Microbudget Film Workshop

Matt Harlock is running a micro-budget filmmaking workshop at The Electric Palace on Thursday 5 November, and the session is built around one of his own films, Blockhead. It's a practical look at how to get a feature made when you're working with very little, rather than a theoretical lecture on the craft.

Blockhead is a darkly comic thriller-horror that Harlock describes as having been made in just 14 days, from raising the money and casting to scheduling and shooting. The workshop uses that specific production as its case study, so you'll see how those stages actually work when the clock is ticking. The film itself has played at FrightFest and Encounters, and the session ends with a screening of it, so you can see the finished result after hearing how it came together.

It's worth knowing who's leading the session. Harlock's first feature, American: The Bill Hicks Story, became the second most successful documentary released in UK cinemas that year, played at more than 40 international festivals and picked up several Best Documentary awards. His work has screened at SXSW and the London Film Festival and has been broadcast on Channel 4, Film4, HBO and Sky. He's also the founder of No Direction Home, a networking community for directors, so he's spent as much time thinking about the business and community side of directing as the creative side.

If you've ever wondered how to move a project from an idea to a finished film without a massive budget behind it, this is a good place to start. The workshop is on Thursday 5 November at The Electric Palace in Hastings, with the screening of Blockhead to follow.