Strangely, I have found myself quoting Winston Churchill a few times this week. Strange, because like most of my family I despise him irrespective of how he kept plucky old Blighty going during the dark days of the Blitz. Because his Dardanelles adventurism killed thousands of ordinary Tommies and Anzacs and long before the war he happily ordered the British Army to open fire on striking coal miners.
Anyhow, the fat old bugger once said”This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, it is merely the end of the beginning.” And so it is with us. A good start but that is all it is, and the Labbers have to keep up their intense level of diligence and concentration up as they move back into the everyday, which is going to be really hard. They will be proud of the work they have done here and so they should be, but now isn’t the time to rest up and feel satisfied.
I personally want at least three of these films to be in production within the next twelve months and I am going to work hard to make that happen. I know what is already coming down the pipe from the first Labbers and I can tell the most recent intake the bar has been set very high. Any success a Filmlab film preceding yours has will means your film will be the object of comparison. In its own way it will be expected to perform as least as well, particularly by me.
And soon people, particularly in this town, are going to see the Filmlab logo on the front of a film and have an expectation that they are going to see something fresh, smart, provocative and original, a true voice. Yours. So on we go.
