Session with Marcus

 In our session with the director, writer and distributor of Papa and Sons Marcus Markou, he talked a lot about his film making process, from funding and casting, to distribution and public awareness.

These are the main points I feel that I learned from the session with Marcus:

• When in the shooting section of the project, Marcus knew how to get the best out of his actors due to his past in acting school and classes by assuming a more 'friendly-boss' role instead of being an intimidating director, making the whole crew feel more comfortable, meaning they all worked better and more effectively.
• Marcus demonstrated how effectively a very limited budget can be put to use, through casting, production, and distribution. Georges Corraface, the actor playing Spiros Papadopoulos, is a pretty well known actor in Greece, and so was very effective in hooking the Greek audience, a very large section of his target audience. When distributing the film in the UK, Marcus couldn't find a suitable deal with a distributor which would end with him getting any profit, so he decided to self-distribute across Greek communities in the UK. He contacted Greek churches, played adverts on Greek radio stations and handed out flyers in Greek neighbourhoods. This is an example of how a small budget can directly hit the target audience without throwing mud at the wall and hoping some sticks, which is often the case with multi-million pound budget films.

The talk with Marcus was inspiring in the way of getting up and independantly doing something, not only in film but in all aspects of life.