Faintheart, a movie born on MySpace, was savaged by the critics – but it's still a landmark moment for the movie industry

Published on Tuesday 3 February 2009 20:23

GEEKS are accustomed to being used and abused. Rarely are they hailed as revolutionising cinema – or regressing the art form irrevocably. According to its producers, Faintheart, a British rom-com set in the world of Viking battle re-enactments and released free in cinemas and online last week, "sought to harness the collective creativity of the world's largest online community in making the world's first fully user-generated feature film".

Created by Vertigo Films in conjunction with MySpace, the project invited users of the social networking website to apply for a directing or acting role in the production via video, suggest script developments or contribute to the film's score. Yet, according to Alistair Harkness in this newspaper, "the only creative power these virtual friend-collecting cyber losers were capable of exhibiting was their ability to vote en masse for a barrel-scraping hybrid of The Full Monty and Shaun of the Dead". Other critics have been equally unkind.

One should be thankful that mob rule on a Viking film didn't prompt a bloody epic of rape and pillage laying waste to the surrounding countryside. But I can't help feeling that the "MySpace community", as this online tribe have been alternately damned and deferred to by the film's critics and producers, have been slightly hard done by.

Not only is Faintheart not that bad, but the MySpace community's involvement has been predominantly limited to marketing, though certain aspects of the production, notably scoring and casting, do suggest a possible template for future independent film-making. What's more, as socially maladjusted, excessively opinionated, semi-permanent dwellers in darkness, film critics all too quickly perceive the threat from blogging geeks to their taste-defining authority. And while a growing number are laid off by financially strapped publications worldwide, superhero movies continue to reign supreme at the box office.

As Harkness implies, the stereotypical British version of the superhero is the plucky underdog. In Faintheart, Eddie Marsan is Richard, so involved in his Iron Age battle re-enactments that his wife, Cath, (Jessica Hynes) kicks him out and starts seeing his son's PE teacher (Paul Nicholls). With the help of his friend and dedicated Trekkie Julian (Ewen Bremner), Richard seeks to rediscover his fatherly responsibility and win Cath back.

"The original idea (for Faintheart] was borne out of marketing," admits producer Allan Niblo. "The problem we face as independent film-makers and distributors is, 'How do we get awareness of our film out there without spending millions of pounds?' I'd read an article on (Judd Apatow's comedy] Knocked Up that claimed its success was down to MySpace advertising." So Vertigo Films approached MySpace with the idea that "they would give us free homespace and we would create a film with their community".

Free screenings notwithstanding, there's commercial ingenuity in securing your audience's investment in a film before a scene has even been shot, especially if they then buy the DVD to see themselves as extras, having previously supplied their own Star Trek costumes.

Vertigo's previous features include Human Traffic, The Business and The Football Factory, with the company offering extras roles in Outlaw for 10, 50 or 100. Over six years, "we've built a fanbase from our films," says Niblo. "Throughout, we've been gathering a database of those interested in our movies, which is enormously valuable. At the press of a button I can send a newsletter to 1.7 million people."

The MyMovie MashUp competition, launched in February 2007, elicited 806 short movies from aspiring directors. A panel of judges selected three finalists from a shortlist of 12, from which MySpace users picked Vito Rocco's battle re-enactment for development. Securing more than 500,000 votes, Rocco was an untried feature director but no novice – his short film Goodbye Cruel World debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in 2004.

Niblo concedes that they were never going to make a cutting-edge, experimental art film. "MySpace had certain criteria we had to honour," he explains. "It couldn't be a radical film because of the guidelines for their pages. So we're happy it's quite a broad comedy." Moreover, he reckons it wasn't entirely coincidental that a democracy of so-called geeks chose a geek narrative. His director though, disagrees.

"I was going to try making this whatever happened," Rocco says of David Lemon's script. "We were just trying to get financed, so it was lucky that the MySpace community responded positively to such a bunch of losers."

Although "a few key scenes from the script" appeared on MySpace with requests for "specific advice for lines of dialogue", none of these, ultimately, made it into the film.

"When you've been working on a screenplay as long as David and I had," Rocco says, "it's difficult to put it online and expect people to know the characters or plot turning points as intimately as you. We tried, because we received some suggestions for insults and comic lines, but they just didn't fit.

"You've got to have an overriding vision for a movie, otherwise it ends up in chaos. This scheme has enabled people to get a view of the mechanics of film-making, even if they've not been involved with every aspect. Although it's low budget, 1 million is plenty to risk and you need somebody at the helm to make big decisions.

"I'm sure there are ways of making films with more people involved, but this isn't one of them."

Even so, MySpace is undeniably breaking down the boundaries between established artists and enthusiastic amateurs. Faintheart's music supervisor, Lol Hammond, points out that "everyone's a MySpace act now aren't they? Coldplay are a MySpace act."

The film's soundtrack features music from three unsigned acts submitted as part of the competition. "At one point I must have listened to 200 performers," Hammond recalls. "All this stuff from all over the world, some really interesting. It's become a big tool for me in sourcing music as it allows you track down obscure artists. We've got four tracks by one unsigned bloke for this film."

This open arrangement also proved beneficial for casting. According to the production notes, all the parts were available to anyone, even if the main roles did eventually go to established actors. Still, 27-year-old Chris Wright, one of 1,400 online auditionees, claimed the supporting role of Simon, Richard's boss at the DIY store.

"It was a wonderful opportunity to see some new and different faces," recalls Rocco. "For them to do it in the comfort of their own home gave them a lot more confidence. We saw loads in conventional casting but I just couldn't find the right guy until I saw Chris."

As an actor and producer of his own no-budget independent film, Small Town Folk, a tongue-in-cheek horror that has trailered at Cannes, Wright is perhaps not the ingnu Faintheart's publicity might have you believe.

"For my character you could improvise a piece rather than learn lines," he explains. "So I took the lazy route, did it for a giggle and must have shot and uploaded it within the hour, a day before the deadline. When they called me, I 'fessed up, 'Look, I played it for laughs on that video, perhaps we should tone it down?' And Vito was on exactly the same page. From then on it was just traditional film-making.

"I think MySpace is heaving with talent but it's also full of people who aren't. You can't let everyone through and the idea of user-generated movies gives the wrong impression.

"I don't think anyone will be stupid enough to simply open the doors and say, 'Right, you there on camera, you on sound'. But I think they're definitely pushing the boundaries and this could certainly be one strand of independent film-making in the future."

American internet pioneer Scott Zakarin created an online soap designed to respond to viewer suggestions as long ago as 1995. More recently, this month's US release of horror film Perkins' 14 mirrored Faintheart in attracting story ideas and audition videos through Massify.com. In 2001, Project Greenlight, a competition backed by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, invited untried writer-directors to submit scripts. The resulting $1 million film was a flop, even if the "making of" television documentary was a success. According to Niblo, Vertigo even contemplated developing a version in the UK with heavyweight film producer Harvey Weinstein.

"There was a lot of hype and publicity but the actual project didn't take off," he observes of the original series.

"It's just the old Hollywood adage – out of every 22 films, one will be a hit. If this fails for us, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try new things, because the conventional system isn't working for independent film-makers. We have to be aware of new ways of getting to our audiences or we're in trouble."

MySpace has now teamed up with Paulo Coelho to adapt a feature from the bestselling author's The Experimental Witch, and Niblo is planning Vertigo's next production.

"We've got ideas for working with a major TV show, similar to the X Factor, to find a story to turn into a film from the public," he reveals. "It would be like My Life: The Movie, a way of developing awareness without spending millions."

&#149 Faintheart is available now on DVD. The film will also be available for download soon from.myspace.com/faintheartthemovie.

An edited version of our critic's Faintheart review…

AS YOU watch Eddie Marsan play a nerdy Viking-obsessive determined to win back his long-suffering wife (Jessica Hynes), you can ask yourself why you didn't go and see Role Models instead, which tells a thematically similar story, but with actual laughs, well-constructed jokes and characters that are likeable rather than one-dimensional, groanworthy stereotypes who reiterate "be true to yourself" platitudes that sound like they fell out of a fortune cookie.

As for the "genuine broad appeal" Faintheart allegedly possesses, this seems to be based on the belief that simply setting a film in a world of battle re-enactment clubs and bolting on an excruciating subplot about a Trekkie (Ewen Bremner) searching for love will automatically provide the kind of huge cult following the likes of Simon Pegg and Kevin Smith have built up thanks to their fanboy status. Last time I checked, they didn't have to give their films away for free – and I can't imagine the prospect of giving away this six-figure-budgeted effort is being done through anything other than gritted teeth.