The Power of Film Always Lies in the Story

Recently I had begun writing reviews for a film publication called The Sound View. The latest review I finished was one I was proud of, despite the fact that I was worried due to the film being political. Politics is not one of my topics of interest, in film or otherwise.

After writing my review I questioned my rating, but only for a brief second. This was not because I didn't like the film – story wise it was strong – but I thought the cinematography and the set-up of some shots could have been more creative. Personally, I know how hard it is to make your first feature film on a budget, so I try to be fair. Unless a film is off-putting visually, I won't comment on the visual aesthetic.

I hit 'send' on my email, letting my review go out to Dan, the CEO, so he could forward it to the editors.

A few hours later a reply came back from Dan. The review was excellently written, but he wondered why I rated the film 'recommended' instead of 'highly recommended’, since my review was so positive. Honestly, I thought some of the shots were a bit boring, the sets bland – I wrote this in my reply email. In my opinion, the filmmakers could have experimented with more interesting shots, and dressed the white walls and improved the lighting. But in the review I wrote nothing about the filmmaking technicalities, I focused only on the story.

Our email thread grew. In the end, I saw things from his point of view. We came to an agreement – the story is much more important than the visual elements. If you have a badly written character or a story that is not engaging, it's more inexcusable than having a badly dressed set or a boring shot.

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From Writing to Wrap: A Feature Film in Four Months

Just last week, on August 26th, we wrapped principal photography on Machination, our fifth feature film shot in the last four years. This was very much a film inspired by this new Covid-19 reality we live in, a story about a highly anxious woman named Maria who struggles to cope in isolation as a pandemic sweeps the world. Maria is forced to confront the monsters in her head, in the media, and in her past.

Maria in her bedroom, Machination Behind the scenes. Credit: Monika Kopčilová

We had the initial idea for the film during our own lockdown in April in Malta and spent a few days at the end of the month writing the first draft outline. May was spent redrafting and refining the outline. In June we approached cast, researched the equipment we would need as well as the VFX we wanted, and worked to fill gaps in knowledge for the story as well as the production, such as the specific mental health issues Maria was suffering from or how we could pull off a particular shot – a period that was a mix of development and pre-pre production. One month of official pre-production and rehearsal began from July 13th. Finally, in August, we went into a 10-day production period split into two halves – August 12th to 16th and August 22nd to 26th.


This was all done between Sarah working a full-time job and myself working on other projects, including still shooting our Cats of Malta documentary and planning a short film called Crossing Paths for the end of June. So until production, and perhaps the last couple of weeks of pre-production, we never dropped everything to simply focus on Machination, and Sarah didn’t stop working her day job until the first shooting day. That makes Machination a feature film done from first draft to wrap in four months, mostly part-time, during an uncertain time in the world where many productions shut down completely. And the budget was only €6000. And we still paid everyone.

This is how we did it.

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How We Shot a Feature Film in One Night, Without a Script →

Not only did we shoot a feature in a single night. And not only was it entirely improvised (without a script, without a shot list, without regrets), but we decided to do it on the craziest and most chaotic night of the year... New Year’s Eve.

The film is called Friends, Foes & Fireworks and it explores relationships, love, friendship, and the truths we try but fail to keep to ourselves.

We have been asked one question numerous times: “How did you actually manage to shoot this in a single night without a script?”

The second question, often unspoken, but lingering on lips nonetheless is “…and have a story and structure that actually makes sense without a script?”

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