Guest Article: A Filmic Type

Hello dear readers of Geek in Media. I'm Oli J and let me take you on a journey. Bring a packed lunch, and a jumper. It might get cold.

Imagine, if you will, a world of possibilities. Your eyes are opened there, ideas flow, synapses explode (in a good way, not a gruesome way) and you are generally overcome with creative vision. You decide to unleash yourself upon this world!

Then, you are led to a room. In this room are a few million others (which seems spatially impossible given the rooms size, but anyway...), all with the same brain waves as you, that same drive to create. Oh, and they're shouting. Very loudly. So you join in, desperate for someone to hear you, while grimacing maniacally at the person shouting next to you because they seem to be a tad louder than you. The bugger.

Then you have a sandwich, because life's always better with a sandwich.

That poor, meandering metaphor represents the world of on-line film-making, in which I am an active participant over at The Filmic Type Place. I started as most people of my ilk do, with a degree in film and a head full of idealism. I can make films, I can write, I'm sure to make it in the world of entertainment! Oh what folly doth youth bring...

(The Life and Times of an Ice Cube - one of the first films I made)

A year as a runner and the usual life checkpoints aside (get proper job, move in with partner, buy a jumper), you'd think in that time my enthusiasm would die and I'd get on with being a grown up. After all, I had seen friends get proper jobs, a mortgage, and generally dedicate their pennies to more adult pursuits. Alas, I am an idiot, and I refused to let the dream die. I mucked about with a camera, I tried projects with friends that went nowhere until I decided to create the Filmic Type Place. My, for lack of a better term, own Production Company. My selling point? Zero budget film-making: films made with whatever I could find around the house and with little money out of my wallet as possible.

It all began with The Adventures of Mini Oli (of which Series 3 has just begun), and carried on through an attempt at a mockumentary, a "cartoon" called Tatley-Upon-Rye and various short films. Views would be low at times, and reactions would be middling, but I would perceiver, begging friends to watch and share it, even bribing them with beer and sexual favours (thankfully, the latter was never taken up. Arf arf).

(The Adventures of Mini Oli Theme Tune - the quite funky intro by Sam Hussey)

But from those formative years, I have carried on and gathered a semi-fan base (which you can join over on Facebook, if you weeeell...) and made a few like-minded contacts such as fellow zero budget film-maker Marc Paterson, my CYBEAR web-comic co-creator CM Carter and the creators of Liquid Lunch (as well as the man behind this blog, the delightful Trey Douglas. Ta Trey!) which has helped the Filmic Type Place to progress. This has meant higher quality shorts such as, ahem, Toilet Trouble, and the web series Captain Dandy. That's not to forget a host of forthcoming projects as well...

But what, you may ask, is the point of this extended intro? Why tell us your life story through film Oli, you magnificent hairy beast? What does that have to do with the

fine art of geekery? Well it's quite simple really. I'm a geek, and despite no money, no real equipment and little other resources, I'm doing what I want to do. And so can you.

(Captain Dandy episode 1 - My latest web series about an Upper Class super hero)

It sounds like motivational rubbish but it's something I try and tell people I meet who say "I wish I could do this, do that, do what I want to do..." Quite simply, you can, and if you do want to do it you will. The only thing I find that stops people is this idea that they need this Thing, and that Thing in order to do their Thing. If you have the vision and the ambition, just go and do it. Don't let self-doubt or fear hold you back, if you want to make music, make music! If you want to be an artist, get a pen and draw! And if you want to make a film, do what I did and grab your digital camera and film.

At the end of the day, like many other geeks out there, I will make my films, stick them on Youtube and hope that a fire catches underneath them that will make people watch more. As I said at the start, there are a lot of other voices surrounding me that are louder, but I never give up. Why should I though? Even if 10 people watch my stuff, that's 10 people who might have enjoyed it, and in the end, that's the main thing. And the fact I love doing it.

Thanks again to Trey for letting me violate his blog. Hopefully, he may ask me back... if you'll all have me.

Peace.