Cheltenham hosts The Guatemalan Handshake

After months of planning and organizing the day finally came when Todd Rohal, writer/director of The Guatemalan Handshake arrived in Cheltenham to screen his independent feature film at Cineworld. To give you some background on this, while I was studying in the USA I was lucky enough to see a screening of The Guatemalan Handshake because, Tim, my DP on Gravedigger and soon to be AD on Foreign Bodies had worked on set as a Production Assistant. After a highly enjoyable evening at the cinema in Carlisle, PA Kate and I retired to a diner and talked about the film. I really enjoyed the experience and when I returned home, wanted to share this fantastic film with some of the folks I knew would appreciate it.

So to cut quite a long story short, after communicating with the powers that be at the University (Tico) he managed to secure a screening at Cineworld here in Cheltenham. Seeing the film again and having the opportunity to spend some time with Todd was fantastic. Just being able to pick a fellow filmmaker..s brains about his experiences, his methods of fundraising and his need to raise further funds for post production were all really interesting to me. He also posed a bit of a troubling issue for me, until this point I had been set on shooting this film on HD, HDV to be exact because of our budget constraints. I have seen well developed and great looking features shot on Mini DV (Broken for example) but I was always tempted by the amazing look and variety of choice that 35mm affords you. Todd spoke to me at some length about the possibilities of using 35mm, the credibility it provides you and the menace of thousands of people all over the world making dreadful homemade films on their Mini DV cams.

I really took this point on board and have been doing my figures, and contacting rental houses to try and see what kind of deal they could do me, At the moment I..m still looking at a minimum of £5,600 for rental of the cheapest 35mm camera and that..s before film stock and processing etc. this is compared to my latest quote of £800 for a months rental of the Sony Z1 that I..m interested in shooting with if I went for digital. It is a very hard choice, potentially my decision will be made for me if the budget doesn..t run to 35mm costs. I think I would rather have lots of money left over to pay some peoples expenses, get some great set dressing and art direction going on that be at the limit constantly. This process is going to be stressful enough as it is without adding more financial worries to the mix. That being said, my time talking to Todd was extremely illuminating. He..s a great guy who I..m sure will go on to make many more, interesting and creative films that I..ll enjoy. For more information about The Guatemalan Handshake click here to visit their website or click here to befriend them on MySpace.

K