Apparently, I Blogged Too Soon.

A couple of days ago I wrote this about what I've been doing recently, going into great detail about Tiny People Fabulous, the short film group I started with some friends. I wrote about how exciting it all was for me despite the sheer amount of delays we've suffered and how happy I am to finally have a film up. I had to regretfully admit that the first film we shot was still not edited, despite us filming it all in one magnificently catastrophic afternoon before Christmas.

Well, we edited it the next day and it has been live on YouTube for just over 24 hours now!

Needless to say, I am deliriously happy.

This film is already not our best and it will probably remain one of the sillier, clumsier films we have in our modest portfolio, but that isn't a problem for us.

"I'm Not SpongeBob" was the first film we actually did. It required one location and one actor and so it was generally quite a simple film to make. We were still getting used to being in that sort of environment and we did not really know what we were doing, and then a load of really annoying things happened that could so easily have screwed the whole thing over.

But we did it anyway.

Harry on set, wondering what
on Earth he got himself into.

And I, for one, will always cherish it as the film that properly kicked off Tiny People Fabulous. It was the first time that we, as a group, stopped dicking around and actually started doing something productive - and that felt pretty special.

I am supremely grateful to everyone who was involved in this film, and I'm not just saying that because I didn't really do a lot apart from fill a bath (with kettles; typically, my boiler decided to stop working on the day) and buy a pizza (I take care of the people in my films, dammit!).

Not really knowing what we were doing for this one, we all jumped into it with the sort of optimistic attitude that so easily could have seen us make some monumental cock-ups. We were very lucky to have some great people involved to get us through it.

A massive thanks most certainly needs to go to the star of this film, Harry Deacon. Having known us for all of about two weeks, he agreed to get next to naked and spend the afternoon in a lukewarm bath while we filmed him being pelted him with sponges. That is possibly the definition of dedication to a commitment and he deserves a hell of a lot of credit for it. Not to mention the fact that at least one person (who shall remain nameless) has admitted to watching it a few times just to look at him topless a bit more.

Then we have our very patient director, Amy, and cameraman, Lee, who put up with me, Tim and Rianna behaving like children for most of the shoot. It took us hours to get the bath shots finished because a lot of them were spoilt by us being silly. Loads of times, Rianna threw the sponges too hard or too softly or at the wall over Harry's shoulder. Then there were all the times that we talked over it or laughed at something or generally behaved like idiots where the camera could either see or hear us.

I held up my camera and said "Look like we're seriously
shooting a film". This was what they did.

The three of us then went to buy pizza, and Amy, Lee and Harry managed to get the rest of the film finished in thirty minutes, including a very dramatic toilet shot that still has me in fits of laughter every time I see it.

For fuck's sake,
Rianna!

Rianna was hiding in
the kitchen with the
intention of scaring me
while I took this.

Making this film gave all of TPF the confidence to go on, even though we didn't get it finished until the other day. At the end of the shoot, we felt great about having actually done it and, even though it took us some time to get around to editing it because of Christmas and essays and VO recordings, without it we might have let everything peter out into nothing instead of coming as far as we have - and will.

After all that, I don't think that our first attempt turned out all that badly. I think it's actually pretty good. And funny. Whether or not you agree is a matter of opinion, but that's all right. We're not trying to please everyone; we're trying to just be us and to have fun creating something we can call our own. And we are. Hopefully it will be entertaining. If not, we'll just try harder next time.

"I'm Not SpongeBob" seems to have been received well by the people who have seen it so far. I am happy with the responses we've got, at least. It has been described as being "very you" (meaning me), which I take only as a compliment.

Shaky and silly as this film most certainly is, I don't care. I love it anyway. It was a first attempt. And not a bad one at that.

Here it is!