The cultural zeitgeist speaks in this day and age about the isolation, alienation and despair of young people. We have watched the horrors of this in TV series like Adolescence.

In the North-East of England, the region has the highest suicide-rate in the country. This is the consequence of the economic policies of the 1980s. We are a region which has not recovered from the asset-stripping of major industries, leaving many like myself with the label of ‘redundant’. Imagine that word next to your name. It smarts. It is depressing, and it undermines any confidence you once had.

What a judgment on our lives. I was once a skilled man, and then I was redundant; surplus to requirements.

How do you get over that? Well, you become a screenwriter! No one probably said that, ever, but that’s what happened to me – eventually – and that has helped me see what I’m here for; giving me a sense of purpose.

I am a storyteller.

After you put the ‘closed for business’ sign on a region, the black economy takes over, and young people wonder why they go to school when there are no jobs to find afterwards. Back in the 80s, my hometown had an unemployment rate of +25%, and on some estates (projects in the US) it was at 75%. Not a family untouched by the recession.

I worked on one as a Youth Worker, where glue sniffing was the only out for young people. If the Police needed to arrest anyone, they had to come in riot vans; block off the street,s and go in to try and arrest the young offender.

This does something to your soul. Watching it at close quarters, experiencing it personally, and hoping that from somewhere, hope would spring forth. It didn’t, because there weren’t any storytellers of hope, just the ones who came to my town to make documentaries about the ‘Dole Capital of Britain’ as the town was labelled in the Press.

And yet, the Universe seems to be having the last word, and rather ironically a resurgence is happening through the film industry in Hartlepool. (see the post from Pat Alexander here)

Enter centre-stage – the storyteller.

Stories can send despair into exile; erode the shackles of isolation, alienation and despair. All of these negative energy forms attract company; energy which sucked the life out of the people. Despair bred an ugly and cruel nihilism in the town, but stories can breed hope and light into the darkened corners of any place. Stories that infuse people with an energy that says, “I will not give up, I will not relent.”

So, I’m asking that we as storytellers become relentless in our pursuit of inspirational stories that connect with people. It doesn’t matter what the genre is either; it’s not something limited to social realism ,and when I speak of that, I am always reminded of the words of French Filmmaker, Robert Bresson – “Realism. The pale imitation of nature.” It probably sounded more poetic in French, right?

Good energy attracts good energy, which empowers people. I’m not talking about politics, but human stories. We gain the power to come together, to form communities of worth, not worthlessness, of joy and not despair.

As Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) said:

“If we are brought closer together because of a shared experience on the silver screen, or in the theatre, then those are the stories that I want to be a part of, whether as a viewer or as someone acting in it. That’s what attracts me to these roles. That’s what attracts me to these projects...“Do I feel changed? Do I feel like I’m growing?”

I think that we are not so much building an audience as a community.

Films can connect people and raise them from the dead wreck of a life deemed redundant. Tell me I’m mad, but this is what International Imaginists is all about. Not politics, but humanity. Not propaganda, but storytelling - Slogans versus something with a pulse. Propaganda is the tool of the powerful; Imperialism with a pen. It doesn’t want to know your opinion; it doesn’t give you time to think. Storytelling, on the other hand, gives the audience time to reflect and make changes, personal, social, and cultural.

I believe in something other than slogans, something which is quite outrageous:

“I am a pen in the hand of the Divine.” Rumi.

Building community first...on set.

Let’s step backward from the public viewing of our work and go behind the camera. Our aim as a company will be to bring change to those who make the film, the crew, by finding a new way to reward those ‘below the line’ on the budget sheet.

In other words, creating a community, not just from the watchers of our films, but also those who make it. Studios may not need to do this, as they produce bulk-buy items, but it may be a thing of the future for independent production companies.

Community has all to do with a common unity of purpose. We want to make films that inspire change, but we want that change to also occur in our industry. My initial thought was to give a discretionary bonus from the company's annual profits, but now I’m wondering about the crew as stakeholders. Not as employees as such, but for the moment, this is a long way off.

We know how perilous a career in this business can be, especially in view of the strikes over the last couple of years. This is what sent me thinking about rewarding the crew, beyond production days. I’m still thinking about it! It has to be financially viable of course, as my company would need to have development finance for their films, but I’m still wanting to find a way to do it.

During the production and release phases of our films, we want this community creation to include adopting charities that work in the area of the themes covered in our stories. With Seeing Rachel, we have connected with Unseen UK, a Bristol-based charity, to promote their work with the survivors of sex trafficking and raise funds through a charity premiere event.

Building an audience...

We are often told that we need a social media presence as part of the marketing for our films. I always viewed this as problematic. Mainly because...

Facebook was a disappointment as it always capped the number of followers who could see your posts. That’s where most of my followers came from. I must admit, that this still pisses me off, but then you learn to strategise around such barriers. I now limit what I post on FB, and I’ve found another more rewarding outlet: Instagram (IG).

Before working with Sandra Correia, if I had 50 people visit my account in a 30 day period, I was lucky. As of today, I have 4200 people visit it in the last 30 days. Why? I’d like to think that in the past, I posted cool stuff, but in truth, it wasn’t what subscribers of IG were looking for. All-in-all, they like videos! ‘Pictures that move’, to quote David Lynch. I can get over 800 views for one of the clips.

Now, with Sandra alongside me, this is the difference. A lesson to learn here: Click on the Collaborate Button when you are posting. It connects your post to their account. I’m not saying that this is earth-shattering and in the realm of a social media influencer, but you are talking about someone here, who only has 590 followers. No one is going to say “Wow!” to that. (Please note, Sandra has over 5700!)

We post soundbites from our interviews on IG, from topical conversations about the film industry and social issues, with CEOs of charities, businesses, and Film Producers too.

I am sure that those numbers will increase when we move through to the casting phase and onto production.

LinkedIn, is the outlier in all of this. To be truthful, I never really took much notice of it, because I really didn’t have much to say by way of business matters. Once, however, Sandra and I posted, tagged, and shared posts from the same interview clips, the figures increased. In the last 90 days, we’ve generated over 2650 impressions. Before this, I was lucky if I got 10 impressions to my posts.

All of this teaches me that you need to treat your social media accounts to the content that the subscribers expect.

Final thought on this: We must be doing something right!

Audience potential...

TS Eliot – “Only those who will risk going too far, can possibly find out how far one can go.”

From this, I see the audience potential, but what I want to do is build a community around the film and the production company, International Imaginists. Part of this was inspired by RB, who posted about Eli Roth and his initiative for inviting fans to become investors. Now, I know this is a way-off kind of thing for us and the production company, but...

It is now firmly on the list of our future developments.

I put all of this down to building a community around our work, and it seems that at Stage32, we have an advantage because the community is already there and waiting to hear about the next steps.

Finally, I would say we, as independent filmmakers; need to think not just about building an audience, but a community out of our audience. This step has the potential to transform our business model, from survive to thrive mode.

As the song says, “How did I get here?”

Well, it all has to do with connections and one in particular – Sandra Correia. She has given me the confidence to move forward with such ideas, ideas that 12 months ago would have seemed absurd. I wouldn’t have dared to even think of such things, never mind own up to them in public, and yet here we are.

And now, there is more to learn, greater steps to take. I am thankful for Sandra’s generosity and kindness towards me. I am thankful for her catching the vision for Seeing Rachel.

The next two months are planned for our strategy, and I will keep you posted in the next instalment of this series.

I leave us here, with this thought:

“If you expect to see the final results of your work, you simply have not asked a big enough question.” Frances Moore Lappé [Quoting Journalist, I.F. Stone]

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