Kurt Brookes talks to award winning director Phil Hawkins about his new film “Being Sold”, what it’s like to shoot a feature in two days and the state of the British film industry. And you can watch “Being Sold” at the end of the interview.

Hi Phil, thanks for talking to EatSleepLiveFilm. Tell us all about “Being Sold”.

“Being Sold” is a feature length comedy drama about a guy who tries to sell himself on an online auction, but shown in real time. It’s a film that was shot in what we believe is a record breaking two days, though Guinness weren’t there to confirm it. It has a lot of cameos from comedians and TV faces from the UK and hopefully it’s good fun.

How difficult was to to shoot a full film in two days?

It was insane. It was pure insanity, but everyone came on board because it was such an insane idea. It’s not how you should make a film, as you know, films are shot over a minimum of six weeks so two days is a stupid amount of time to make a film in. However, it served the story. Yes, it was done as a bit of a gimmick and we wanted to make an independent film we could shout about that had a selling point.

The other thing is that I wouldn’t have made a film as a gimmick if it didn’t help the story. The story is set in real time and it’s supposed to be off the cuff, it’s supposed to feel very real and one thing about shooting in two days is that does feel very real; you get one or two takes on every scene. Fantastically, people who’ve seen the film don’t believe it was made in two days, so I guess that shows the hard work the cast and crew have throw into it.

What much preparation did you go through beforehand?

Preparation was everything. As it is with any film, but especially this, it needed to run like a military operation because every second counted. The way that we rehearsed and the way we shot with the actors was to shoot everything in blocks, almost like theatre. So, we wouldn’t say “We’re shooting scene one now”, it would be “We’re shooting the next 15 minutes of the story”.

What was interesting was that this film all came down to capturing the performance and letting the actors do their thing and letting the camera follow them, which is a very different way of doing it. For us, the performance is king, it’s not about the camera angles it’s about covering the performance and the story.

Where did the idea for “Being Sold” come from?

“Being Sold” was originally a short I wrote about six years ago. It was one of those wacky ideas I had where I sat down, wrote one draft and then thought that maybe it deserves to be a feature. It was very of the time as it was a reaction to all those stories of people selling strange things on eBay, like that girl who sold her virginity to pay her university fees.

Okay, we know you can’t sell a person on an online auction, but what if you could? It worked great as a short but I couldn’t figure out how to turn it into a feature, so myself and my co-writer Aidan Magrath, kept coming back to it over a period of six years.

As you said earlier there’s a lot of known UK television faces in the film, how important is it to have these “faces” in a low budget, independent film?

As an independent filmmaker you’ve always got to be thinking about how you can reach an audience, even before you’ve made the film. There are a hell of a lot of films made, not just in the UK but worldwide, and you’re all competing for a tiny slice of the pie. So whatever you can do to make your film stand out is really important. Firstly, we shot ours in two days and that was really important to shout about. Secondly, we’ve got these celebrities because they have fan bases.

We had Eva Pope, who has a massive following from her days on “Waterloo Road” and “Coronation Street” and all these followers are tweeting about how excited they are about the film. These people are doing the marketing for us, so when the film is released it’s being marketed by word of mouth, which is really powerful.

So for us, it was very important and I’d say to most filmmakers that if you can get people who are known or have these sort of fan bases, then great, it’s only going to make your project better. That said, it’s not that easy as these sorts of films are made without any money and agents put the phone down on you and don’t want to be involved.

The film is released on 19th June. How is it being released?

We have intentionally steered away from tradition ways of releasing a film, because we’ve got such an innovative film we wanted to release it in an innovative way. We’re using technology that a company called Distrify has invented which is a way of distributing your film through social networks, so through your blog, Facebook and Twitter, and it’s a way that people can share films.

It’s a window where within thirty seconds of being on a page you can be watching an HD stream of a film with nothing to download and nothing sign up for, it’s just pay and go. The great thing about that is that you can embed this on your blog and whoever embeds it earns commission on sales made through that page. It encourages sharing of film, it encourages distribution and people can send it to a friend straight through Facebook or Twitter and watch it instantly.

It allows you to reach a much bigger audience cheaper and in a very effective way than you would be traditionally through a cinema. We’re doing a press screening on the 18th at the Edinburgh Film Festival and on the 19th I’m doing to be on a panel discussion about the future of distribution and during that I’m going to literally press and button and release the film. That’s going to be about half past four on the 19th.

That’s a very specific release for a film. Was this use of Distrify born out of the frustration of having “The Butterfly Tattoo” downloaded illegally?

There will always be people who want something for nothing; the Internet’s there, it’s free and it’s just going to happen. But if you offer people a way to see the film for a very small cost but in HD, straight from a website that supports film and filmmakers then hopefully people will want to buy it.

The problem with “The Butterfly Tattoo” was that it had a very staggered release and because it’s an independent film and can’t release everywhere at the same time; it came out in America months before it came out in the UK, so as soon as the DVD hit the shelves in the US it was online.The problem is that as soon as it goes viral you’re screwed; a lot of people have seen it but are they going to bother buying the DVD?

So I wrote a blog and people started to discuss this issue and quite a few people honestly said they had downloaded it because they wanted to see it but didn’t know how or where to buy it. With “Being Sold” we’re saying you can download it right now from one website instead of going on a torrent site and seeing who’s seeding it.

I hope people cry themselves to sleep at night because they are hurting independent film, but hopefully those genuine people who want to see it will pay a small amount of money (£2.50) and a percentage is going to Amnesty International. You might want to ask me in a month whether it’s working or not because no-one’s really done it yet, so finger crossed it works.

We’ve touched on the film being shared on Twitter and the blogosphere, how important is social media to an independent film?

Social networking is everything to a film these days. And it’s not just independent film; I was talking to a producer the other day who said they’d seen the first contract for an actor in a studio film that dictated how many tweets they should be doing per week that mentioned the project. If studios are doing that, that shows you the power of social media.

It’s a powerful way of getting to an audience; if you’ve got a lot of followers and you send a tweet, it’s around the world in seconds and independent films never used to be able to market themselves like that. Anyone making a film, open a Twitter account; we had a Twitter account and a Facebook page before we announced what the film was and had a viral campaign with teasers and people were intrigued by that. It was originally called 10/10/10, because that was the original release date, and a lot of people followed us and after finding out we weren’t Cloverfield 2, like a lot of people thought it was, stayed.

What do you think of the state of the British film industry at the moment?

It’s frustrating. There’s a lot of changes going on with The Film Council closing down and Creative England forming, there’s all these new panels of film that are happening. We also don’t make enough commercial films if I’m being honest, we really don’t.

If I was the Film Council or the local funding body I wouldn’t be putting money into “arty” films that a very small amount of people want to see. Why not put money into something that’s commercial? Why is the British film industry afraid of releasing a bloody good thriller or a bloody good horror? People want to see these films.

The American’s release commercial films and they make a hell of a lot of money doing it, why? Because there’s a market for it and there’s also the market for art house films. But without being commercial, how can we release films that aren’t as commercial but pay for them? Maybe I’m missing the point but I see the amount of films that are made that don’t have an audience; they do the festival rounds and get accolades and they disappear.

People say we have Harry Potter, well, we make it in this country but it’s not made with British money; it’s fantastic people are working on it and it’s bringing in money, but it’s not a British film. Other “British” films, like Hot Fuzz for example, shot in Britain with British talent but with American money. If we’ve got all these talented writers and actors why aren’t we making films ourselves?

I’m not afraid to say I want to be a commercial film director, I want to make stories that appeal to the masses, I’m not ashamed to say that and it’s not a negative thing. There’s a lot of writers out there with great commercial ideas, and I’ve read them, and they need money but we don’t give it to them, we release character dramas that only a certain audience wants to see. Why aren’t we targeting the popcorn audience?

Who are you’re filmmaking heroes?

M.Night Shyamalan, pre-Lady in the Water. Man, what happened to that guy? Spielberg, which is a bit obvious, but he’s such an inspirational director. I remember having the crap scared out of me watching Jurassic Park and thinking “How has someone created this?” Who else is there? (Ponders) This is like being asked what your favourite film is.

What advise do you have for filmmakers who want to make films but don’t know what to do after that?

There’s a lot of films that get made that just sit on the shelf or get shown to friends and that’s it. It’s hard making a film, but it’s even harder finding an audience for it, so if you’ve got a film sat in a drawer, submit it to festivals, submit it to everything. That’s the whole point of making films, so people can see them, talk about them and learn from them.

I’ve learned so much from watching my films with an audience, you get a feeling for how people are reacting to things and that really hones your skills. Also, festivals are full of people who want to watch films, so you get some great feedback which helps as a filmmaker.

Also, you never know who’s watching. Stick it on a website, stick it on Youtube or Vimeo, get it out to festivals, check out Withoutabox. Get it seen, otherwise, what’s the point?

What does the future hold for Phil Hawkins?

I’ve literally just signed with an agent and they’ve got a plan, which is great. There’s a couple of projects I’m developing, there’s a thriller I’m working with another writer on, I’m attached to another comedy. So there’s a lot of projects on the horizon, but without meaning to sound cynical, with independent film maybe one or a couple of them might come off. It’s good to have fingers in pies and not keep your eggs in one basket, which is hard work, but it’s a numbers game. It’s a really exciting time and I’m just really looking forward to getting “Being Sold” out there and seeing how people react to it.

Phil, it’s been a pleasure and thanks for talking to us.

“Being Sold” is available from July 19th.

To watch “Being Sold”, just click on the Distrify window below. Enjoy.