If you don't make stuff, you don't learn | Andy Blithe on his filmmaking

If you have an idea, just get on with it. That’s the straightforward approach from filmmaker Andy Blithe, which plenty of creative do-ers recognise. It’s backed up by a relentless busy-ness and imagination that keeps him making, creating and doing, from documentary to narrative feature to indie-innovation to explorative travel blog.

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With a background in the military, police and as a private detective, there’s definitely a no-nonsense bustle to what he does. But “I’m quite a procrastinator,” he admits, saying he knows now to move between tasks before he’s drained.

Creative problem-solving

What’s key to Andy’s filmmaking is creative problem-solving, whether that’s a low-budget gangster caper or a ground-breaking solo feature, The Caller. And that is something he’s taken from his previous career – an adaptive drive to combine knowledge and skills to get a result.

Diamond Dogs, a British gangster comedy crime caper featuring a retired criminal putting together a crew for a diamond heist, directed by Kris Smith, is the latest of the films Andy’s been involved with to be released.

Hooked

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And how did his filmmaking begin? “I did a bit of research for extra work, and I can’t even remember why,” he admits. He signed up, got some roles and was hooked. He gathered credits, got on Spotlight, and rather than wait for auditions and people coming to him, he took a pointer from Simon Pegg, and started to look into writing, producing and getting people involved.

In the meantime, he did a Masters degree in documentary filmmaking. He made quite a few of those, and then he started to help people out in Norfolk, where he was living at the time. Then some of the camera work he did was noticed by Kris Smith, who asked if he would help shoot a film on New Year’s Eve. Then Andy shared a feature idea, called Buying Time, with him.

No budget feature

“And from me writing it to getting it on Amazon Prime was a year,” says Andy. Not bad for a no-budget feature, which involved around 80 people. “We completed that and got on really well together. We have looked at doing more stuff since.”

Meanwhile, Andy was learning a lot of new skills. “You can’t necessarily rely on people,” he says. “I’ve had to learn a lot of roles, and obviously you learn by making mistakes. I do a lot of editing now.”

As you’d expect, he’s quick and doesn’t mess about.

“We’ll make mistakes along the way, but I always take the attitude that the next thing we’re going to make is going to be better than the previous thing. And if you don’t make stuff, you don’t make mistakes, you don’t learn,” he says.

Taking that idea of learning, developing and doing, Andy decided on making a one-person feature.

“It was a bit of a training tool for me,” he says. “To see what I could do. It was fairly organic as I went along. Obviously, it has a bit of a double meaning anyway, because there’s a mental health story, there’s isolation.” He was pleased with what he achieved, and any shortcomings he’s spotted, he’s improving on.

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“Filmmaking’s very collaborative, and that’s great, but you don’t have to rely on anybody else. You can do it at your own speed. In some ways, there are elements of it that are easier than making a film with lots of people. Even though making a film with lots and lots of people is easier in many ways as well.”

“I’d recommend it to anybody. If you’re new to filmmaking, try and make something on your own. Just think about it. Different angles. How are you going to get the sound? How are you going to get a bit of movement on the camera?”

What drives him is the storytelling, and using the skills he developed from those experiments to tell each story better. And possibly because of his past work experience, Andy is drawn to thrillers, dramas and a bit of comedy, but is open to collaborating on any genre.

“No-budget thrillers can be tricky,” he admits.

“I think it helps in some ways that being an older bugger, you’ve got life experience, and you can hopefully deal with people better,” he says. “An edit can make a massive difference to a film. I mean, I’ve come off set and thought, God, I’ve messed that up.”

With film work still ticking over in the east, Andy didn’t settle into the Devon film world. What worked for him was getting together with Steve Walsh, who is in his 40s doing a film course in Plymouth.

“He was good as gold on set,” and he told Andy others he knew would be interested in taking part. “In the end, I’ve ended up with about five or six people that have come off this course.”

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuXnH7WNdBw[/embedyt]

Andy’s Norfolk partner Kris has also come to Devon for Diamond Dogs.

In terms of organising a shoot, Andy homes in on the location, confirms the cast and books it. Then he builds the crew. It’s part of the juggle of indie filmmaking, and he knows he can fill a number of roles.

“Locations can be a bit of a pain, depending on what you want… but again, you have to just think differently,” he says.

The locations he enjoys are those that make up his travel vlog. This was initially an excuse to get back to India, he says.”I decided to just do the travel vlogs, I like documenting it.” It’s an impressive list of places he’s been to, including Italy, Japan, South Korea, India and China. On his YouTube channel, he also shares filmmaking tips and interviews as well as the trailers of his films.

By creatively building on his past careers and experience, Andy has built new communities and told stories, shared narratives, insights and adventures. Not bad for just getting on with it.

See more about Andy on Aturn films