Case Study: Ed Blum

For many modern British directors short films are the first step on the career ladder. It happened this way for Ed Blum, who made his feature debut with the A-list Scenes Of A Sexual Nature in 2006. However, even after earning a BAFTA nomination for his eight-minute comedy The Last Post (1995), Blum still had to navigate a circuitous route to the big screen. Here he talks about the mixed blessing of awards buzz and how he bypassed the usual hurdles of film distribution.

First interest in filmmaking...

"I suppose it was watching Barry Norman and 'Film whatever' in the 80s that first sparked my interest in filmmaking. I was always fascinated by feature films. My bug for drama really started in the theatre - I did a lot of drama at school. Then at university I studied acting but realised I didn't care for that, so I started writing and directing plays. I still love the theatre, but my real passion is feature films - with film I love the idea of opening all around the world, whereas that doesn't happen so much with a theatre production. Also I think theatre appeals to a much narrower audience and I enjoy the idea that a larger variety of people go to the cinema."

Starting on shorts...

"I wrote and directed a play on The Fringe [at the Edinburgh Festival] and it was a year's work and maybe only a thousand people saw it. I just thought, 'Wow! There's no money in this and it's a really small audience!' Then I produced a short film and doing that I realised that it's not a huge amount of work as long as you have a good script. I can't even remember the name of it now! But soon after that I was given a script by a guy called Stephen Plaice - who's now quite an established writer - and he was part of a theatre group down in Brighton who did a whole series of short plays. One of those plays was The Last Post and when I read it I just thought it would make a fantastic short film.

"We made The Last Post for £2,000, shot on 35mm, and it was just one big blag. We didn't have enough film stock so we took a trolley round to collect other people's short ends. A bit of Kodak, a bit of Fuji - we had a pile of half-used stock. And our cameraman went to Panavision and they opened their fridge and there was some brand new Fuji stock in there, which they just gave to us.

"Of course making short films is also a great way to learn your trade because you can show people - more so than in television - that you have your own style and your own vision. And the process of setting up a short film is not unlike the process of setting up an ultra low-budget feature film. You have to put some guidelines in place to keep costs down."

On success...

"Getting a BAFTA nomination for The Last Post opened a lot of doors but it led to bad choices. I was really inexperienced, but I was taken on by ICM [a major talent agency]. I should have gone to a much smaller agency because I ended up being a very small fish in a very big pond. At that stage in my career it wasn't the best thing to do. The work I got after The Last Post was mainly from me pursuing people. I directed two episodes of The Bill and I came off that thinking that I needed to get more directing experience. So I joined Crimewatch, because I'd already trained as a journalist for the BBC. I just felt that I needed to get my hands dirty directing, so then I did a load of drama and documentary for television."

The UK film industry...

"Rather than the film industry, I'd say that the massive well-oiled machine in this country is the TV industry. I think that most writers, directors and producers work in television. It really is very professional and well organised - some people might dispute that! - and produces thousands of hours of drama each year. Even though there's a huge amount of talent in this country I don't think it's big enough to support a really massive television industry and a film industry. I think that's why, early in their careers, people get drawn into television. I think there is a barrier against first-time filmmakers, because films aren't commissioned in the way a television drama is, and it is harder to do an apprenticeship in the film industry. Films have to compete in a brutal marketplace. You could make a film and it never gets sold, so people are much more nervous about giving first-timers a chance."

Moving into features...

"I shouldn't be saying this but two weeks before filming Scenes Of A Sexual Nature, we still didn't have any money in place. We only had Hugh Bonneville, the DOP and the line producer attached. Gina McKee came on board because she was very keen to work with Hugh - they've known each other for years. Then all of a sudden the film had a certain legitimacy to it and everything fell into place incredibly quickly. Within two weeks we managed to hire the rest of the crew, cast the roles and we were ready to shoot. When high-profile actors like Ewan McGregor say 'yes', you do pause for a moment and think, 'If I mess this up, that's the end of my career!' But then, the telephone rings and away you go again."

On self-distribution...

"We had vague offers from a few British distributors and it would have been easy just to take one of those offers and walk away, but one of our producers, Suran Goonatilake, is an entrepreneur and enjoys breaking rules and taking on 'the system'. I think at the time self-distribution was very exciting and we broke a lot of rules and created a model that other filmmakers could use. We basically built a distribution company by hiring people to book the cinemas for us, and a head of marketing and a great publicist. We basically turned our production office into a distribution office and there was a great deal of energy and enthusiasm about the place.

"I think we did well to get into as many cinemas as we did, but it is brutal out there - really brutal. The handful of people who are responsible for booking films in cinemas are more likely to make room for Pirates Of The Caribbean than for your little film, so you don't get the chance to build an audience.

"I think if the film had become a hit then that system would have been really superb because the money coming back from the box office and DVD sales would go straight back to the investors and the cast and crew. Eventually the film will break even and make money - we've sold it in 16 territories around the world and it's going out on TV - but my feeling now is that, if you're doing a nationwide release - which we did with 35 prints - then I think you need a really chunky P&A budget [prints and advertising]. You're competing with bigger players who have much more clout and you're even competing with what's on in the theatre and on TV. I think self-distribution would possibly come into its own with a release of about five prints, to get a film reviewed and give it a profile, but I think it's best to work the festival circuit and try to generate a buzz around a film. Then it gets picked up by a major distributor."

On online marketing...

"I've got mixed feelings about it. I think we could have done more. We pushed hard on MySpace and YouTube but again you have to have a good chunk of money. With MySpace for instance, Borat had a really brilliant campaign but they paid millions for it. I think these networking sites can be very good, but you need to pay for high-profile status. It's not the same as music where people can get noticed just by emailing their work to other people. They couldn't come to MySpace and view the film because that would undermine the release of the film. I don't think the internet campaign really translated to bums on seats."

Advice for budding filmmakers...

"Ideally what you want to do as a director is to find your own style. Things can change from film to film in the way you shoot it, or the tone of the material, but if you're working on a film for a year or more, you've got to have a passion for that project and bring yourself to it in some way. For me, as long as I have material that expresses how I feel about life, the universe and everything, then hopefully one day I can look back at my body of work and see my style. Making films should be about self-expression."

Stella Papamichael | Published 14 June 07