The Reality Behind the Fiction
Writer / Director Guy Rowland, writing in 2011
In the first incarnation, there never was any idea of making a film. It's always been hard to describe what really happened. The headline is stark - could this be the first (only?) film ever made where the leading actor was cast after she died? It either sounds crass, unbelievable, over-hyped or just plain confusing.
Debbie Garrett, Chris Healey and myself had known each other for years, and all fancied a go at an experimental TV project. In 2001/2002, Reality TV was becoming ubiquitous, and I'd been struck by the BBC's video diary series – short little programmes which were candid insights into the lives of ordinary people. I'd begun to wonder what a fake one would be like... masquerading as reality but actually drama performed (hopefully) so well people wouldn't realise as the person began to psychologically collapse before their eyes under the dispassionate gaze of the lens. It was chance to explore some of the issues and morality around using people for entertainment (and the pact with the devil that people willingly subscribe to). It would, of course, all hinge on finding an unknown actor good enough.
I'm not quite sure where we put the ad now, but Posy was one of scores who replied and her audition tape leapt out. When we met we were all pretty seduced by her unique combination of intelligence, deep compassion, zest for life and viciously evil sense of humour, and we clicked pretty much instantly. So we had a ridiculous amount of fun filming short little excerpts from our story and a handful of full 5 minute episodes, enough to try to sell the concept to TV folks.
Maybe this part just sounds mawkish, I dunno... I guess I'm a heart-on-my-sleeve kinda guy... but then it happened. In the space of a week, Posy became chronically ill, then on Christmas Eve 2002 died of what we eventually found was acute leukaemia. It was the first bereavement in my life where I'd felt it as the sledgehammer it can be, with all the disbelief, shock, blackness. Even though I'd only known her 9 months, it felt like a lifetime's deep friendship had gone.
I guess the three of us felt it in the same way. We all went to the funeral at Stoke City FC's Britannia stadium (Pose was a life-long fan). We'd once met her boyfriend Kane, but knew nobody else. Perhaps stranger, not only did no-one else know us either, they had no idea why we were even there... the entire project had been deliberately kept secret even from those closest to her, except Kane. But we were immediately accepted, and I was deeply touched that Pose's mother, Misha, spent so much time with us on that day of all days (and Kane too). A friendship with both started that has endured, Misha and I seem to spend half our lives talking to each other today, it seems so odd that we never knew each other back then.
The realisation that we had her best work on tape, but no real form with which we could use it, began to slowly drive me mad. Then the idea hit – use the old “found footage” conceit, with Sam now a missing person and the tapes the new film's centerpiece. All the characters we'd alluded to and plotted we could now feature in a faux documentary film. It actually became a fascinating and unique writing challenge (though we were advised that we'd never make it work as “these things” never do).
We fought with each other, we agonised over the morality of it all, but every family member and friend we spoke to encouraged us on and so we eventually went ahead and did it. We cast only people with a connection to Pose (usually old friends of hers). We filmed on a shoestring budget but using a great lighting cameraman, Michael Sanders, who totally saved us, then edited for I-can't-remember-how-long... endless new edits, reshoots... whatever it took to make such an intricate story click. Somehow – we think – we got there in the end.
It got into the Raindance festival, got its British Independent Film Award nomination and a couple of reviews (both good!), and as is the way of the odd impossible-to-categorise microbudget Brit flick, promptly disappeared. Boring music rights issues were precluding a proper release, but after a couple of years we resolved those and did a DIY job – the first “pay what you like” movie (modelled after Radiohead's In Rainbows album). Again, a little flurry of interest and kind words, but... well, what IS it? How would you categorise it? I've always been drawn to odd little films that don't really fit into any conventional genre, but they're a nightmare to sell or raise publicity for – especially when they're not in the cinema or even on DVD. Oh, and add to that the basic promotional requirements were woefully inadequate (rookie filmmaker classic error, as independent film guru and friend Chris Jones rightly pointed out!)
But what I soon came to realise is that it didn't matter. The film was shown in London's West End in the Raindance festival, and Pose's family were there. The response I got from that, and the friendships that had come from the whole experience... frankly if it had won Best Picture at the Oscars and beaten Titanic at the Box Office, it genuinely wouldn't compare. It was made as a permanent record of what Posy could do (albeit doubtless a fraction of what she was capable), and a response to the extraordinary woman that she was. Although it might sound like rationalisation in the face of failure, commercial success really would have missed the point. It was a labour of love and a gift to the family. And well.... the fact that those who did see it said they got swept up in the story, forgetting even that it was fiction... well, that's nice too – it always did have to stand on its own two feet, and I'm proud that it does so.
So here it is – free hopefully forever for anyone and everyone who stumbles upon it. If you watch it and get anything out of it at all, feel free to do any of these things – hold your loved ones a little closer, vote for it at IMDB.com, link the film on Facebook / Twitter, write to me at guy AT guyrowland DOT co DOT uk to tell me what you think, donate a bit of money to Leukaemia Research (now Bloodwise) and / or Missing People... just do something, anyway.
I don't think I'll be producing any more movies (these days I'm too busy scriptwriting, composing and doing sound work)... I honestly don't know how anything else would warrant the energy it takes to do this stuff. But I'm so so glad we made it. I'm so grateful to the friendships that came from it, for the sheer endeavour that it was against all the odds, and most of all that her family have it forever. If Posy taught me one thing, it's this – life is for living, because it really is too short.
Debbie Garrett, Chris Healey and myself had known each other for years, and all fancied a go at an experimental TV project. In 2001/2002, Reality TV was becoming ubiquitous, and I'd been struck by the BBC's video diary series – short little programmes which were candid insights into the lives of ordinary people. I'd begun to wonder what a fake one would be like... masquerading as reality but actually drama performed (hopefully) so well people wouldn't realise as the person began to psychologically collapse before their eyes under the dispassionate gaze of the lens. It was chance to explore some of the issues and morality around using people for entertainment (and the pact with the devil that people willingly subscribe to). It would, of course, all hinge on finding an unknown actor good enough.
I'm not quite sure where we put the ad now, but Posy was one of scores who replied and her audition tape leapt out. When we met we were all pretty seduced by her unique combination of intelligence, deep compassion, zest for life and viciously evil sense of humour, and we clicked pretty much instantly. So we had a ridiculous amount of fun filming short little excerpts from our story and a handful of full 5 minute episodes, enough to try to sell the concept to TV folks.
Maybe this part just sounds mawkish, I dunno... I guess I'm a heart-on-my-sleeve kinda guy... but then it happened. In the space of a week, Posy became chronically ill, then on Christmas Eve 2002 died of what we eventually found was acute leukaemia. It was the first bereavement in my life where I'd felt it as the sledgehammer it can be, with all the disbelief, shock, blackness. Even though I'd only known her 9 months, it felt like a lifetime's deep friendship had gone.
I guess the three of us felt it in the same way. We all went to the funeral at Stoke City FC's Britannia stadium (Pose was a life-long fan). We'd once met her boyfriend Kane, but knew nobody else. Perhaps stranger, not only did no-one else know us either, they had no idea why we were even there... the entire project had been deliberately kept secret even from those closest to her, except Kane. But we were immediately accepted, and I was deeply touched that Pose's mother, Misha, spent so much time with us on that day of all days (and Kane too). A friendship with both started that has endured, Misha and I seem to spend half our lives talking to each other today, it seems so odd that we never knew each other back then.
The realisation that we had her best work on tape, but no real form with which we could use it, began to slowly drive me mad. Then the idea hit – use the old “found footage” conceit, with Sam now a missing person and the tapes the new film's centerpiece. All the characters we'd alluded to and plotted we could now feature in a faux documentary film. It actually became a fascinating and unique writing challenge (though we were advised that we'd never make it work as “these things” never do).
We fought with each other, we agonised over the morality of it all, but every family member and friend we spoke to encouraged us on and so we eventually went ahead and did it. We cast only people with a connection to Pose (usually old friends of hers). We filmed on a shoestring budget but using a great lighting cameraman, Michael Sanders, who totally saved us, then edited for I-can't-remember-how-long... endless new edits, reshoots... whatever it took to make such an intricate story click. Somehow – we think – we got there in the end.
It got into the Raindance festival, got its British Independent Film Award nomination and a couple of reviews (both good!), and as is the way of the odd impossible-to-categorise microbudget Brit flick, promptly disappeared. Boring music rights issues were precluding a proper release, but after a couple of years we resolved those and did a DIY job – the first “pay what you like” movie (modelled after Radiohead's In Rainbows album). Again, a little flurry of interest and kind words, but... well, what IS it? How would you categorise it? I've always been drawn to odd little films that don't really fit into any conventional genre, but they're a nightmare to sell or raise publicity for – especially when they're not in the cinema or even on DVD. Oh, and add to that the basic promotional requirements were woefully inadequate (rookie filmmaker classic error, as independent film guru and friend Chris Jones rightly pointed out!)
But what I soon came to realise is that it didn't matter. The film was shown in London's West End in the Raindance festival, and Pose's family were there. The response I got from that, and the friendships that had come from the whole experience... frankly if it had won Best Picture at the Oscars and beaten Titanic at the Box Office, it genuinely wouldn't compare. It was made as a permanent record of what Posy could do (albeit doubtless a fraction of what she was capable), and a response to the extraordinary woman that she was. Although it might sound like rationalisation in the face of failure, commercial success really would have missed the point. It was a labour of love and a gift to the family. And well.... the fact that those who did see it said they got swept up in the story, forgetting even that it was fiction... well, that's nice too – it always did have to stand on its own two feet, and I'm proud that it does so.
So here it is – free hopefully forever for anyone and everyone who stumbles upon it. If you watch it and get anything out of it at all, feel free to do any of these things – hold your loved ones a little closer, vote for it at IMDB.com, link the film on Facebook / Twitter, write to me at guy AT guyrowland DOT co DOT uk to tell me what you think, donate a bit of money to Leukaemia Research (now Bloodwise) and / or Missing People... just do something, anyway.
I don't think I'll be producing any more movies (these days I'm too busy scriptwriting, composing and doing sound work)... I honestly don't know how anything else would warrant the energy it takes to do this stuff. But I'm so so glad we made it. I'm so grateful to the friendships that came from it, for the sheer endeavour that it was against all the odds, and most of all that her family have it forever. If Posy taught me one thing, it's this – life is for living, because it really is too short.
Echoes From Another World
Writer / Director Guy Rowland, writing in 2017
I watched Sam Jackson properly for the first time in nearly 10 years as I was getting a new HD transfer done for this site. To say it was a bizarre experience is perhaps as predictable as it is an understatement. Never mind the real story behind it, what I hadn’t expected is just how alien that whole world feels now.
We wrote the original Diary back in 2002, and the film over the following couple of years. Yes, the internet was a thing – it was what you used to send emails and browse clunky websites, a bolt-on to regular life. There was no mobile internet worth having, no Twitter, no public Facebook. Astonishingly, the term “Selfie” first appeared only in 2013, wandering around with a heavy video camera pointed at yourself was a sign of madness. Even more pertinent to our tale, internet dating only really began in 2004 – phone dating is where the tech was at then. And it was overwhelmingly lonely hearts - no Tinder, Grindr, Ashley Madison. Perhaps most hard to believe of all, there wasn't even any YouTube (the very first YouTube video, a 19 second clip called “Me at the Zoo”, went up in 2005). Performing meant TV, and all that went with it.
I was stunned at just how much this tech has changed us as people and as a society. In our story, Sam wants to be a presenter. Today, she would probably be joining millions of others on vlogs, chasing followers. The old gatekeepers would be largely gone, the competition would be more fierce, the need to give more, shock more or entertain more to rise above the noise far greater.
The idea of that Faustian pact - giving of yourself in order to gain perceived advantage – is now so commonplace its barely even challenged. Watching Sam now, it’s the innocence that jars – the things she struggles with were perhaps common then but almost alienating now. I'm worried a 20-something in 2017 would think we wrote this in the 19th century. It does make me wonder if we lost something of ourselves in our rush to get online? I began to wonder - is the rise in mental illness in the Western World connected to this, something Sam Jackson foreshadowed?
The year after our film’s premiere, LonelyGirl15 did exactly what Sam – and us filmmakers – were trying to do. This was a fake video diary on the nascent YouTube, masquerading as real, and the world became hooked as the platform grew exponentially. While its clear Sam’s story represents the end of an era, LonelyGirl15 (in fact Mesh Flinders and Miles Beckett behind the camera) opened the one we live in today.
Yet despite the gulf between the worlds of 2004 and 2017, those chinks in our armour remain the same. Many will have wrestled with the need for external validation, one of the core themes of the film. Indeed, the battle between our online / offline, external / internal identities is perhaps heightened now. I hope that anyone watching this cold will find those themes echoing down the years.
As for the story behind the film… well, it’s a freak of nature, isn’t it? Sheer bloody-mindedness made it, and I remain terribly proud of the thing, warts and all. I’m proud because it recognises the truly special. There was a fair bit of Posy Miller in Sam Jackson, but there was of course a hundred times more greatness in the real thing. We were bloody-minded because it was a film that simply had to be made. Mostly a stage actress, little exists of Posy’s work, so I’m so glad that at least a bit of her extraordinary life-force comes through. We had such a blast making those diaries, I feel incredibly lucky to have known her, even for such a short time.
We wrote the original Diary back in 2002, and the film over the following couple of years. Yes, the internet was a thing – it was what you used to send emails and browse clunky websites, a bolt-on to regular life. There was no mobile internet worth having, no Twitter, no public Facebook. Astonishingly, the term “Selfie” first appeared only in 2013, wandering around with a heavy video camera pointed at yourself was a sign of madness. Even more pertinent to our tale, internet dating only really began in 2004 – phone dating is where the tech was at then. And it was overwhelmingly lonely hearts - no Tinder, Grindr, Ashley Madison. Perhaps most hard to believe of all, there wasn't even any YouTube (the very first YouTube video, a 19 second clip called “Me at the Zoo”, went up in 2005). Performing meant TV, and all that went with it.
I was stunned at just how much this tech has changed us as people and as a society. In our story, Sam wants to be a presenter. Today, she would probably be joining millions of others on vlogs, chasing followers. The old gatekeepers would be largely gone, the competition would be more fierce, the need to give more, shock more or entertain more to rise above the noise far greater.
The idea of that Faustian pact - giving of yourself in order to gain perceived advantage – is now so commonplace its barely even challenged. Watching Sam now, it’s the innocence that jars – the things she struggles with were perhaps common then but almost alienating now. I'm worried a 20-something in 2017 would think we wrote this in the 19th century. It does make me wonder if we lost something of ourselves in our rush to get online? I began to wonder - is the rise in mental illness in the Western World connected to this, something Sam Jackson foreshadowed?
The year after our film’s premiere, LonelyGirl15 did exactly what Sam – and us filmmakers – were trying to do. This was a fake video diary on the nascent YouTube, masquerading as real, and the world became hooked as the platform grew exponentially. While its clear Sam’s story represents the end of an era, LonelyGirl15 (in fact Mesh Flinders and Miles Beckett behind the camera) opened the one we live in today.
Yet despite the gulf between the worlds of 2004 and 2017, those chinks in our armour remain the same. Many will have wrestled with the need for external validation, one of the core themes of the film. Indeed, the battle between our online / offline, external / internal identities is perhaps heightened now. I hope that anyone watching this cold will find those themes echoing down the years.
As for the story behind the film… well, it’s a freak of nature, isn’t it? Sheer bloody-mindedness made it, and I remain terribly proud of the thing, warts and all. I’m proud because it recognises the truly special. There was a fair bit of Posy Miller in Sam Jackson, but there was of course a hundred times more greatness in the real thing. We were bloody-minded because it was a film that simply had to be made. Mostly a stage actress, little exists of Posy’s work, so I’m so glad that at least a bit of her extraordinary life-force comes through. We had such a blast making those diaries, I feel incredibly lucky to have known her, even for such a short time.
