Go West

6 days on.
Phonecall from Sara Ewin, our fantastic theatrical booker (who does all the bookings into cinemas and transports copies of the film across the country).
We're in the West End!
This is fucking fantastic news. Never thought this would be possible.
We're screening at the Prince Charles on Leicester Sq (love that cinema). It's the all-important toehold in the West End. We've got to do everything possible to pack out that screening and build from there.
In the immortal words of Go West, "We close our eyes to see the final frame". Whatever happened to Go West? How far west did they actually go?

The Blonde Beggar of Bethnal Green

Friday: I'm emerging from the Radio 4 cocoon when Craig (editor) texts me with news of a storming review in London Lite. This is a free newspaper distributed during morning rush hour; but it's now 5pm, and the vendors have all gone home. Desperate to see the review before it becomes tomorrow's celebrity autobiography, I hit the streets in search of a discarded copy.

There's a guy reading one in the window of Starbucks. He's alone, waiting for someone. I want his paper. He wants a fuck for the night - that's why he's sitting alone in the window of a Soho Starbucks. I mouth through the glass that I want his article. He misunderstands. I retreat.

I think about checking the bins, but there's a guy already doing that - does he have a review out, too?

Then down to the Tube, last resting place of a million free handout newspapers. It's rush hour, jammed, and I can't get through the carriage. I miss my stop - Liverpool Street - letting the train empty. Down the carriage, picking up papers, looking for the golden ticket. The train has left Bethnal Green and is well on its way to the end of the line when I find a copy, slightly soiled - but it's not human, so I'll live with it.

It's 4 stars. A treat. I sit down to savour it. It's then I notice all around me, discarded on seats, copy after copy of London Lite, hundreds of them. (No one takes them home to clip and file, like I shall do with my precious edition.) The review is already tomorrow's Ashley Cole autobiography.

Stella Papamichael's BBC review - a reply

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2007/03/19/
the_gigolos_2007_review.shtml

Dear Stella,

Sorry to read that you didn't like The Gigolos. I watch plenty of movies I don't like, and wouldn't think twice about telling a filmmaker what I thought of their work, so I'm not taking issue with any of your opinions.

As a professional film reviewer, however, you'll appreciate being corrected on a couple of technical points.

You write about "the obvious lack of a lighting budget"...

But The Gigolos was lit, using the following equipment:

2x 650W Softlights
4ft Kino flo 4 Bank at 3200K
1x 2K Fresnel Spotlight
2x 650W Fresnel Spotlight
4x 100W Dedolight

The cost of hiring these lights was relatively small, compared to the cost of other production consumables such as film stock - but you would know this, as a professional film reviewer.

The film was lit deliberately and in such a way as to make it look like a documentary, rather than a fiction film. Artificial (tungsten) lighting was used in conjunction with daylight, and then not colour-corrected, in order to give the false impression that the film was unlit.

It's much harder to create the false impression of a documentary than it is to light and grade all scenes to the same colour temperature, as you might for a tv drama.

If you point a film camera at a darkening room which has not been lit by a DoP, it's unlikely that you'll have enough light to make an exposure. With film, no light doesn't produce black, it simply produces a grey mush on the negative.

In other words, you can't just "point and shoot" a movie; every shot has to be lit in some way, even if you're creating shadows. But you would know this, as a professional film reviewer.

The Gigolos is supposed to look like a documentary, in the same way that Sacha Tarter uses his own name for his character. But the film is no more a low-budget documentary than Sacha is a real gigolo.

Keep up the good work!

Richard

Manic Monday

Monday morning is all about what's called the "holdovers". That's when cinema programmers look at how films have performed over the w/e (Fri, Sat & Sun), then decide what they're going to play for next w/e. 300 has done excellent international box office, so that's sure to stay on & extend to more screens. We feel swamped in someone else's business... but a good result: we're going to be screening at the Ritzy Picturehouse Brixton from next Friday for a week. So, we're in London for another week. No West End yet, but this is not a bad outcome.

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning

The figures seem to say we did OK in Clapham last night. No idea what this really means, but people are coming to see the film. I expect it will come down to how we perform in comparison to the other films (300 opens this weekend, plus Becoming Jane is still doing well - how much Jane Austen does the public need?).
But the reviews keep coming - 3 stars today from the Sunday Times, 3 from the Sunday Telegraph. Reviewers are generally really getting the film & getting behind us.
Sunday Telegraph says: "a disarming debut from writer-director Richard Bracewell that subverts your every expectation with each new scene"; "the leads are excellent"; "around them, Brafcewell does interesting things with London as a melancholy, past-its-prime location".
Yippeeee! That's fantastic.
How does this translate to bums on seats?
No idea. That's for tomorrow morning.
Will it be Happy Mondays, or Monday Bloody Monday?

Confessions of a PR Virgin

Chatted to Francine Stock about The Gigolos. They recorded it for the film programme on Radio 4. She asked about the length of time it's taken to get the film released; I thought about the pain of pitching cinemas, raising finance, the struggle of getting an unknown movie to the screen.

It has caused us pain, yes; but at least it's our pain. The grief belongs to us. We own the effort.

We didn't sign to distributor. We don't have a PR company trying to pitch us as Confessions of a Male Escort. We don't have a publicist thinking that the only way to get bums on seats is to lie about the number of bums on screen.

Amazing Grace is also released this weekend. Publicity for the film is being driven by lengthy newspaper debate about the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery. That is: a PR company is using Abolition to generate column inches for the release of a film, with the aim of generating money for its investors and producers.

We're all trying to make money from our movies - why else would we do it? But does it have to be done by exploiting the debate around Abolition? Who's being enslaved here?

Critics Choice

Thousands of Londoners are commuting into work right now reading a fantastic review in Metro:
"seek out this cliche-confounding, utterly intriguing debut Brit flick".
Wow!
The film is "a real rough gem".
Wooow!
It doesn't stop there: we're number five in Metro's Critics Choice Top Ten! That means we'll appear every day for the next week.
Wooooooooooow!
Surely surely surely this has to encourage people to see the film? Surely this must translate to bums on seats?

Stars in our Eyes

Wake up to an avalanche of positive reviews - some seriously good.
Can it be possible? Do people like the film?
4 stars from London Lite - with the great headline: "Men of the night a wierdly comic delight". That's better than anyone's ever summed up the film.
4 stars in the Daily Mirror - the "shot in the arm that British cinema could well do with".
3 stars in the Evening Standard - "an original debut".
4 stars from What's On In London - "highly original drama".
3 stars from the Daily Express.
A great, intelligent review from Sukhdev Sandhu in the Telegraph: "Bracewell...evokes with poetic clarity the loneliness of late-night London".
Today's only crap review is the Guardian of all places. More of this later. Can't let that get us down, got a movie to release.
Almost overcome with emotion after all these great reviews. After three years of struggle, no salary, highs & lows, the film is at cinemas, most reviewers like it - and some really like it. It might just work.

old age concerns

Eat, drink and be very afraid, for tomorrow the film is released!

A charity event in Norwich this morning in aid of Age Concern Norfolk. Age Concern and gigolos: the perfect fit, or a promotional event too far? What would elderly Norfolks make of Trevor pimping Sacha to wealthy spinsters in the hair salons of Mayfair & Piccadilly?

I didn't wait to find out - I left under cover of darkness as reel 1 began, heading for London and a radio interview. But the merry clinking of complimentary tea cup on saucer and the nodding of heads told me that the audience was going to enjoy this one... or were the heads simply nodding off? I couldn't tell in the dark.

An appreciative audience and another hundred tickets sold: an excellent boost for a desperately-understaffed local organisation tirelessly working to promote the cause of the less fortunate.

Age Concern did pretty well out of the event, too.

The Times is Right

24 hours to go.
The review rollercoaster takes another ride into the dizzying heights, courtesy of The Times and another 3 stars, which we're collecting as fast as Ramsey and Roux.
Reviewing The Gigolos is a bit like Texas Hold'Em: the more you understand it, the better you are. The Times reviewer's insight into the "intimate camera work" suggests he don't go all-in with Jack high.
Like anything artistic, it's all about belief. You take the knocks knowing that at some point one reviewer's thoughts match your own. If you question opinions, you might as well ask the spoon if the soup tastes OK.

Variety

An incredible review from Variety.
The reviewer says the film "is a natural for rep houses and upmarket movie channels".
Variety is read by the US entertainment industry.
Let's just hope they read that.
Can't underestimate the importance of what's just happened.

Nuts about The Gigolos

Visionary magazine NUTS gives us 4 stars for the film - Carmen Electra's 3-DD assets only getting 3 stars for I Want Candy.
Can't contain the pure excitement that a top lads mag has taken time out (not to be confused with the short-sighted listings rag) from naked TV babes etc. to give us such a good shout 36 hours before we release.
In 28 words of blinding simplicity, NUTS says "Low budget comedy drama wth lots of cringeworthy laughs".
What can the producers of I Want Candy be thinking? They're probably hoping to appeal to the NUTS audience, then some film they've never heard of gets 1 more star.
Question: is it better to get 4 stars in NUTS or TIME OUT? Every marketing cell in my brain says TIME OUT... but the simple brilliance of the NUTS reviews blows everything away.
Will it translate to bums on seats? Who cares - we've got 4 stars in NUTS!

24

1 day to go.
Jack Bauer might be able to pack a lot into a day, but 24 hours seems as sure as shit a very short time to me. Sands of time slipping away.
G-Day is almost upon us, and there's still a shedload of beaches (collective noun for beaches? a whale of beaches?) to be stormed.
It's hard not to look back at what we've done and think, "How did things ever get so far?"
But tomorrow people will actually pay real money to see our film. In their hundreds, rather than in their tens, we hope...

300

Slightly relieved to see that the Time Out review of 300 was even worse than its one for The Gigolos. 300 only gets 1 star. We have a whole 2 stars. Does this make our film twice as good as 300?

Out of Time

2 days till release.
Crap review in Time Out. The reviewer didn't get the film. You're meant to be terribly British about bad reviews & take them on the chin. If you make films you have to have a very thick skin. But this really pisses me off. You work on a feature film for 3 years, take immense financial & personal risk, staking everything on getting your film out there. Because you know people will want to see it & will enjoy it.
How do we know this? Because we've watched it on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood with execs from Paramount & Dreamworks in the audience, and 500 people loved it. Our screening was busier than the screening of Transamerica next door which had all four Desperate Housewives in attendance.
Then some bloke watches a DVD, doesn't get it & tells Londoners his opinions. I've got no probs with people not liking the film. That's life. I've never really liked Time Out. I've also got no probs with bad reviews which are insightful & intelligent. The LA Weekly reviewer trashed us, saying "no can do", explaining this kind of indie film didn't work for him. You've got to ride these hits.
My problem is that this is lazy reviewing. The Time Out reviewer writes that "it's unfunny to the point of becoming tedious". Has he actually watched the same film? We didn''t make The Gigolos as a comedy. But it is funny. At every screening we've been to - from Sunset Blvd to Dinard in France to Cambridge & London - audiences really enjoy the film and laugh.
The critic ends by wondering how Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant "would have spun this meaty set-up"... I love their work, but how many feature films have they written, produced, directed and performed in themselves, having raised all the cash to do it?
More respect please!
More respect for the audiences who watch the film and do laugh. Why don't they get to review the film for Time Out?
Fortunately we have a really sexy ad in Time Out which will more than make up for it.

12A

4 days till release.
The BBFC confirms our certificate as 12A. Almost fell off my chair: we were convinced a film about gigolos was going to be a 15. Can this really mean that children as young as 12 will be allowed to see Sacha kissing Angela Pleasence? Surely this can't be safe.

Loose Women

Susannah York's just appeared on ITV's Loose Women, a lunchtime chatshow with around a million viewers. The presenter plugs The Gigolos immediately and all the female presenters talk about whether they would consider paying a much younger man for... Will women across the UK be debating this hot topic all afternoon? Probably not. But good to get National TV exposure for the film five days before release.

Exotic Dancer

Still 7 days till release.
Big afternoon.
5 more cinemas taking the film. Kino in Hawkhurst & Sevenoaks in Kent. (A dead cool new chain of digital cinemas.) Cardiff & Chichester in May. Shrewsbury in June. Week-long bookings. Momentum's swinging behind us.
2 interviews for Richard are live on the BBC website. Plus he's booked as the breakfast guest on BBC Radio Norfolk on Monday morning.
275 quid for me, winning big with an exacta on the Cheltenham Gold Cup - Kauto Star won, Exotic Dancer second. Easier making money out of horses than films.
Enough movie releasing. Time for pub.

What will the papers say?

7 days till release.
Our reviewer screening is booked for 1030am today. It happens almost automatically. A very useful organisation called the Film Distributors Association books it & invites reviewers. We don't have to be there. Reviewers turn up, watch the film, leave. Reviews hopefully materialise next week. This is one of the most important parts of the release, but it's now all out of our hands.
What will reviewers make of the film? Impossible to know. When The Gigolos premiered in Hollywood, we had two great reviews from LA Times and Hollywood Reporter, then a shocking one from LA Weekly. Two out of three ain't bad.
No point worrying about it, it's beyond our control. Instead, time to think about the Cheltenham Gold Cup (later this afternoon). I'm backing Kauto Star to win, Exotic Dancer to come second.

We've Got Mail

20 days till release.
Anna Massey appears in a two-page interview in the Daily Mail Weekend supplement, all about her life & career. The Gigolos gets a paragraph - not bad, especially as the Daily Mail has over 6m UK readers on Saturdays.