Alex4D Productions - The Things We Do for Love

George:

I was coaching on a Self Expression and Leadership Programme at Landmark Education. The programme is based around creating a project that moves touches and inspires you, makes a positive impact on your community and encourages you to go beyond what you believe you can achieve. Being 31 and more single than not, I noticed that whenever my single friends got together we always had entertaining dating stories to share that would keep us amused for hours. – My grandpa met and fell in love for a second time round as a result of a date set up by his friends after my grandma died in his late 70s and lived with his new partner until not long before he died at 92, so this inspired me to find out about older people’s views on love and dating.

I then thought wouldn’t it be great to interview people of all different ages and backgrounds and get them to share their dating stories and advice on film, since we all have a lot to learn from each other. – Although I had some awareness of the film making process from previously being an account manager in a marketing communications agency where we made corporate films and I attended edits and managed the client / production company liaison, I’d never actually made a film before.

I was discussing my idea with a friend and wondering how this was ever going to get made. She put me in contact with Alex as she thought he might be able to give me some advice on how to make the film. I then met Alex who seemed to like the idea and gave me lots of practical advice and also contributed many great ideas of his own that would enhance the project. I somehow then managed to convince him to make the film with me.

I then heard through a friend that works at Help the Aged that they had a campaign called HUG, which turned out to stand for ‘Help Unite Generations’ and we thought how great it would be create a film that would achieve that in the making and bring people of different generations together to watch it, and in so doing draw attention to Help the Aged’ campaign and that’s how project started.

Alex:

I first met George in late December 2005 in a café in West Hampstead. Anna Swan, a mutual friend, had suggested that I might be able to give some advice on an idea for making a documentary. I went along wanting to give useful advice, but to give her a good idea of how much she wanted to take on. George said that she wanted to create a project that moved and inspired people: a film about people’s funny dating stories that could be shown for charity in a local cinema. As the charity was Help the Aged, the idea would be to have stories from people of all ages.

I suggested that we talk about the structure. I said that however funny and heart-warming the stories people tell, an audience won’t want to sit through anecdote after anecdote without an idea of what the ‘story’ of the film is. We would at least need to group the stories by type: “The time I was stood up” “The time he talked too much” etc. Doing this grouping would help in the interviewing stage and editing stage. Given the common features of all dates, I suggested that the structure should be based on people telling stories in the order that they might happen in a date. “How I met them,” “How I asked them out/How they asked me out,” “Getting ready for the date,” “First impressions” etc.

The plan was for George to organise the screening, find interviewees, arrange filming dates, work out how to promote the film and sell the tickets. I took on the interviewing, the filming and the editing. I came up with a design for the film that would be possible to do using the tools available to me: a five-year old consumer DV camera and some photographers lights I that used to take some portraits in 2005. I had recently seen a documentary by Mike Mills called “Not How, What or Why But Yes” – it featured a small group of people answering a series of questions. They were each on their own, looking directly into the camera with a black background and shot in black and white. I thought that I could use this style for our documentary: a black background wouldn’t need to be lit, shooting in black and white would hide the low quality I might get from my camera, and normal people looking straight into camera would make the film look different to those seen on TV.

We started shooting in January. On the 16th we shot at the Kentish Town Campus of the Westminster Kingsway College. We mainly filmed young people aged 17-22. A few days later we filmed attendees at The Peel Centre in King’s Cross; they were aged between 70 and 90. We were a little worried as none of the 15 people we had interviewed so far had the kind of stories we were hoping for. They had said interesting things, but their answers hadn’t fitted into our structure.

We interviewed another three people. While interviewing Sharon Blackstone, George’s sister-in-law, the three of us came up with a new plan. As people don’t usually have anecdotes to hand, we decided to come up with a series of questions that we could ask everyone from that point on. The questions had two functions: we wanted to hear similar and different answers from the different generations of speakers, they might also spark off the memory of stories that we could use.

From then on, on days off from work George and I visited locations, set up our lights, backdrop and camera and interviewed 40 more people. We managed to find a big range of people, stories and experiences. We ended up with just under twenty hours of footage which we boiled down to 40 minutes of stories and thoughts. The budget for the whole production was less than £200 – made up of cab fares and tape stock.

We hope to have showings at film festivals and music festivals in the coming months. Each time its is shown, it will raise money and awareness for Help the Aged and their Hug campaign. If you or anyone you know could help in the dissemination of the film, please get in touch with us at thethingswedo@alex4d.com.

HUG and Help the Aged

Hug, which stands for Helping Unite Generations, is a unique annual fundraising and awareness campaign from Help the Aged, which aims to help end loneliness and isolation among older people in the UK.

Most of us have friends and family around us to give us a hug when we need one. But many older people aren't so fortunate. Did you know that one million older people go a whole month without even seeing anyone they know? Hug is a simple concept that encourages people to recognise the value of intergenerational relationships to ensure no older person need ever feel alone or isolated.

If you would like to find out about other ways to get involved with Hug and make a difference to the lives of lonely older people please call 0870 770 3288 or visit www.allhug.org.uk.

	The Things We Do for Love UK, 2006 Directed by Alexandre Gollner, Produced by George Blackstone
	George: I was coaching on a Self Expression and Leadership Programme at Landmark Education. The programme is based around creating a project that moves touches and inspires you, makes a positive impact on your community and encourages you to go beyond what you believe you can achieve. Being 31 and more single than not, I noticed that whenever my single friends got together we always had entertaining dating stories to share that would keep us amused for hours. – My grandpa met and fell in love for a second time round as a result of a date set up by his friends after my grandma died in his late 70s and lived with his new partner until not long before he died at 92, so this inspired me to find out about older people’s views on love and dating. I then thought wouldn’t it be great to interview people of all different ages and backgrounds and get them to share their dating stories and advice on film, since we all have a lot to learn from each other. – Although I had some awareness of the film making process from previously being an account manager in a marketing communications agency where we made corporate films and I attended edits and managed the client / production company liaison, I’d never actually made a film before. I was discussing my idea with a friend and wondering how this was ever going to get made. She put me in contact with Alex as she thought he might be able to give me some advice on how to make the film. I then met Alex who seemed to like the idea and gave me lots of practical advice and also contributed many great ideas of his own that would enhance the project. I somehow then managed to convince him to make the film with me. I then heard through a friend that works at Help the Aged that they had a campaign called HUG, which turned out to stand for ‘Help Unite Generations’ and we thought how great it would be create a film that would achieve that in the making and bring people of different generations together to watch it, and in so doing draw attention to Help the Aged’ campaign and that’s how project started. Alex: I first met George in late December 2005 in a café in West Hampstead. Anna Swan, a mutual friend, had suggested that I might be able to give some advice on an idea for making a documentary. I went along wanting to give useful advice, but to give her a good idea of how much she wanted to take on. George said that she wanted to create a project that moved and inspired people: a film about people’s funny dating stories that could be shown for charity in a local cinema. As the charity was Help the Aged, the idea would be to have stories from people of all ages. I suggested that we talk about the structure. I said that however funny and heart-warming the stories people tell, an audience won’t want to sit through anecdote after anecdote without an idea of what the ‘story’ of the film is. We would at least need to group the stories by type: “The time I was stood up” “The time he talked too much” etc. Doing this grouping would help in the interviewing stage and editing stage. Given the common features of all dates, I suggested that the structure should be based on people telling stories in the order that they might happen in a date. “How I met them,” “How I asked them out/How they asked me out,” “Getting ready for the date,” “First impressions” etc. The plan was for George to organise the screening, find interviewees, arrange filming dates, work out how to promote the film and sell the tickets. I took on the interviewing, the filming and the editing. I came up with a design for the film that would be possible to do using the tools available to me: a five-year old consumer DV camera and some photographers lights I that used to take some portraits in 2005. I had recently seen a documentary by Mike Mills called “Not How, What or Why But Yes” – it featured a small group of people answering a series of questions. They were each on their own, looking directly into the camera with a black background and shot in black and white. I thought that I could use this style for our documentary: a black background wouldn’t need to be lit, shooting in black and white would hide the low quality I might get from my camera, and normal people looking straight into camera would make the film look different to those seen on TV. We started shooting in January. On the 16th we shot at the Kentish Town Campus of the Westminster Kingsway College. We mainly filmed young people aged 17-22. A few days later we filmed attendees at The Peel Centre in King’s Cross; they were aged between 70 and 90. We were a little worried as none of the 15 people we had interviewed so far had the kind of stories we were hoping for. They had said interesting things, but their answers hadn’t fitted into our structure. We interviewed another three people. While interviewing Sharon Blackstone, George’s sister-in-law, the three of us came up with a new plan. As people don’t usually have anecdotes to hand, we decided to come up with a series of questions that we could ask everyone from that point on. The questions had two functions: we wanted to hear similar and different answers from the different generations of speakers, they might also spark off the memory of stories that we could use. From then on, on days off from work George and I visited locations, set up our lights, backdrop and camera and interviewed 40 more people. We managed to find a big range of people, stories and experiences. We ended up with just under twenty hours of footage which we boiled down to 40 minutes of stories and thoughts. The budget for the whole production was less than £200 – made up of cab fares and tape stock. We hope to have showings at film festivals and music festivals in the coming months. Each time its is shown, it will raise money and awareness for Help the Aged and their Hug campaign. If you or anyone you know could help in the dissemination of the film, please get in touch with us at thethingswedo@alex4d.com. HUG and Help the Aged Hug, which stands for Helping Unite Generations, is a unique annual fundraising and awareness campaign from Help the Aged, which aims to help end loneliness and isolation among older people in the UK. Most of us have friends and family around us to give us a hug when we need one. But many older people aren't so fortunate. Did you know that one million older people go a whole month without even seeing anyone they know? Hug is a simple concept that encourages people to recognise the value of intergenerational relationships to ensure no older person need ever feel alone or isolated. If you would like to find out about other ways to get involved with Hug and make a difference to the lives of lonely older people please call 0870 770 3288 or visit www.allhug.org.uk.