Protecting the Brand - 50,000 vrs 500,000

A NORTHERN AFFAIR

I have come under a lot of fire from folks who have seen A Northern Affair. Even from my family. My sister Karin gave me a side glance and asked 'Why doesn't it look like anything else you've done"
Ama K Abebrese said. "Chic, I know you know this is far from your style of work"


When people go into watch a Leila Djansi film, as it's so called, they expect everything to be big. Big stars, big shots, big story. I get it.
When you see a low budget film, you know. In essence, what these folks are trying to say is, this was a low budget film. Yes it was.

What you can achieve with 500,000, you cannot achieve with 50,000. Filmmaking is not magic. It is capital intensive. Making A Northern Affair was a struggle. I Sing of a Well was about the same budget, but the difference between I Sing of a Well and A Northern Affair was the script.
80% of I sing of a well was set outside. Same costume, same props... We had elegant breathtaking locations, the style was different, a different and more high end camera package. Same cinematographer. Same writer/director. Very different story.
I Sing of a Well is a period piece. It can only be what it is. A Northern Affair is a bit dark, its genre. A bigger crew, bigger production elements. This means, I Sing of a Well had a little bit more creative wriggle room where budget was concerned than A Northern Affair had. 2013 vrs 2009, different economy; so many differences.

I love A Northern Affair. Let me get that fact out of the way. I am not necessarily proud of it, but it has soul and I love it. If I had a bigger budget, I'd have had a lot of fun going all the way. We had a lot of crew challenges especially in sound and continuity and that made things a little choppy. A lot of love went into the film. Our art department created a Manuel world so intimate and perfect, I never wanted to leave that set.

A Northern Affair is bigger film script than what you saw. It was edited to suit the budget and taste of the audience it's meant for. That's what goes into making commercial films. You need to water down the product. When you are an auteur, the great challenge is making commercial fare. You get lost because you still want a part of you in the material even though you know you shouldn't.

For us to continue making the Ties That Binds of this world, you need to stop pirating films. There is no sense making a big budget film if you stand no chance of recouping your investment.

Until then, you have to make do with the "two people sitting down and talking" type of films.

I love A Northern Affair. If anyone were to ask me to pick two favs from all my films, I'll pick A Northern Affair first, I'll pause a bit before choosing another; and it might be Sinking Sands or it might be Ties That Bind. That would depend on my mood.