The second aim I had for Poem was to explore the effect that memories can have on us and the various ways in which they can be unearthed.  The power of words, and their role in exciting specific memories, is also an idea that the film explores.  Words, as well as images, have always fascinated me, and since writing and literature had played such an important part in my life leading up to the creation of my first film, I was very keen to find a way of paying homage to the art form when constructing Adrian’s story.  

I am incredibly proud of what my team and I achieved when we made A Poem for Lovers.  It marks the beginning of my journey as a filmmaker, and makes a number of statements that I want people to listen to and take on board.  My only hope is that people enjoy watching A Poem for Lovers as much as I enjoyed making it. 

A Poem for Lovers Clips

Below are a number of clips from my first Short film A Poem for Lovers.  Hope you enjoy them!  Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think!

A Poem for Lovers - Clip #1 - The Argument