Smartphone Filmmaker: Hilton R. Hart – Interview
I had months to make something and submit it to Mobile Motion Film Festival… but, of course, I left it to the last minute. To be slightly fair on me, I had a pretty terrible 2014 and was ill for most of it, with one thing or another. I wanted to make 3 short (fiction) films and possibly 3 short docs. But in the end, the fiction films didn’t even come close to happening, and some of the short docs I wanted to do were miles off as well.
“The next day I reviewed the footage and I hated it. I had failed. There was nothing good there. There was no way I could make a film out of what I’d got. This was rubbish.” ~ Hilton R. Hart
BUT! One lovely woman, Victoria Radugina, was quite keen to work with me and we arranged that when she was in England for a short time in January that we’d meet up and do something.
The short doc is about cigars – though I won’t tell you any more than that! – so I contacted a number of hotels in London that have cigar lounges, but none that I spoke to were willing to let us film there. In my mind, I knew exactly what I wanted to film and how I wanted to film… but I wasn’t allowed to make the film that I wanted. So I had to improvise.
“Since Victoria doesn’t live in London at the moment, we didn’t have anywhere handy to shoot.”
Have you recently tried to find a decent hotel in London that has smoking rooms?! I spent hours upon hours looking – I even found a list of ‘smoking’ hotels, only to find it was completely out of date and pretty much useless! – but I finally found one.
I booked it. I got there early to check the place out. I chose it because the photos of the rooms on the website had huge windows. But when I got there, they only had one smoking room in the whole place… and it was in the basement!
It still had beautiful big windows – unfortunately hardly any light was coming through. And it was right next to a busy road. This was not going well. I had to improvise again.
Well I say that, but before the improvisation, I had a massive attack of anxiety. I even pulled my phone out intending to text Victoria to cancel the shoot – I didn’t like the space we were shooting in and the stress of everything over the previous few days had put me in a bad frame of mind.
“I did text, but I didn’t cancel. I let her know I was unsure about the place, secretly hoping that she’d cancel and I wouldn’t have to…”
But she still seemed keen, so that alleviated some of the anxiety I was feeling, but far from all of it! Anyway, she arrived an hour later – an hour I spent pacing around the room, moving furniture, taking test shots, getting more and more angry and depressed! But she arrived and we got down to filming.
I’ve made 2 short films before — but that was 11 or 12 years ago. That no doubt added to my anxiety in the first place – I genuinely doubted that I could do it – I really didn’t know what I was doing or if I would be capable of doing it.
Though, in those 11 or 12 years since I made my first 2 short films, I’ve done a fair bit of photography, which sort of helped (though I haven’t actually done a photoshoot for 4 years!)
The reason I gave up photography was that it was so emotionally draining for me – I hated pretty much everything I ever shot initially – I would be convinced at the end of a shoot that everything was wasted and there nothing usable or any good.
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Out of the few hundred photoshoots I did, there were only a small handful of shoots that I thought I had anything worthwhile straight after. Of course, a couple of days go by and I review the images again and I find a few special ones and everything’s (usually!) okay again… but it was the buzz of the shoot followed by crushing anxiety after that made me give photography up. I simply couldn’t take the emotional impact it had on me.
And I felt the same sort of way about this film.
The next day I reviewed the footage and I hated it. I had failed. There was nothing good there. There was no way I could make a film out of what I’d got. This was rubbish.
I left it a couple of days and resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to submit anything to the film festival. It was a massive disappointment – I was a failure yet again… but I’m so used to being a failure, it’s sort of stopped affecting me so much nowadays.
But somehow, on the Saturday, I managed to persuade myself to give it another go. I edited the audio for a few hours and was pretty happy with what I found, then I spent about 8 hours editing the video…
…only for the editing software to tell me some of the files were corrupt and I couldn’t save what I’d done. I removed the files it said were bad — but then it told me the files that were good just a moment ago were now corrupted files as well now. What’s going on?!?! :-/
“The deadline for submissions was Sunday. My heart sank. I’d never do it in time.”
I closed my computer down and went to bed thinking that all was lost. But, as I say, I’m so used to being a failure now that I almost wasn’t surprised that things had gone wrong.
I started Sunday fully expecting everything to go terribly wrong again. As such I put no pressure on myself to make anything decent, I just accepted the fact that it was likely to be a complete failure and I’d have nothing to show at the end… but after an uncertain start, things just started falling into place – somehow I’d move the clips around, and clips that I hadn’t placed myself suddenly seemed to be in the perfect place. Clips that had just ‘ended up’ next to each other as I moved the other clips around just seemed to compliment and contrast with each other in a perfect sort of way… In many ways it felt like *I* wasn’t even editing it… it was just happening in front of me by some sort of inspiration.
I absolutely love the final film – it’s not perfect, but I actually like its imperfections. Will it get picked for MoMoFilmFest? I have no idea. I’d love it to, but if it doesn’t, I’m happy with it. It was a tremendous learning experience and I’m looking forward to making the next one!
Hilton R. Hart
