Wednesday 29th February

Wednesday 29th February

Adelaide. Raining and grey, that’s not fair. 15 hours of screenings, meetings and press. I can’t remember a thing. Could be a very short blog. OK, OK…let me think.


There was a meeting with an American distributor which was interesting and, being over breakfast, stopped me from eating too much! Distributors are always on the lookout for shows that will sell but, unsurprisingly, are sure-fire hits and free. Doesn’t really apply to the worlds of art, classical music and social docs. Nice guy though, nice chat. Then a quick chat with local radio about tonight’s In Search of Haydn screening. Then a talk for younger film-makers about the ways to keep a production company alive. I had to give it to them straight: 95% of you will be out of business in 5 years and the other 5% will be struggling from project to project…Well, no need to sugar-coat stuff is there? Someone suggested that being a documentary film-maker means taking a vow of poverty. That makes me mad: if you think like that then you’ll behave like that. We should be able to be creative and informative without a life of penury. Of course there are wonderful rewards in what we do too. Anyway, gave them that whole spiel and then moved on.

A quick chat with a great commissioning editor from ARTE and then a quick dash to local ABC radio. Australia is great for local radio – it knocks the UK way into touch. I tried to answer the host’s questions and, in the best politician way, keep mentioning tonight's Haydn screenings… I didn’t really succeed but hopefully it all helps.

The afternoon was spent doing emails – which eats up so much time. Then after a meeting with my cinema distributor, it was off for the Haydn screening. Not a great turn-out it has to be said. Cinema was about half-full. Or half empty. They really liked the film and the Q&A went well. But it was still half empty … so went for a beer with my distributor and threw lots of ideas around: more social media, more press, more targeting of music groups, offers, flyers, digital stuff and any crazy idea we could. But it’s all more time and more money. And I need to remind myself why it matters. Back to the hotel: knackered but, hold on, better check the emails and, oh yeah, better write the blog….