SpineFilm films

shooting a scene for The Devil's  Command 2016

guerilla filmmaking:

It means capturing material quickly before anyone realises what is going on. A skeleton crew uses only the essential equipment. They usually work on location, without permission.

A script for The Devil’s Command was written during the summer of 2015. A few months of the following year were spent making four short films. Two Mini-DV camcorders, already a decade old, were used with improvised or available lighting. As examples of guerrilla filmmaking, these films are proof that there has to be a better process. In other words, even a modest production budget would be better than none. The aim is to raise £2000 to make a feature length film. At time of writing a start has been made and any more progress towards the total will be reported in The Spinal Column blog.

The guiding ideal for SpineFilm is that every human is born with equally uncertain potential. Any person may distinguish themselves with acts of courage, great scholarship, prolific creativity, athletic ability, or problem solving skills. They may bring positive benefits to a community, or the world. If a person's gifts are ignored because of their race or family background, their life will be carelessly wasted. People can make the best contribution possible when artificial barriers are removed.

The films produced in Britain usually represent the country as it is, or in period dramas, as it was, but it's often difficult to tell the difference. The social structure is fixed and rigged to favour a hereditarily privileged minority. If a people are compelled to accept this arbitrary celebrity, and to deny the exceptional, are they being conditioned to deny the exceptional in themselves? Are the achievements of the people of the United States evidence that their conception of being created equal has wider benefits for a society than the British constitutional provision for hereditary inequality?

When someone is born their future is an empty file. The script for their life is yet to be written. But some people are supposed to be favoured from day one. It is implied that they are automatically better than others. There is one smooth path for their guaranteed advantage, but a different track for the excluded. Family and connection are valued more than effort and achievement.

Would those people burdened with hereditary advantage prefer to be defined by their own merits rather than some arbitrary and connotative label? Should they have the human right to pursue their own destiny instead of being groomed into questionable family traditions? Can they be spared the embarrassment of presumptive superiority?

Occupational titles are rational. They are useful because they tell us more than just who someone's parents are, or were. Is it better if a title is earned through learning, or talent, or is associated with a trade, skill, election, or profession? Should anything that implies elevated standing be deserved? Can it ever be a birthright? Without proof, there is only pretence. Who would choose to inherit wealth acquired from colonial oppression and war? Are there better reasons to value people than family riches tainted by theft and the blood of the exploited, enslaved, or colonised?

Do you believe in a level playing field? Would you prefer that Britain was portrayed without segregation and the relics of imperialism? British films are already crammed with enough political content, ideology, and symbolism to last another millennium. The British people deserve more than that because everyone does. The intention is to find stories with the potential to reveal that truth, but it's a case of what to leave out of a script rather than what to inject. If you want to encourage the SpineFilm approach instead of funding propaganda, there are many ways to support it.

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The Devil’s Command

Poster for The Devil's Command 2016

Let's Get High with SmitHIcam

Poster for Let's Get High with SmitHIcam 2016

Our Lives on Mars

Poster for Our Lives on Mars 2016

To Exonerate Too Late

Poster for To Exonerate Too Late 2016
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