Use of, ahem, cannabis in student film.

Rockdolphin

Freelancer wrote:

The above is horsemanure pure and simple. Prove clove cigarettes burn at a different rate.

I'm sure you are very familiar with horse manure. What do you want me to do, send you a B&H and clove cigarette in the post ?

You keep banging on about clove cigarettes. You do realise don't you that they containe tobacco and are considered more dangerous than normal cigarettes ? They also fall under the smoking ban !

Freelancer wrote:

And hey, between takes and camera angles, they're going to need different cigarettes at different lengths, depending on the point of the scene, its why you have a continuity woman.

Oh I see, thats why you have a continuity woman and not a man !

Freelancer wrote:

As to your claims about "Herbal cigarettes have a different consitency and burn rate from cigarettes and that cannot be disguised. The authenticity of the whole scene is compromised." I've shown using an example that Richard E Grant pulled off a consistent portrayal of chainsmoker using herbal cigarettes and no one would have noticed.

Whats this fixation you have with Richard E Grant and his portrayal of a chainsmoker using herbal cigarettes. Fair play to him ! He hardly drinks either and pulled off a great display as a drunk. Send him a medal if you want seen as he didn't get an Oscar for it !

Freelancer wrote:

So one three day video shoot was allegedly lost, we can take the hit..

Who is we ? Are you a spokesman for the Irish film Industry or part of it?

Freelancer wrote:

We found a working one. You want a fag? Step outside.

The perfect gentleman, give up your seat on the bus for the elderly lady, then kick her out of the pub if she lights up a cigarette !

Freelancer wrote:

There's no practical or artistic freedom problems. There just isn't you can create any lurid fantasy doesn't mean it is true..

The issue of freedom of expression, artistic freedom and censorship has been ongoing for eons now, from the time artists first started to paint and writers started to write. Artistic freedom has been a constant battlefront be it against government censorship and censure, political interference, moral crusaders, killjoys, religeous self rightousness, anti this and that lobbies, or the current wave of nannyism. You obviously cannot grasp the fundementals let alone the complexities involved. If artistic freedom bit you in the arse you wouldn't regconise it.

Freelancer wrote:

This is the film forum? You really think we're going to bemoan the trouble Endemol is having? I've no sympathy for endemol at all...

There you go again, 'we' , who is this we you represent ?

You're greatly mistaken if you believe this is the film forum, this is the film production forum and Endemol are a very important employer in these islands for people working in the film and tv industry. Currently one of their subsideries is in Ireland in pre-production for an ITV childrens drama series about be shot in Norther Ireland which lots of people in the industry would be glad to have employment on.

Freelancer wrote:

There were celebrities on celebrity farm? Really? Where?.

Did you not notice the donkey ? Rumour has it was Richard E Grant in a pantomine horse pulling of a specatular performance as an ass !

Freelancer wrote:

If this smoking ban stops big brother or celebrity farm from going ahead, I'd look on it as an added bonus. RTE and Channel 4 are still going to have the commissioning money going, so maybe they might spend it on, y'know, something good. ?

So an added bonus of the smoking ban would be the demise of reality programmes like Big Brother which like smoking is enjoyed by people in their millions on these islands. People with your mindest are called Killjoys and I'd dread to think what you'd consider 'something good'. Your perfectly entitled to your tastes, but mistaken if you belive everyone will agree with you. Hence why freedom of choice is so important and peoples pleasure is not dependent on the approval of others particularly killjoys and people who know whats best for everyone else !

Not only does Endomel employ thousands in this industry, the success of it's shows on C4 allow them to commision from the profits other productions which in turn gives much needed employent within the film industry. As for RTE and independant commisions, thats a whole different story for another day.

Freelancer wrote:

Theres lots of wacky quirks about Indian Cinema, I don't really think they have a hardcore drug users genre of note over there no. I really cannot see the scene where the junkies, pushers and cops burst into a complex song and dance routine.

Thats as about as enlighted as an America saying he cannot see the scene in Ireland where junkies, pushers and cops burst in on the commonly maidens and the little people.

Last week Bollywood producers were in Ireland with a view to using it as a location. Then again I suppose you cannot see how curry and cabbage will go together.

Freelancer wrote:

You mean we're not making tv programs about how people should eat healthy at the moment? What was Jamies School dinners all about then.

There you go 'we-ing' again. Eaxctly who are the 'we' you keep mentioning ?

What's considerd healthy today will be debunked tomorrow. Women were killing themselves a few years ago by not eating enough. Movies, tv and the media were to blame according to the helath gurus because it had too many sexy slim girls. They were demanding we see fatter plumper women, women with more and more of them. But hold on, the very same people are now saying we're all killing ourselves, men, women and children by eating too much food and the media better start telling us all to stop it, slim down and eat healthy.

Freelancer wrote:

So you're basically suggesting a film set should be a place above the law.

Where did you get that from ? I've never suggested that. You seem to only ever see what you want to see and completely ignore what doesn't suit

Freelancer wrote:

Hell why stop at the smoking ban, how about "health and safety laws" those stunt men don't need safety harnesses, that'd ruin the directors "artistic freedom". Hell what animal welfare legislation? If he shoots the dog, lets actually have him shoot a dog "for authenticity". "Damn he keeps fluffling his line, better get another litter of dalmations on set.".

Michael Cimono could have got Richard E Grant to play the dead deer in the Deer Hunter, but he didn't. He could have followed health and safety guidelines and not put a live bullet in the gun during the shooting of the russian roulette sequence, but he didn't. He could have choosen not to ask Christopher Walken to really spit at Robert Di Nero, but he choose otherwise. He also choose not to tell Bob it was going to happen. ( Probably the greatest health and safety risk of all ) It was his set, his film and he wasn't having any PC meddling nanny stater on his shoulder dictating what he should or shouldn't do.

Stuntmen were well able to look after themselves long before health and safety became the fanatasism it is today as have trapize artists and other risk takers like showman PT Barnum. Stunt men and women are highly motivated professionals with a safety record other industries would envy. Their business is safety and it's an insult to their professional integrity to suggest they need some pen pushing civil servant or meddling H&S upstart to dictate or lecture them on safety !

Freelancer wrote:

Nothing really to really debate, I'm right, and the anti smoking "bridage" has won.

You really do spend an awful lot of time debating nothing don't you !

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. The USA and it's allies have prevailled ..... and won a major victory." Geroge W Bush, May 1st 2003

Rockdolphin

BlitzKrieg wrote:

still waiting for a response to this simple point :

Seriously a large part of the atmosphere in a film is faked in most schools of film. When you go through the list of whats actually there and whats ADR, Foley, special effects, digital alterations, wild tracks, constructed props and studio locations. Your left with very little authentic material and more of a manipulation of the audience to create reality.

I'm not sure what point you are making. What you say is true, the methods you mention are all tools of the filmaker. Every craft has its tools and methods. It's the skill and creativity in the use of these that sets aside the craftsman from the labourer. A painting is merely a collection of brush strokes in itself, but the artistic value lies in the painter's interpetation and portrayal of the subject matter to lend it meaning to the viewer. In much the same way a film is merely a collection of images put together to tell a story by the use of tools and devices. The success of the endeavour will be determined by the filmakers ability, talent and skill to interpet and portray the subject matter in a manner and style that resonates with an audience.

Earlier in this thread you posted about a situation where you wanted the feel of a lonely and deserted platform for a scene. Other alternatives dind't appeal to you and would have compromised the results you wished to achieve. A hundred different directors would have interpeted and shot that scene differently with a hundred different results. This is what artistic interpetation and freedom is all about. In this case your budget was comprising your effots, but what if it was another director who wanted for whatever reason to have a naked woman smoking cigarettes at the station ? Should the moral crusaders, feminists, anti- smoking fanatics or some other know whats best for everyoners influence what he or she decides to shoot ?

BlitzKrieg

I'm not sure what point you are making.

the point i was trying to make is that your screaming about artistic integrity that the director and the film crew cant 'comprimise' and fake certain aspects.


What i am trying to say is that more often then not a director (esp of the bigger productions) will actively choose to fake and alter reality so it will fit his artistic vision.

My point was that apart from a few schools of film (dogma 95 etc) a director would perfer to have a fake object over the real object as it gives him more control over his material. Therefore you probably find that the use of fake cigerettes in films is much more prominant then you think as a director would want in each scene the cigerrette to be in a certain way (maybe he doesnt want it to be intrusive and have no smoke, maybe he wants the smoke to be the focus of the shot) a fake cigerrette allows him to have much more control over these sort of situations then a real one.

Should the moral crusaders, feminists, anti- smoking fanatics or some other know whats best for everyoners influence what he or she decides to shoot ?

This is a point we can agree on. My filming was in risk of being killed because of the anti-terrorist laws and the train company's interpetation of them.

But the level at which it interveres with filming is much greater then the smoking ban.

DublinWriter

Freelancer wrote:

And "nasty" consequences? On one had you have less people, y'know, not dying, verus, having to smoke a herbal fag.

News flash: non-smokers die too.

Funnily enough, the increasing cause of death seems to be stress-related illnesses brought on by obsessing about whether someone is smoking within a 2-mile radius of them or not.

Now where did I leave my B&H....ahhh yes.

Meanwhile, back at the thread, I was wondering why the OP even bothered posting. There's a wee element of "giggle...giggle...look at us, aren't we naughty doing Class C drugs in a student film" about it.

Common sense would have told you that if you were pulled up about it, you could just say it's Oxo.

Unless it was a documentary, I don't see a reason for it.

As Larry Olivier once said to Dustin Hoffman "why don't you just try acting, dear boy?".

Devinho

Rockdolphin wrote:

Not one single person can be named that has died from passive smoking.

Roy Castle

Freelancer

Rockdolphin wrote:

I'm sure you are very familiar with horse manure. What do you want me to do, send you a B&H and clove cigarette in the post ?

You keep banging on about clove cigarettes. You do realise don't you that they containe tobacco and are considered more dangerous than normal cigarettes ? They also fall under the smoking ban !

Clove or Herbal cigarettes work just as well as ordinary cigarettes as a susbsitute, you cannot claim otherwise.

Oh I see, thats why you have a continuity woman and not a man !

Okay we're now reduced to semantic qiubbling, rockdolphin you're losing it. The role is pretty much always filled by a woman. I've never met an Irish continuity man.

Whats this fixation you have with Richard E Grant and his portrayal of a chainsmoker using herbal cigarettes. Fair play to him ! He hardly drinks either and pulled off a great display as a drunk. Send him a medal if you want seen as he didn't get an Oscar for it !

Thank you you made my point for me. You just admitted that you don't need to smoke actual cigarettes or actually drink to pull of a convincing protrayal of a smoker or a drinker.

Who is we ? Are you a spokesman for the Irish film Industry or part of it?

Part of it. You're making lurid claims about the damage the smoking ban is doing to the irish industry, do you have any facts to support it?

The issue of freedom of expression, artistic freedom and censorship has been ongoing for eons now, from the time artists first started to paint and writers started to write. Artistic freedom has been a constant battlefront be it against government censorship and censure, political interference, moral crusaders, killjoys, religeous self rightousness, anti this and that lobbies, or the current wave of nannyism. You obviously cannot grasp the fundementals let alone the complexities involved. If artistic freedom bit you in the arse you wouldn't regconise it.

Are you finished? Good. You can rant about the smoking ban all you want. It is not an infringement on artistic freedom.

You're greatly mistaken if you believe this is the film forum, this is the film production forum and Endemol are a very important employer in these islands for people working in the film and tv industry. Currently one of their subsideries is in Ireland in pre-production for an ITV childrens drama series about be shot in Norther Ireland which lots of people in the industry would be glad to have employment on.

We were talking specifically about Big Brother.

Did you not notice the donkey ? Rumour has it was Richard E Grant in a pantomine horse pulling of a specatular performance as an ass !

:rolleyes:

So an added bonus of the smoking ban would be the demise of reality programmes like Big Brother which like smoking is enjoyed by people in their millions on these islands. People with your mindest are called Killjoys and I'd dread to think what you'd consider 'something good'. Your perfectly entitled to your tastes, but mistaken if you belive everyone will agree with you. Hence why freedom of choice is so important and peoples pleasure is not dependent on the approval of others particularly killjoys and people who know whats best for everyone else !

Again :rolleyes: Big Brother is horsecrap. And I doubt you'll see anyone who enjoys quailty drama would bemoan it's loss

Not only does Endomel employ thousands in this industry,

I've worked for them more like a hundred, bumped up for freelance gigs as and when they happen

the success of it's shows on C4 allow them to commision from the profits other productions which in turn gives much needed employent within the film industry. As for RTE and independant commisions, thats a whole different story for another day.

Not really you're claiming a smoking ban would threaten another serious of celebrity farm. Frankly I'd shove a stake through the heart of it, and glad a smoking ban is helping ensure it doesn't go ahead.

Last week Bollywood producers were in Ireland with a view to using it as a location. Then again I suppose you cannot see how curry and cabbage will go together.

Whut? Anyway Bollywood have already used Ireland as a location last year.

There you go 'we-ing' again. Eaxctly who are the 'we' you keep mentioning ?

Anyone with an ounce of common sense.

Freelancer wrote:

So you're basically suggesting a film set should be a place above the law.

Where did you get that from ? I've never suggested that. You seem to only ever see what you want to see and completely ignore what doesn't suit

Yes you fúcking did

rockdolphin wrote:

Creative freedom and expression should be the perogative of the filmaker and not dictated by laws or the agendas of others.

The above suggests that you think a film set should be above the law.

t. He could have followed health and safety guidelines and not put a live bullet in the gun during the shooting of the russian roulette sequence, but he didn't.

Urban Myth.

He could have choosen not to ask Christopher Walken to really spit at Robert Di Nero, but he choose otherwise. He also choose not to tell Bob it was going to happen. ( Probably the greatest health and safety risk of all ) It was his set, his film and he wasn't having any PC meddling nanny stater on his shoulder dictating what he should or shouldn't do.

You know what you're absolutely right. And we should make your autheticity buzz watchword manitory for the entire film industry.

Y'know Ray Liotia was pretty good as a paranoid coke fiend in Goodfella but the scene leading up to his arrest was quite convinicing. Tell you what, lets have Ray build up a three year coke dependance and go reshoot it.

Hmmmm and Ewen and the Lads did a pretty good junkie impression in Trainspotting, but not good enough, lets go score some cheap cut skag and redo em.

And you know Liam Neeson, did a pretty good horror impression when he saw the mass grave and the little girl in the red dress get dug up. Pretty good but he missed the essence of the scene. Lets round up some polish jews, murder em shove em in mass grave for a year, and dig up the bodies. And film Liam Neeson's reaction.

Am I taking the piss out of you? Yes I am.

Stuntmen were well able to look after themselves long before health and
safety became the fanatasism it is today as have trapize artists and other risk takers like showman PT Barnum. Stunt men and women are highly motivated professionals with a safety record other industries would envy. Their business is safety and it's an insult to their professional integrity to suggest they need some pen pushing civil servant or meddling H&S upstart to dictate or lecture them on safety !

Whats that? Pointless non sequitur you say? There are health and safetly laws on set to protect the entire crew not just stunt personal. Should we ignore them after all

rockdolphin wrote:

Creative freedom and expression should be the perogative of the filmaker and not dictated by laws or the agendas of others.

You really do spend an awful lot of time debating nothing don't you !

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. The USA and it's allies have prevailled ..... and won a major victory." Geroge W Bush, May 1st 2003

Again pointless non sequitur.

Theres one issue here;


You cannot claim the smoking ban is hurting artistic freedom, because cigarette subsititutes look just as real as actual cigarettes

End of bloody discussion.

Devinho

The role is pretty much always filled by a woman. I've never met an Irish continuity man.

Apparently we blokes aren't cut out for continuity. The way you fine women-folk think makes you ideal for it. And since the ability to function competently within a job is a determining factor for career progression (unlike the civil service, for example), male continuity people soon either fall by the wayside or duck quickly into a job they can actually do.

Freelancer

Devinho wrote:

Apparently we blokes aren't cut out for continuity. The way you fine women-folk think makes you ideal for it.

Checks testicals. All present and correct. "You" fine women?

And since the ability to function competently within a job is a determining factor for career progression (unlike the civil service, for example), male continuity people soon either fall by the wayside or duck quickly into a job they can actually do.

Similarlity it's been said its the reason that their are more women in senior positions in the editing department than in rest of the industry. A film set can be a fairly bosturious testoserone filled affairs, and theres alot of pressure and competition, some people don't like that. Continuity requires an eye for detail, to remain calm and quite and in the corner and to be very discreet, and some women excel at this, certainly women excel at this more than men.

Incidently theres a shocking abensce of continuity personal (lest we offend rockdolphin's bizarre leap into PCdom) in the irish industry these days. Might to a place to make a career niche.

BlitzKrieg

also its predominantly continuity women because that was who the position was given to originally. It was the earliest job behind the camera that a woman could have in hollywood and since then it has remained a strong position for women.


They also tend to move from there to Assitant Director i hear.

more women in senior positions in the editing department

"mother cutter" Verna Fields was the true force behind jaws. and Dede allen pefected compresion editing.

Miguel_Sanchez

Originally posted by Rockdolphin
You keep banging on about clove cigarettes. You do realise don't you that they containe tobacco and are considered more dangerous than normal cigarettes ? They also fall under the smoking ban !

Clove cigarettes don't fall under the smoking ban. Only tobacco products are banned. And before you harp on about it I'm not saying that herbal cigarettes are safe I'm merely pointing out that they are not covered by the current smoking ban in Ireland.

To be honest Rockdolphin you're talking rubbish if you say taht most directors will not compromise their artistic integrity by using fake cigarettes. In the vast majority of cases cigarettes used in films are herbal - they are not real tobacco containing cigarettes. This was true before the ban and it's true after the ban.

They don't import real blood from blood banks to use in scenes of violence. Nobody complains about artistic integrity being compromised.

If you have a problem with the smoking ban that's one thing - you can argue about the rights or wrongs of it as much as you like. But you are patently wrong when you state that there are directors who will refuse to use herbal cigarettes in place of real ones in scenes. If you can find me a quote from a filmmaker who says this then I will eat my words but I am fully sure that you won't so my words will remain out there, fresh, beautiful and uneaten.

Freelancer

Continutiy is a funny job to fall into. I was offered a gig once because working in a cutting room I knew about continuity and what a continuity sheet looked like. Theres no apprenticship, you just become one, and assistant editor hanging around a set could well pick up the trade by keeping their eyes open

Theres few departments where women excel in the industry like they do in editing you could also mention Thelma Schoonmaker, Ann Coates, Cécile Decugis and Jill Bilcock. Not to mention the dirth of homegrown female editing talent.

Rockdolphin keeps **** on about the director's "artistic freedom" and has abused the term "artistic freedom" till he is blue in the face. He's also come out with some total howlers about the facts about smoking, combined that with his admission that actors can protray smokers and drinkers convincingly without actually smoking or drink, leads me to suspect that he's more outraged about having to step outside to have a fag, than the director's "artistic freedom".

But what about the right of the artist the actor?

Rockdolphin would you insist that a commited vegan actor eat a real meat hamburger, rather than a convincing Quorn alternative, for "autheticity"?

Would you insist that a directors artistic freedom is "compromised" if he demands that a recovering alcoholic actor, drink actual booze for "authencity", or that he's (the director) being an unreasonable asßhole?

How about a non diabtec actor being asked to inject real insulin?

Or demanding that a non smoker suck in a toxic addictive mix of carcenagenic additives and the addictive narcotic in a cigarette, when a non toxic alternative is available?

Miguel_Sanchez

Freelancer wrote:

Or demanding that a non smoker suck in a toxic addictive mix of carcenagenic additives and the addictive narcotic in a cigarette, when a non toxic alternative is available?

Even an actor who smokes is going to think twice about doing a lengthy scene with real cigarettes. What if they run to an excessive amount of takes. Imagine having to smoke the best part of 15 cigarettes in quick succession?

monkeyfudge

Jeff_Lebowski wrote:

Even an actor who smokes is going to think twice about doing a lengthy scene with real cigarettes. What if they run to an excessive amount of takes. Imagine having to smoke the best part of 15 cigarettes in quick succession?

Yeah... I'm thinking of some poor bastard having to smoke real cigarettes in a scene being directed by Stanley '150 takes' Kubrick.

nohshow

Am I wrong in thinking there's a difference between 'artistic freedom' and 'artistic integrity'? Is the artist required to flout the law in the interests of artistic freedom, or may he choose to stay legal and use his skills to recreate authenticity using his artistic integrity?

I'm old enough to know who Roy Castle was. For those who aren't as old, he died of lung cancer. He never smoked a cigarette of his own in his life. But he worked Working Men's Clubs in England and had the lungs of a man (according to anecdotal reports at the time) on sixty high-tar a day. I wouldn't call myself a fan of Mr Castle, but I was a great admirer of his versatility, his talent and his energetic enthusiasm. If me going outside for a fag (hope no yanks are reading this) contributes to the longevity of a bar worker or a work colleague, then (unless I'm feeling particularly spiteful that day), by golly, outside I'll go, rain or hail or fine.

But to return to the actual subject of this thread, I would gladly sublimate my artistic freedom in the interests of artistic integrity when it comes to employing illegal substances, props or practices on any of my film sets. I would also encourage vegetarian diets where practical, but I won't press too hard for that until it finally becomes illegal to slaughter animals for food, which it probably will one day after we're all dead (you from bird flu, mad cow disease and rotten egg poisoning, me from smoking). That's my choice. It's the direction my moral compass points me in. You can choose for yourself the extent to which you wish to become a law-breaker and I can gloat if you get into trouble for it. That's how small a man I am.

Something about the whole Michael Cimino reference a few messages ago leaves me feeling a bit queazy. A real bullet in the Russian Roulette scene? Really?? The man was totally mad and shouldn't have been let anywhere near a film set. This is the same as-shole who was responsible for the unnecessary deaths of how-many-I-don't-know (and I'm too lazy to look it up) horses during the filming of Heaven's Gate. Thankfully, I don't think he gets a lot of work, these days. The man was clearly a walking health-hazzard. Please try to resist the temptation of using him as a moral guide on the dos and donts of film-making. If he can't direct an actor to act scared when there's a gun at his head, he's in real trouble with his chosen craft.

(Although to give him his due, he is the man who almost single-handedly brought about the animal welfare rules which we have today for almost all mainstream films and television productions - and possibly pop videos, too - so some good came of it in the end. But, ahhh, the poor wee horsies.)

rubadub

It was I, you fools! The man you trusted wasn't Wavy Gravy at all! And all this time, I've been smoking harmless tobacco.

Rockdolphin

Clove cigarettes also known as kreteks contain tobacco and fall within the smoking ban restrictions !! Insisting otherwise does not alter this fact ! Herbal cigarettes and cigars have been around for centuries and well known to directors and used as substitutes since movie making began. So what !!! It seems amazingly incomprehensible to some of you that some actors and directors for all sorts of reasons including artistic ones choose not to use them ! Whats so difficult to grasp about that ?

Directors tend to be very single minded people and need to be to get their job done. Everyone else on set including actors and actresses are there for one reason and one reason only, To get the director what he wants, when he wants it, how he wants. Anyone but anyone who has worked be it in theatre, television or film with any director worth his salt knows the director is god and you do his or hers bidding. And some of you find it so unbelivable a director would get an actor or actress to smoke tobacoo ! Laura Dern collapsed on the Wild at Heart set after David Lynch insisted that non smoking Laura smoke continously for a scene. Directors have coerced, persuded and cojolled actors and actresses into all manner of behaviours they would rather not have done. If you find that hard to believe then you really need to get out more often !

The politics of smoking will often see agents and publicists mindful of public perception, claim actresses use herbal cigarettes on screen when in fact they have smoked tobacco. Lucrative beauty endorsements can be at risk if the clean living image an actress wishes to convey is stained by the fact she's a smoker. Jessica Sarah Parker went back on cigarettes as her character Carrie did in the series Sex And The City. She pleaded for it not to happen, but relented to the artistic wishes of the writer and director Michael Partrick King. In answer to an outcry from the anti-smoking fanatics in the land of the free, America, it was initially claimed by Mrs Parker that herbal cigarettes were used when in fact they weren't. Sarah Jessica Parker was photographed in Dublin shortly after the smoking ban came in here having a fag with Matthew Broderick outside Foleys Bar putting paid to the notion she was a non smoker !

Laws and rules are there for the guidance of wise men and the obidience of fools. If your the type that needs some civil servant to regulate your life and that of people around you to feel safe then perhaps film sets are not the place to be. There are plenty of virilant anti smokers working in the industry, but thus far they have managed to keep themselves safe without any help or interference from the likes of Michael Martin.

Artistic freedom seems to have you all bambozzled, a bit like the the big bang theory, you can drop Stephen Hawkings name into a conversation, but haven't the foggiest notion what the **** it's all about. That's sad really especially in a country with our censorship history. John McGahern recently passed away. He was a noveliest and a former teacher. A former teacher because he got sacked ! Sacked because he wrote a novel in Ireland, a novel called the Dark. The people who knew what was good for everyone in Ireland banned it. A disgrace they said, utter filth about sex and the Catholic Church which would corrupt the moral fibre of the natiion, so they banned his book and sacked him from the school where he thought. So who would want to make films in such a prudish, ignorant, uncompromising country. Don't mind make films in Ireland, you weren't even allowed to watch them. Amongst films censored or cut by our moral gaurdians were ; Jailhouse Rock, Life of Brian, On The Waterfront, Cat on a hot tin roof, The quiet man, The Postman always rings twice, High Society, The graduate etc. Directors whose work was hacked and banned by our censors ; Orson Wells, Cecile B De Mille, Blake Edwards, Roman Polanski, John Ford, Woody Allen, John Cassavetes, Igmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet and on and on. Don't you think this might have something to do with why we don't have a vibrant film industry ?

This was not in some distant past, It's not long ago the Irish government sent the Garda to every performance of a dance troupe featuring female mud wrestlers to make sure the girls tops did not come off ! Playboy has only been allowed on the shelves for the past number of years. A little over ten years ago Virgin Megastores were hauled before our courts for breaking Irish law by selling condoms in their Dublin store. The health board at the time insisted that condoms had no place in Ireland and could not help prevent the spread of Aids or std's.The same health board under it's new identity as the HSE that has inspectors running around the country today checking for cigerrete butts behind lavotary seats while their very own hospitals kill people through lack of basic hygene and care. It was only in the mid-nineties that Irish people finally got rid of the fools and meddlers that were in our bedrooms and trousers, quite literally in some cases ! But now their back, this time in our bars, food, drink, clothes and every other lifestyle choice people can make.

Maybe some of you intend fooling around with camcorders and waiting for Lassie to come home again or for RTE to splash out and revamp the Angelus, but if you want to seriously have a career in the film industry you need to wise up. In Irerland the opportunities are few and far between. The majority of employable work in Ireland will most likely see you freezin your ass off in the arse hole of nowhere recrording some eejit trying to take a picture of a flaming Otter. Either that or you'll be trawling through the unending footage attempting to make it look even the remotestly bit interesting. Filmakers aren't exactly rushing to these shores despite the tax breaks and sceney. Anything that prohibits the creativity involved including the uncompromising arrogant interference of prudish meddlers doesn't help matters.

What is alarming about many of the posts is the utter denial and understanding of the issues. We are one step away from a total ban depicted or otherwise of smoking on screen and none of the young broods in the hen house see the fox at the door and worse, don't even recgonise what he is !

Freedom of choice is about everybodys freedom of the choice including the beligerent smoking ram. The shepard's protection may appeal to the docile sheep of a nation, but when the pack of wolves return the sheep will rue the day they choose to ignore the free thinking ram !!!

John Mortimer, creator of Rumpole of the old bailey : "The smoking ban is an absolute abomination .... artistic censorship and nanny-state intervention"

BAFTA Award winning John Byrne (Tutti Frutti) "I will not have my work made a mockery of by the censorship of an idiotic executive ......it is censorship. I genuinely fear this will affect my ability to make a living. Almost all my plays have smoking in them. This interferes with the integrity of the work"

Miguel_Sanchez

The smoking ban is a ban on smoking it's not a ban on the representation of smoking. I don't see a problem. As has been stated herbal cigarettes can be used in place of real cigarettes. Some directors may not be happy with that, most won't mind. Speaking as a director (albeit one who is just starting out) I couldn't give a toss if someone smokes a real or fake cigarette on screen. I doubt that the vast majority of people could tell the difference on screen between real and fake ones.

We are one step away from a total ban depicted or otherwise of smoking on screen and none of the young broods in the hen house see the fox at the door and worse, don't even recgonise what he is !

Who has suggested a total ban of depicted smoking on screen? I have never heard anyone suggesting that this be brought in, or even hinting this.

How many films have refused to shoot in Ireland because of the smoking ban? There's lots of reasons why Ireland's film industry isn't doing well, the smoking ban is not high on that list in my book.

If you think that nobody here has any idea about the film industry in this country then you're quite wrong. The smoking ban isn't a question of censorship - nobody has been forced to take smoking off screens in films in Ireland.