A documentary aimed at inspiring UK filmmakers and performers
By Douglas McFarlane
Award winning documentary MAKING IT IN HOLLYWOOD is now only $10 for UKTheatre.Net members.
When I was first setup UKFilmNetwork.com, I wanted to help filmmakers and performers find out more about what it takes to be successful in the film business. I plucked up the courage to apply for press accreditation for the Oscars in order to go straight to the heart of the business and perhaps do a blog direct from Hollywood. After I was accepted, I realised this was the opportunity to take a camera to record the journey and perhaps do some video blogs.
On the first day, I managed to interview some indie filmmakers before one of them invited me to an exclusive party where Clint Eastwood unexpectedly turned up. The atmosphere changed and a heightened energy took over the room. I managed to keep calm enough to get some great footage of the legend himself meeting composer Ennio Morricone for the first time in 40 years. It was this meeting that inspired me to continue to create a short film to take to Cannes.
In Cannes, the short film was screened and received good reviews, so I started to turn it into a feature length. I joined the throng of paparazzi and managed to get up close and personal with Leonardo Di Caprio, Jude Law and Jessica Simpson while jostling with experienced paps trying to get a better shot in front of me. It was fascinating seeing how Hollywood promotes their talent in front of the world's press and I got a feel for how ruthless the paparazzi can be to get that picture.
Sunny snowbound Sundance was next with Ewan McGregor and Sharon Stone offering sage advice on their experiences in Hollywood. Jackie Chan's son Jaycee spent some time chatting about how his family connections have influenced his career. I also filmed outside the legendary Egyptian Theatre where Robert Redford first handed out flyers at the opening of the first Sundance.
The next stop was at the BAFTA film awards, where I was fortunate enough to get a media box next to autograph hunting fans who attracted all the top actors close enough for me to ask them a question or two. I managed to chat with Ricky Gervais, Eddie Izzard, Tilda Swinton and the lovely Kate Hudson to find out more about what it takes to make it in Hollywood.
The end product is a film which is an inspiration to filmmakers and performers, and I'm hoping you will get some additional advice, guidance and ideas to help your next project become a success.
It's available on Amazon at this link:-
http://tinyurl.com/hollywoodfilm
Douglas McFarlane
Producer/Director
MAKING IT IN HOLLYWOOD
www.ukfilmnetwork.com
Four Dogs and a Bone by John Patrick Shanley
By Carolin Kopplin
If you had a friend you would eat him.
John Patrick Shanley won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Moonstruck in 1988 and was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for the screenplay adaptation of his Tony-winning play Doubt. His Hollywood satire Four Dogs and a Bone was first produced off-Broadway in 1993 and is now presented by Rock ‘n’ Roll Theatre in the intimate Phoenix Artists Club. Packed with hilarious one-liners, the play features four Hollywood stereotypes - a hardened producer who struggles to keep the shoot on budget, a starlet who expects to become a big star as long as she sleeps with all the important people and continues chanting “I’m famous,” a fading Broadway star who tries to escape the label of character actress by landing the female lead, and a principled but naïve screenwriter.
The play opens as the air-headed Brenda shares her “incested” family sob story with producer Bradley. Bradley fakes interest but he is far more concerned about the exploding costs of the film that could be significantly reduced by some drastic script changes. He counts on Brenda’s help to persuade Victor, the screenwriter, to cut about ten scenes of the script. Brenda is sorely tempted by Bradley’s idea that she become the central person of the movie in exchange for her help. However, first time screenwriter Victor is determined not to compromise his script. He is particularly adamant that the lead character Johnny dies in the end. Fearing that the negative ending will turn the film into a negligible art house picture, both Brenda and former Broadway star Colette, who has her own agenda, want Johnny to live, preferably saved by their respective characters. They are also striving to have the other's part reduced or written out altogether. For the time being they form an uneasy alliance to save the movie and their careers from certain doom.
The script is tightly written and the acting and comic timing of the cast is perfect. Amy Tez is hilarious as ingenue Brenda, Laura Pradelska has some of the funniest lines as the tough and caustic Collette, Joe Jameson is a nervous and overwrought Victor, and Daniel O’Meara impresses as the morally flexible Bradley.
Until 20th August
Phoenix Artists Club, 1 Phoenix Street (off Charing Cross Road), London, WC2H 8BU
Call: 0207 836 1077 or book at fourdogs.moonfruit.com
Tickets: £10/£8
How I made it in Hollywood- Film blogger quit IT for the red carpet
By Douglas McFarlaneHow I made it in Hollywood- Film blogger quit IT for the red carpet
May 26 2011 Samantha Booth
A film featuring Ewan McGregor, Kate Winslet and Clint Eastwood - not bad for a first-time director.
Movie blogger Douglas McFarlane got to uncover the secrets of the stars on the red carpets of the Oscars, Cannes and the Sundance Film Festival.
The resulting documentary, Making It In Hollywood, won him critical acclaim and a Golden Palm award - and now the DVD has gone on sale for the first time.
Douglas, originally from Clydebank, near Glasgow, said: "It was an incredible two years but I think my ultimate moment was coming face-to-face with Clint Eastwood. "I grew up going to see his films at the ABC minors in Clydebank every Saturday morning. He is a true statesman of Hollywood.
"Although standing in the same pub as Quentin Tarantino was also another amazing moment."
Douglas, 50, got to meet Eastwood at the 2007 Oscars, when he took his camera to see which celebs he could speak to.
He found out about an award ceremony for Ennio Morricone, the composer of the score of the 1966 western, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which starred Eastwood.
Douglas said: "It was a cocktail party-type scenario when there was a sudden huge surge of energy, there was a real buzz that was almost euphoric.
"The next thing I knew Clint had walked round the corner.
"It was incredible. I couldn't believe I was there filming this legend.
"When I did my piece to camera afterwards, you can see I am buzzing.
"And Clint and Ennio hadn't seen each other for 40-odd years, so I was desperate to catch that moment on film."
The next day, Douglas was on the red carpet at the Oscars - and ended up presenting live on US TV network ABC.
Douglas said: "One of the crew shouted "kiltcam" and suddenly I was live around the nation as well as doing a take for my own documentary.
"Americans love the Oscars being international, so I got a lot of attention, as you can imagine."
Douglas, 50, then decided to hit the red carpet at the Cannes Festival, where he captured stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio.
He said: "He was a good example of how strangely stars behave.
"On the red carpet with his entourage he was all smiles and waving but then just half an hour later on the way to the airport he was hiding under his jacket."
Douglas even got a chat with Jessica Simpson about what it is like dealing with stardom.
He said: "She talked about living her life in front of the press, invasion of privacy and how the publishers control what media they do.
"All the paparazzi were trying to get in on the act."
After Cannes, he went to the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, where he chatted with Ewan McGregor about making it big in Hollywood.
He said: "It was just another one of those chance moments.
"He was a really thoughtful guy and he gave me some really profound words on Hollywood."
Douglas also got Sharon Stone talking about her career at the same festival - and her regret at taking on some jobs.
He said: "She told me she didn't want to be doing any more Catwoman-type roles."
Douglas's story is all the more remarkable because 10 years ago, he was working in IT in Edinburgh.
He said: "I wanted to do something different, something which wasn't just hanging around pubs, so I came up with the idea of taking up singing.
"After about 18 months and a bit of performance coaching I went to a Les Miserables masterclass.
"I performed with the professionals and it was immense, I got the bug.
"I was at the back of the stage thinking, 'This is what I want to do'."
Still working in IT, Douglas was soon winning roles in film, TV and theatre - from Taggart and BBC drama The Key to an advert for AOL.
Douglas said: "For some reason I found it pretty easy to get parts. The characters I play tend to be surgeons and policemen, possibly because I am 6ft tall, professionallooking and have a Glasgow accent."
Working in Jersey for six months in 2001, Douglas also began to write a theatre blog.
It wasn't long before 20,000 people were reading his site and he now has 100 volunteer reviewers around the country.
Fascinated by the mechanics of film-making, he took part in a series of classes run by Canadian director Elliot Grove, the founder of both the Raindance Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards. He said: "I actually showed him a short film I was working on at the time and he told me it was good and it would sell. Those words were music to my ears."
In 2005, BAFTA Scotland invited him to make a short film of the red carpet at their awards - as no-one else had showed any interest.
National Theatre Scotland invited him to their bash and he got a taste for something bigger - finding out how the world's biggest film stars made it to the top.
Douglas said: "I wanted to make a film about how you become successful in Hollywood.
"After all, this is what a lot of people on the theatre network want to know about.
"A lot of what we do on the website is about trying to coach people to be a success."
And Douglas also showed them how keeping going when things go wrong can pay dividends.
At the Oscars, he ended up in the lift with singer Celine Dion - but couldn't remember who she was.
He said: "I was staring at her because I knew who she was but I just couldn't place her.
"I had my camera on but her bodyguard told me he would take the tape and crunch it so it never ended up in the film.
"Then I look up and see Kate Winslet in that famous green dress coming towards me.
"I didn't get to speak to her, sadly, but I got her on film."
:: Making It In Hollywood by Douglas .McFarlane is available from Amazon, follow the link http://tinyurl.com/hollywoodfilm
The White Whore and the Bit Player at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in Islington
By Carolin Kopplin
My face was the mirror of the world.
Tom Eyen's The White Whore and the Bit Player is a tightly knit journey into the psyche of a woman ten seconds before her death, when her self is divided into opposites: the sexpot character created by the movie industry, and the insecure, repressed bit player, dressed as a nun. The play challenges our perception of female roles: The tension between public adoration and private angst, manipulative employer and desperate employee, needy child and selfish mother - battles played out by the whore and the bit player who take on different characters in each other's stories - is highly comic in a deep, absurd sense.
The orphaned girl is raised in a convent
and gets married soon after leaving the care of the most
unpleasant Sister Mary Agnes. After losing her husband she is
trying to find a job and approaches an employment agency that
specializes in “helping the virginal employee.” Because of
her inexperience she is advised that becoming famous is her
only career option. She signs a 65-year contract with a
studio and is assigned various roles as a nun. Her religious
image not being very successful with the audience the studio
decides to dispose of her - the nun is killed on a freeway by
a Volkswagen bus – and the easy woman is
born.
This extraordinary two-hander was first shown in New York at La Mama in 1964. Ken McClymont directs two different interpretations of the one hour play – the first remaining true to the original, and the second a contemporary adaptation. The exceptional Laura Pradelska and Helen Russell-Clark alternate as The Nun and The Whore.
Tom Eyen is best known for his 1981 Tony
Award-winning Broadway musical Dreamgirls, based
loosely on the lives of the members of the female vocal trio
The Supremes. Eyen, the author of more than thirty plays, was
an innovator in the 1960s Off-Off Broadway experimental
theatre movement and formed his own company, the Theatre of
the Eye. With a formula that often included strong language,
daring sexual content, comedy, nudity, profanity, and social
criticism, Eyen wrote such cult hits as The Dirtiest Show
in Town, Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down, Sarah
B.Divine, and Women behind Bars.
Mainstream theatregoers became
acquainted with him in 1981 when he partnered with composer
Henry Krieger and director Michael Bennett to write the book
and lyrics for Dreamgirls, produced on Broadway in
1981 and the biggest success of his career. The show won six
Tonys, including Best Book.
There are two versions, which play on alternate evenings, the original, which is reviewed here, and a contemporary version.
Till 30 January Tue – Sat 7.30 pm Sun 5 pm and 7.30 pm
Original Version 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 26, 28 January at 7.30pm.
Sundays 16, 23, 30 January at 5.00pm
Contemporary Version 15,19,21,25,27,29 January at 7.30pm.
Sundays 16, 23, 30 January at 7.30pm
Both Versions 16,23, 30 £12/£10 (concessions) Price includes both shows
Tickets: £ 12 / £ 10 (concessions)
BOX OFFICE: 020 7704 6665
The Rosemary Branch, 2 Shepperton Road, London N1 3DT
WEBSITE: www.rosemarybranch.co.uk
I Ought to be in Pictures by Neil Simon at Manchester Library Theatre
By Caroline May![I_Ought_To_Be_In_Pictures_-_press_pic_05[1].JPG](http://static.socialgo.com/cache/10668/image/1115.jpg "I_Ought_To_Be_In_Pictures_-_press_pic_05[1].JPG")
I Ought to be in Pictures isn’t one of Neil Simon’s better-known plays, but it follows the scientifically proven formula of classics like The Sunshine Boys and The Odd Couple: when apparently incompatible individuals live in close proximity they generate friction, which creates sparks of comedy gold.
Herb (Stuart Fox) is a typical Simon character in the Walter Matthau mould, a quarrelsome curmudgeon with a tender heart buried somewhere beneath his grizzly exterior. He has long escaped the claustrophobic atmosphere of New York to live the dream in the Californian sunshine as a Hollywood screenwriter. Unfortunately a bad case of writer’s block is causing trouble in his professional life, and commitment-phobia is hacking off his no-strings girlfriend Steffy.
Then a 19-year-old back-packer called Libby turns up on Herb’s doorstep with ambitions of her own to make it big in the film business - with or without her father’s help.
Stuart Fox as Herb initially delivers a first-rate impression of a grumpy, self-obsessed has-been, but visibly melts with the gradual rediscovery of his paternal feelings.
Elizabeth Carling as Steffy brings real warmth to the witty and wise divorcée who tries to encourage the father-daughter relationship without herself turning into a jealous step-mother. And no one has carried off white flared trousers with such aplomb since Charley’s Angels.
The real find of the evening is Kirsty Osmon, making a striking professional debut in the role of Libby. All tomboyish charm and coltish bare legs, Ms Osmon is absolutely convincing as a free spirit who can hike across a continent or tune a car engine, yet who is still clearly very young and vulnerable. The impromptu midnight rehearsal of her audition speech with only an angle-poise lamp for a spotlight shows how naïve this seemingly streetwise New Yorker remains.
Paul Wills’ design, a loving homage to the 1970s, shows us Herb’s chaotic life embodied in his scruffy open-plan apartment, with a glimpse of the symbolic citrus trees through a sunny window.
Director Paul Jepson has concentrated on the play’s dramatic implications - in the hands of such an excellent cast the smart one-liners can take care of themselves.
I Ought to be in Pictures is on until Saturday 27 February 2009
Prices: £8.00-£18.00 (concessions available)
Eves: Mon-Thurs @ 7.30pm; Fri & Sat @ 8pm
Matinees: Thurs & Sat @ 3pm
Box Office: 0161 236 7110
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