The Quest

Chris and I have been waiting to discover whether HOME MOVIES has been selected for screening at ‘In Short’, a film festival promoting the talent of people who live, work or study in Queen’s Park and surrounding neighbourhoods.

There are prizes.

Of course we want to share our work, to promote our cast and crew and to broadcast the company name.

But we really, really, really want a prize.

First prize is good. First prize is your film shown as a trailer before the main feature at the Lexi Cinema on the Chamberlayne Road every night for a week. We could be the warm up act for Tilda Swinton.

This is the prize we want.

All right. Fine. Clarification: This is the prize I want.

Chris, probably a better person, has maintained since February - all through development, rehearsal, shooting and post-production – that she just wants the film in the festival. That would be success enough for her.

I have nodded, aping her humility. ‘Oh yes, yes – triumph,’ I’ve said, while secretly imagining what I’ll wear to introduce our movie the night they undoubtedly ask me to come and talk about our eight-minute short that features one vaguely ataxic character falling over in the street, twice, and another breaking into spontaneous yoga just before they screen ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’.

My big face!! Gurning into an audience who have paid to see Tilda Swinton! This is my quest.

Of course we have only been able to make the film and submit it because 31, count ‘em, 31 people have supported the blighter. Chris and I have been gob-smacked with astonishment and awe at the overwhelming support our WeFund campaign has attracted. We now have 85% of our total budget. We are the heroes racing towards the finish line, heads thrown back, chests bared to the skies, shouting ‘Aaaaaaghhh!’ And, like all great heroic quests, there is at the climactic point, the chance of losing it all.  YES of LOSING IT ALL!! ALL!! LOOOOOOSING AAAAAaaaall.

Because.

If we don’t raise the final £600 in the next two weeks and three days, WeFund will cancel all the pledges we’ve received so far.

  

YES. CAAAAaaaaNCEL!!(echo: caaaaaaaaaancellllll)

They are the Wizards guarding the Treasure that will not be given into our stewardship until we prove our worthiness. WeFunders sit, tender, watchful, as Chris and I run, faster faster faster, keeping our eye on the finish line and on the festival (and on first prize).

Of course we knew that getting into the festival would give us juuuust that much more incentive to run that much faster and attract that much more money.

They were announcing their selection last weekend.

Last weekend I sat at my computer (pretty safe bet, if I’m sitting actually. Chris asked me yesterday ‘What did you do for your sixteen waking hours before you had a laptop?’ and I stared at her. Before laptop?  What is  - this – before laptop?).  I was Skyping. My friend Anna and I were texting away. A happy exchange of Skype texts. Little bits of information and humourous observations, stories and anecdotes when  - another Skype text came through.

‘Beep’ it said.

I glanced up.

It was from the founder of the ‘In Short’ festival.

My heart somersaulted and landed in my knees. I wanted to open it but was in mid-anecdote. What if it was bad news? I’d never finish the story. And if it were good news – well. I’d never finish the story either.

Below is a transcript of that stomach-revolving moment. Anna had just asked how I was:

[22/10/2011 15:31:06] Stephanie Young:  I'm really well, thank you. Having a really fun day with Chris - hardly ever have this kind of time just the two of us. She and I are talking about writing and –

Beep.

[22/10/2011 15:31:33] Stephanie Young: oh hang on, sorry - message from the founder about the flim festival!

(Suddenly we’ve submitted our movie to a flim festival. This combined with my initials would make for a flim-SY festival to which, quite honestly, we would rather not be invited. My friend, however, understood and wrote:)

[22/10/2011 15:31:40] Anna: Oooo

[22/10/2011 15:31:48] Stephanie Young: I know my heart is racing!

[22/10/2011 15:31:51] Stephanie Young: she's texting me now

[22/10/2011 15:31:58] Stephanie Young: i'm nervous!

[22/10/2011 15:32:08] Anna: I'm waiting

I shifted to the other page and watched the little Skype pencil move as the Founder typed. I saw the text come up, willing the words, crossing my fingers, holding my breath.

And at 15:32 on Saturday, 22^nd October the Founder of the festival (whose intern had been unable to get to us on email) wrote to me saying:

[22/10/2011 15:32:05] We said everyone must be told by 3pm today. We saw over 30 short films - and yours is in…

 WE’RE IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We’re in, we’re in. I told Anna, swiftly, that we had got into the flim festival. Again, she understood.

[22/10/2011 15:33:02] Anna: Fabulo!

[22/10/2011 15:33:03] Stephanie Young: I may have to run and tell Chris!!

[22/10/2011 15:33:12] Anna: Go go I have to run

[22/10/2011 15:33:22] Anna: Congratulations!!!

[22/10/2011 15:33:33] Anna: I'll catch you later

I called out to Chris, working down the hall in her office.

‘Have you checked your email today?’ I shouted.

‘No,’ she called back. ‘Why?’

‘Just – just check your email,’ I said.

I typed my thanks to the Founder while I heard Chris pull her chair up to her computer. The mouse clicked a few times. She shouted

‘There’s an email from [HOME MOVIES director] DaveAnderson, is that what you mean?’

(For those of you new to the blog, DaveAnderson has become one word in the offices of MYPC. We say his name so often, it’s just easier. I could waste years of my life pausing that split nano-second between ‘Dave’ and ‘Anderson’ and, I tell you, I’ve just got too much to see and do. Like re-categorise my iTunes library by artist and not album. And whittle.)

'He's written, is it from Dave?' 

Obviously, I wasn't speaking about an email from Dave.

‘Yes!’ I said.

I texted the Founder:

 [22/10/2011 15:41:25] Stephanie Young: I am going to go, run and tell Christine if I may. She's been holding her breath!

[22/10/2011 15:41:29] Stephanie Young: I am so so happy.

[22/10/2011 15:41:35] Stephanie Young: This is great for us .

‘Yes? About - train times?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said again, warmly. Hoping she would be distracted by my loving tone and not suspect my forked tongue.

There was a pause. I felt Christine’s eyes squinting from 20 feet away.

‘Why did you know I was going to get an email from DaveAnderson?’

I signed off from the Founder. I heard Chris inhale.  She shouted down the hall. ‘Stephanie. I think you’re lying.’

I giggled. Yes, I giggled. I hate giggling and I hate gigglers but here I was, victim and perpetrator. How best to tell her? The best way is to read the news yourself. The best way is to open the envelope, the best way is to hold the letter in your hands. I didn’t have an envelope or a letter.

I unplugged and picked up my computer.

‘I – I have something I want you to read.’

She glanced at me from the sofa. She’d given up thinking she was supposed to be excited about emails from director DaveAnderson, even emails with which I seemed to have a prescient relationship. She waited to see what I was lying about.

I stood in front of her, brandishing my laptop like the grail she’d been looking for. She blinked at me.

‘Now – it’s Skype,’ I said.

‘When is Skype?’ she said, frowning.

‘Now. This. Is. Skype. It’s Skype this is Skype.’

‘I – I hear that. It’s Skype.’ She paused. ‘What is Skype?’

‘What you are about to read, it’s on Skype so bear that in mind.’

‘What am I – ‘

I pushed her novel to the floor and thrust the laptop into her hands. She wrestled with the machine and looked where my fingers were pointing.

‘Look, you see – it’s Skype. Skype. Skype.’

‘I see, I see, it’s Skype.  It’s Skype. You keep saying Skype. It’s like talking to Rain Man, why is it – ‘

And at that very moment her eyes caught the words ‘We saw over 30 films…’ And I watched her face as the fact hit home and the truth sank in (after three attempts to read the GOOD NEWS! because, being Skype, the messages were not sequential and they are quite hard to make sense of which is why I had kept shouting ‘Skype!’ at her, you’d have thought that would have been enough but Noooo she had wanted me to say “These messages are not sequential”, I ASK YOU.).

And a moment later we high-fived each other. And then discussed tiaras.

And my speech.

***

 

If you feel inspired to assist us in our quest to claim all the pledges that have been made by those 31 extraordinarily generous people, to become One of Them, to allow us to reach the finish line, gasping, exultant, teary-eyed - borne shoulder-high by our cast and crew to the Lexi Cinema on Sunday, 20^th November to see my face as big as Tilda’s; if you would like to see us triumph before the Hour-Glass Runs Out and the Treasure is Returned – click here:

http://www.wefund.com/project/home-movies

As little as £5 will get you a perk. We’d love to get you – perky. Thank you for following us and the story of our little film.

(We have big plans for it.)

A Home Movie

We held a small party and private screening of HOME MOVIES to thank our cast, crew, sponsors and friends on Friday 30th September. We served them wine, cheese and those tiny, little decorative pickles. We hugged them as often as possible. We fed them the talent of Belfast singer/songwriter Anthony Toner and there was laughing, at the right parts, during the film. The mood was warm and generous after, and no one stampeded to get to the door.

It was enjoyable.

For everyone else.

For me it was an evening for which 'enjoyable' is a pale and watery word. There was, obviously, the pleasure of friends and colleagues and those pickles were fantastic. But. There was a moment when I felt so fulfilled, such a gloriously happy inhabitant of my own life, that, lucky for you -  I made a photograph with my heart.

It looks like this:

The front room of a mansion block in Maida Vale: pale teal walls, darker teal carpet with classic and comfortable sofas and arm chairs. The ceiling lights are dimmed.

Connecting doors to a small study are open and wooden chairs are lined up behind the low-backed sofa; half a dozen people stand at the back. Every one faces the fire place in front of which is ANTHONY TONER – Belfast singer/songwriter. Twenty-two people wait..

Seated in a wooden chair, holding a guitar, his hair rock ‘n’ roll long and soft about his collar, he fiddled with a tuner at his feet.

‘It’s very possible this might make you nervous’ he said, adjusting dials as he plucked a string on his guitar. ‘Sitting quietly in front of a man from Northern Ireland while between you is a small, electronic device, wired and activated…’

Anthony explained he had been asked to open the evening because his music is used in MYPC’s hugely successful WeFund campaign – the campaign that continues to succeed and make HOME MOVIES possible (lines are still open) (80% of the target has been reached) (yee-haaa).  

  

http://www.wefund.com/project/home-movies

The audience, full of goat's cheese and sundried tomatoes on sesame crackers, listened with growing pleasure (you never know what you're going to get in someone's living room)  to the incomparably clever lyrics and heartfelt tunes, typified by the opening number, ‘East of Louise’.

http://www.anthonytoner.net/anthonys-blog/2011/5/26/10-days-10-songs-east-of-louise.html

I felt everyone relax just the way I relaxed earlier in the afternoon when Anthony breezed in from Belfast, fresh from a gig the night before and leaving in twenty hours to play another.  His huge and easy charm, genuine enthusiasm and, let’s face it, distracting good looks are an impossibly winning combination that I defy any sentient being to resist (apparently there is a sitcom in development in Belfast – ‘Everyone Likes Anthony Toner’).

His music and conversation knit us together. I could feel us all thinking ‘Well, this is very simple. And very nice.’ It was Friday night, London was still baring her shoulders and legs to the brazen, second summer (22 degrees at 8pm) and here was someone telling us stories and singing beautifully.

And there was more wine.

If I had been nervous about the first semi-public screening of HOME MOVIES, by the second song – (‘…we’re the people that we’ve always been, so just lie here til the light comes in…’) - I wasn't.

http://www.anthonytoner.net/anthonys-blog/2011/5/27/10-days-10-songs-walking-down-the-line.html

And not because I was suddenly filled with an unshakable confidence that everyone would rise and fist-punch the air to announce this was their favourite short film ever EVER EVER!!! But because I was amongst friends (some I’d just met) who would accept our film in the spirit in which it had been created, the spirit that motivated Anthony’s songs – to move and entertain some people.

Now I was comfortable, I was engaged. What I didn’t know was that I was about to be launched into one of those heightened moments when time and place vanish, where you reach through the insubstantial stuff of molecules and memory to touch some source, some river that’s always flowing and that now and then you notice.

Anthony re-adjusted his guitar and watched the tuner.

‘This next song is the one that Chris and Stephanie have used to promote the film’ he said, glancing up. ‘And I wrote it for Stephanie.  She was going through a lot, a rough time, some very big changes in her life – very intense – and I was inspired to write this.’ The guitar was in tune. He settled it in his lap.  His hands hovered over the strings as he looked up to assure us  ‘And this song fixed everything.’

He played the catchy opening. This was how I’d first heard it – just Anthony and a guitar. And I realised, sitting on the floor of this room, leaning against this sofa, was, achingly weirdly, precisely where I had been sitting when he'd said 'Merry Christmas,' put the CD into the machine and hit ‘play' in December 2008.

On that winter morning it had been over two years since I had left my job, my home and a relationship, swimming, sometimes flailing, in deep waters trying to find the life I knew I was built for: making art, making money, living with people I loved. My mother had written, worried, worried sick, shouldn’t I face reality, shouldn’t I get a job? and in huge frustration I wished I’d never told her the truth. If only I had lied. If only I could film a fake life to send home to her so I would look like a success. So she wouldn’t worry.

Feel the breezes in the leaves above you,

the here and now and the ones who love you…

Finally you find home, and it’s a state of mind.

As the words cascaded out of the speakers, invisible behind the gargantuan Christmas tree Anthony and I had carried home down Elgin Avenue just the night before, I could feel my face tighten and my forehead spasm in what I understand is a hugely unattractive reflex but which I can’t help when I am about to cry from my deepest heart. Tears like water from a hydrant leapt, horizontally, from my eyes. I gasped. Andrea, my dear friend and Anthony’s partner, moved slowly down on the floor beside me and Anthony propped me up on the right. They put their arms about me as I suspect it looked as though I wasn’t going to remain incarnate, and maybe anchoring me to them, and the floor, would keep me breathing.

I hadn’t realised how profoundly I had longed for help – yearned for some huge cosmic billboard lit up announcing ‘You Are Not Fucking Insane!’ And here, in just under four minutes, was every syllable of acknowledgement and affirmation, encouragement and support I could have ever desired.

What you were looking for has finally found you,

The world wants to put its arms around you

Finally.

It was probably the best Christmas present I had ever received. It was certainly one of the best moments of my life. And here, three years later, I was sitting exactly where I’d first heard that song, surrounded by people who had produced, directed, shot, acted in, sound designed, developed and funded the script – about a woman who films a fake life to send home to her mother. To prove she’s a success.

 http://www.anthonytoner.net/anthonys-blog/2011/5/24/10-days-10-songs-finally.html

A wise teacher once said that ‘The standard of success in life isn't the things. It isn't the money or the stuff -- it is absolutely the amount of joy you feel.’

Look at this picture. It was taken that moment Anthony sang. And I want you to note the woman in pink, because she is the most successful woman on the face of the blossoming earth.

(I took a photograph with my heart; more usefully, Chris took this with her phone.)